Chapter 41
41
C harlie insists on driving me to the airport the following morning, even though I offer to use the car service that brought me to Buckleby. We leave extra early so we can detour in London and visit some of the landmarks. I caught a quick glimpse of the London Eye when we were in the city yesterday, but that was it for sightseeing.
We roll along the long, straight street that ends at Buckingham Palace, pass the fountain in Trafalgar Square, spot the Tower of London’s four peaks, cross the Tower Bridge, and then end up on Westminster Bridge to look at Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey.
Charlie manages to find a parking spot near the cathedral, so we climb out to explore the area on foot. I’m acting like a tourist, asking questions and snapping photos, but he doesn’t seem impatient. He indulges me. Reads the plaques aloud so I don’t have to squint at them. Laughs, when I start talking in my best imitation of his accent to better blend in with the locals.
British will always be his accent, in my mind. Just like London isn’t the place where Chloe lives or where Cal goes to school anymore. It’s the city nearest to Charlie.
My favorite photo from the brief stop is a picture in Big Ben’s massive shadow. The background is mostly the massive clock, the foreground our faces. Charlie’s kissing my cheek, which is creased because I’m smiling so wide.
I’m staring at the snapshot of our happiness when a car gets cut off one lane over from us on the highway. A flurry of honking follows the near collision.
When I glance at Charlie, his jaw is clenched tight.
“I don’t like being a passenger since my accident,” he confides, a couple of minutes later. “It’s … I feel more in control. I don’t get into a car unless I’m the one driving it.”
“That’s understandable. It makes sense, I mean.”
And then something else occurs to me as he takes the next exit.
“I … you let me drive you.”
More than a little reluctantly, but I attributed that resistance to my injury and his fancy car.
“I know.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t tell me not to read into it or that it meant nothing.
“I’m … honored, I guess.”
The corner of his mouth I can see curves up. “You should be.”
Signs for the airport appear ahead. I remind Charlie of my terminal number.
Each second that passes, it feels like my heart is pounding faster.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to him. It’s never been a goodbye. He walked away in the Hamptons. He just left Saint-Tropez, me waking up alone with his side of the bed cold. Assuming he’d just woken up early and was already downstairs, until Chloe handed me a scrawled note with a concerned expression. And I all but shoved him out the door in New York, essentially to avoid this exact situation.
Every time, it’s worse.
There are more memories. More feelings. I keep waiting for those to reach a point where they’ll stop, too, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Missing people isn’t a novelty for me. Growing up, we split time between New York and LA. An accommodation my parents made for me because the New York school had better resources for my reading disability. As a trade-off, we spent school breaks and summers in California. With the exception of Gigi’s Red, White, and Blue party, of course. I’d miss people in New York when I was in LA. People in LA when I was in New York. My family, when I left for college. Chloe, then Cal, when they moved to London.
But missing has never been this physical ache before. This hollow sensation in my stomach, like a part of myself has been carved out and is being left behind.
Charlie pulls along the curb outside the Departures entrance and turns off the car.
It’s overcast out, so he put the convertible’s cover up before we left. I almost asked him to braid my hair anyway, but I got distracted by saying bye to Blythe.
He looks serious, spinning the keys around his thumb— so serious—and all the lighthearted farewells I spent the drive here brainstorming fly right out of my head.
Charlie blows out a long breath. “I need to tell you something. Several things actually.”
“Okay.” My palms are starting to sweat, so I discreetly rub them against the joggers I wore for the flight. I’m flying straight to DC, but my meeting there isn’t until tomorrow, so I dressed casual today.
“I should have told you sooner. I meant to tell you sooner. I just didn’t know how to. Didn’t want you to think …” He stares out the windshield. A few water droplets fall on it. “I found out, after he died, that my father had lost our entire fortune. Gambling, bad investments, huge donations, unnecessary renovations. I don’t know the extent of it all, honestly. He was … he always acted larger than life. Maybe he was just too proud to admit he had made mistakes. I inherited all of his debt, along with the title. For the past year, I’ve been doing everything I can to avoid bankruptcy. To get investors and sell off enough to keep everything else afloat. To keep up appearances. If I declare bankruptcy, they’ll take everything. If it were just me, it’d be one thing. But Blythe? My grandmother? All the staff? There’s a deal on the table, one that will wipe out the debts in full. Save as much as possible. But I’ll lose control of businesses and buildings that have been in my family for generations in the process, and that’s …” He swallows. “That’s been hard to accept.”
It takes me about twenty seconds to process everything he just told me. “I’m so sorry, Charlie.”
Pieces that didn’t make sense before start to click into place. Why he was selling the French villa, his vagueness about work, the resentment toward his father.
“You’re doing what you have to do.”
He nods. “I know I am. Hasn’t made it any easier, but I’m accepting it. It’s been impossible to move past while I was still worried about losing everything. As soon as I sign the deal, I think it’ll be easier.”
I swallow. “Charlie, I could …”
“No.” His answer is immediate, before I’ve even gotten the offer out. “I’m not taking money from you. And it’s part of why I didn’t tell you sooner. I don’t want you to ever think that I would, that your wealth has anything to do with us.”
“It could just be a loan.”
“I’m not taking money from you,” he repeats. “But I want everything else. I want you , Lili. I just … I need a little time to sort things out. This deal is going to eliminate some of my responsibilities, and I’m-I’m considering going back to medical school. Reclaiming a little of what my life looked like before my father died.”
“Really?” I’m thrilled for him.
“Really,” he confirms. “I don’t know if it’ll be possible, with the time I took off. They’ll be more lenient because of the circumstances and because …”
“Because of your title,” I supply.
He nods. “Yes. I don’t know how an … American school would compare, but I’m planning to look into it.”
“Please don’t.”
Hurt flashes across his face before he works to erase it.
I undo my seat belt and lean closer. “That’s not—I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll be in New York. In the US even. If you want to go back to medical school, you should do it here. Blythe is here, and your grandmother is here, and I … I could be here. I don’t want to give up my job, and I want to keep choosing projects that excite me. Not all of those will be in England. But … some could be.”
He appears stunned. Apparently, the possibility I’d alter my life around him never occurred to Charlie. He was planning to be the one making the geographic concessions. “You would do that?”
I nod. “Yeah, I would.”
“I love you, Lili.”
Those four words upend my world. Everything that makes me, me , is tossed up and forced to resettle. My racing heart slows, and so do my surroundings. The world is a blur of light and color and noise, but I can’t see or hear any of it. It’s like I’m trapped underwater, with nothing but that sentence echoing in my ears.
“What?” I croak out.
I wasn’t expecting him to say it. I didn’t even think he felt it.
His smile is tender as he reaches out and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind one ear. “I love you, Elizabeth Kensington. I’ve loved you for a long time, maybe from that first moment I saw you standing in a stable. I saw you, and it was like the entire world stopped. What you overheard me say to Ellis? That wasn’t just because I was sad about my father or stressed about money. It was because I’d been looking for you inside, because I wanted to talk to you again, and you were nowhere to be found. I was disappointed that none of the women who kept trying to talk to me were you.”
For the second time, I start crying in front of him.
I held it together in the hospital until he left the room. I don’t hold it together now. I fall apart, knowing he’ll catch the pieces.
Charlie brushes the tears away with his thumbs. “I almost told you last night, but I didn’t want you to think … I want you to feel safe with me, Lili. But I don’t want to hold you back. If living here, even part-time, isn’t what you want—if I’m not who you want—that’s okay. I just needed to tell you. Life is fucking short, and I wanted you to hear it.”
He glances at the clock on the dashboard, and I do too. If I don’t hurry, I’m going to miss my plane.
“I’ll get your bags out of the boot.”
His thumb brushes my cheek one last time, and then Charlie opens his door and climbs out.
I sniff, the shock starting to fade.
When I step out of the car, an airplane attendant is already wheeling my luggage away.
Charlie gathers me into his arms, then brushes a light kiss over my lips. “Let me know when you land, okay?”
He seriously thinks I’m going to just walk away after what he just told me.
Truly thinks there’s a world in which I’m not devastatingly in love with him.
When he tries to pull away, I don’t let him. I fist the fabric of his shirt so tightly that my knuckles protest.
“I love you, Charlie. So fucking much. It absolutely terrifies me how much I love you. How my life felt perfectly full until you walked off when Chloe called me and how I’ve thought about you ever since. How you’re the person I want when I’m happy or hurt or scared or … always. I want you always. And I’ll wait, however long it takes for you to sort things out, because I don’t want anyone else.”
I kiss him hard, then hurry toward the automatic doors.