#2
They expected her to, she could see it on their faces.
What if she did? Why did she have to run a stupid race to prove she was brave and confident and in control?
She’d come a long way over the past six weeks, admittedly with Fletch’s guidance. She wasn’t so panic-stricken and could look at the future with a measure of calm. She’d gained a measure of confidence from knowing such a masculine, rugged man wanted her, and that confidence seeped into the rest of her life. Through talking to Fletch, she’d come to face her demons and found ways to dodge them.
She’d come a long way and she’d grown up. A little.
She liked herself more than she did seven weeks ago, the biggest revelation of all.
“C’mon, Rheo!” her dad shouted, his hands around his mouth.
Rheo dropped to her knees, released a series of f-bombs, and crawled through the mud-filled tunnel. It smelled like dirt and stanky water and sweat. She emerged and she pulled in a couple of deep breaths of fresh air.
This wasn’t fun and she didn’t want to do it anymore. Rheo lifted her T-shirt and wiped the sweat off her forehead before realizing she’d substituted sweat for mud.
Yuck.
She was done. She didn’t need to prove anything...not to them. They should love her no matter what, no matter how she approached life and its challenges. She could complete this race, she knew she could. She could stomp through more mud and cross another ditch. She might have to ask for a heart transplant at the end of it, but she would finish.
But why should she have to do this categorically stupid race to prove she was confident and in control? She was making a point to them , not herself. She already had faith in what she could do.
And because she did, she would go back to the UN and she would do her job to the best of her ability. If she hit the UN’s high standard, excellent. If she didn’t, she would make another plan and find something else to do. She was smart and she was strong and she didn’t need Fletch, Paddy, or her parents’ approval.
Rheo slapped her hands on her thighs and looked over to where the onlookers stood, her eyes drawn to two tall men. Sunlight bounced off Fletch’s hair, more gold than blond in the sunlight. Neither he nor Seb, who’d joined his team at the last minute, looked like they’d completed a twelve-mile obstacle course.
The bastards.
Her eyes connected with Fletch’s, and they stared at each other. Across the mud and grass, blue slammed into green, and the shouts of the onlookers and the music from huge speakers faded away. Fletch lifted one eyebrow. He knew she was about to walk away, that she was done. Disappointment and irritation flickered over his face.
He’d expected her to quit. Wasn’t surprised. And at that moment, one of the few times in her life, Rheo hated her predictability.
No, damn him. She categorically refused to give him the satisfaction of being right.
She wasn’t done, not quite yet.
Lifting her head, she scowled at him before turning back to the track. There weren’t many obstacles left, one of which was a rope climb, up and over an inclined wooden wall. She would get over that fucking wall if it killed her.
The resolution to finish the damn course now had nothing to do with her needing confidence or being out of her comfort zone; she simply needed to show Fletch he was wrong. She had grit. She didn’t fold. She was mentally tough and stronger than he believed her to be.
Pissy? Absolutely. Prissy? Not so much.
Fletch might be a big-time explorer who’d crossed jungles and glaciers. Carrie might be an adventurous wild girl, and Rheo’s parents might be wanderers. But Rheo possessed determination in spades. She’d studied her ass off to get her master’s in romance languages, and she’d worked damn hard to build a reputation for consistency and accuracy in the UN Interpretation Service. She’d made a home and created the life she needed, a life that made her feel secure and stable.
Sure, it wasn’t their life, but it took hard work and persistence. If completing a stupid obstacle course covered in mud showed them—not herself, them —that she could do anything she put her mind to, then she’d do it.
She’d do it even if it killed her. And it very well might.
Rheo finished second to last in the fun race that afternoon, but Fletch thought it was a miracle she’d finished at all. As he’d watched her white-knuckle her way through the race, he’d been convinced, a few times, she’d throw in the towel.
But Rheo surprised him by carrying on. Though, God, he couldn’t believe anyone could take so long to climb that rope wall. Rheo’s arms looked lovely, but she had the upper body strength of a noodle.
He’d needed to catch up on work, so after watching Rheo stumble over the finish line, he’d returned to the Pink House and spent the next four hours on his laptop, answering emails and catching up with his production company CEO. He was tired. And hungry. Walking down the stairs of the Pink House, he frowned at the lack of noise. He’d expected Rheo’s parents and Carrie to be in the kitchen or the sitting room, catching up over a bottle of wine, but when he stuck his head into the living room, library, and study, they were all empty. In the kitchen, he noticed a note propped against an open wine bottle.
Ed, Gail, Seb, and I have gone out for a drink at Diego’s. Meet us there!
C, xoxo
The last place he wanted to be was in a noisy bar, especially since he knew it was karaoke night. Carrie loved karaoke and would be there until the bar closed, and so, he imagined, would Ed and Gail. Seb, a lot more reserved, would sit in the corner and make jibes at Carrie for being an attention seeker. He didn’t want to be with them. He wanted to be with Rheo.
After pouring a glass of wine, Fletch walked out the back door to the gazebo, thinking of his and Rheo’s uncomfortable conversation the night before. He’d spoken the truth—they were too different and couldn’t have a relationship going forward. Flying in to see each other, taking a weekend here, a week there? No, it was impossible, and because he’d always want more, he’d be constantly frustrated and miserable. It was far better to end it now, before they managed to hurt each other more.
But he wasn’t proud of how he’d laid it on the line. He wasn’t used to heart-to-heart discussions or having his feet held to a conversational fire, and he’d floundered. But he should have had a fucking conversation with her, and discussed his doubts.
And ghosting her had been a dick move.
Rheo sat on the bench, her bare feet on the seat, her arms around her knees. Of course, she was here. He’d subconsciously expected her to be. She looked pale and shattered, and he suspected every muscle in her body was on fire. He wished he could massage her from tip to toe before making slow and tender love to her.
But he knew that after everything they’d said to each other yesterday—and him burning all their bridges by being an asshole—there was no going back.
Yet he couldn’t stay away.
He leaned against the same pole as he had last night. “How are you feeling, Rhee?” he asked.
She scowled. “Like I ran five miles without training. I think I’ve pulled every muscle in my body.”
He winced. “Well done for finishing.”
When her eyes connected with his, he clocked the heat in hers. He was in the path of an incoming missile and there was nowhere to run.
“Don’t patronize me, Fletch.”
What? Where did that come from? He was genuinely proud of her for finishing, as he told her.
She shook her head, disbelieving. He had never seen her look so remote. They needed to cross their t’s and dot their i’s, but he didn’t know where to start, or even how to start.
Rheo dropped her legs and looked up at him, her expression hard. “So, is this where you tell me that I did great, that I can walk back into my job feeling massively more confident because I finished that stupid race? Screw you, Fletch, I didn’t need a race to feel like that.”
Huh? “You finished the race. Surely you feel some sense of achievement?”
“I didn’t need to finish the race, I was good with quitting and happy with my decision. Then you looked at me, and I wanted to show you, only you, that you were wrong about me. I have grit and determination—lots of it—for what I want to do. All I needed was for you, and them, my parents and Carrie, to hold my hand and tell me that I’d be fine, that I would figure it out, that I had this.”
He felt lost. “I thought you were amazing out there. I am so incredibly proud of you.”
She sent him a thin smile. “But it would’ve meant more if you’d been proud of me whatever way the chips fell. If you’d supported me when I told you, and everyone, that I didn’t want to do that stupid fucking race, that would’ve been brilliant. But, no, you couldn’t do that. You, like everyone else in my family, only respect grit and determination and self-respect when you can relate to it.
“Tell me, Fletcher, how would you feel if I demanded you do a speech in French to bigwigs of a production company, right now, when you’ve never spoken the language before?” she asked.
Shit. Shit.
Her words were a spear through his heart. She was right, dammit. Not only had he botched up the end to their relationship, he’d pushed her into his world, confident in his belief that he knew what she needed. He was a patronizing prick.
“I’m so sorry, Rhee. I’m sorry I made you feel less than, like my approval was contingent on your completing that race. I never doubted your determination, Rhee. It’s one of the many things I lo—like about you.”
She narrowed her eyes, unimpressed by his statement. Admittedly, maybe it was too little too late. “You sure don’t act like you lo—” Rheo deliberately cut the word off, too sharp to have missed his earlier slip of the tongue “— like me.”
He looked her in the eye and didn’t pull away. He owed her that.
“So, are you finally admitting there are some feelings between us?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t tell her he was fathoms deep in love with her, that he wanted to stay but couldn’t.
“Feelings that are deeper than they should be,” he quietly admitted. “Feelings I should have talked to you about, instead of ghosting you.”
What else could he say? It was the truth.
But their feelings—love, like, lust, need, want—didn’t change a damn thing. Nothing would keep them together when they would be, geographically, miles apart. Continents apart. Across the world apart.
Knowing what he wanted, what he couldn’t have, sent anger streaking through his soul. “How does any of this help when we can’t be with each other? How does it solve the fact that we are diametrically opposite people who love different things?”
She shrugged.
“What’s the fucking point of feeling like this when nothing can come of it, Rheo?” he shouted. He hauled in a deep breath and lowered his voice. “How the hell do you think we could make a relationship work? You’re not naive, Rheo. You can’t wave a magic wand and make it all work out.”
“I—”
No, he couldn’t do this. She needed to understand it wasn’t possible. “I will not give up my work for you, Rheo. I wouldn’t do that for anyone. And if I won’t do that for you, I sure as hell can’t expect you to do it for me! My expeditions run for nine months a year. You’d be on your own.”
Rheo’s eyebrows rose and she started to speak, but Fletch refused her the chance. They were an iceberg hitting a canoe. A typhoon hitting a wooden fishing hut. They’d end up hating each other, and he wouldn’t do that to them...he couldn’t. He’d tried to minimize how he felt about her, and pushed his feelings away. Tried ghosting her. Nothing worked. But he was dman certain that she’d come to loathe him if he loved her, but kept leaving her.
He couldn’t live in the world knowing Rheo hated him.
“I will never be a nine-to-five husband. You need one of those. You need someone who wants a stable life, who is predictable. Someone who will be there every night, over weekends and holidays. I’m not that man.”
Rheo wasn’t crying. Thank God—her tears would drop him to his knees. All she did was watch and wait. And after a few moments, she spoke again. “Are you done?”
He nodded and rubbed his hands over his face. He couldn’t tell her how much he wanted her to be there when he returned from an expedition, to sink into her world of comfort and stability for a few weeks or months. Rheo welcoming him home was the ultimate prize, but he couldn’t ask her to hang around waiting for him, her life on hold...
God, it hurt.
“There you go again, telling me what I need and want,” she stated, her voice cool. “For someone who’s conquered mountains and jungles, lived through blizzards, and pushed himself to his physical limits, you’re quite the coward, aren’t you?”
Her words punched him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He couldn’t answer. He could only stare at her, his mouth open in shock.
“You can do, have done, all these amazing things, but you are useless at being emotionally brave. I’m much better at that than you.”
How so? he wanted to ask, but his words were burrs in his throat.
“I’ve pulled myself out of...well, not a black spot, but out of a deep rut. You coming into my life helped, but I’ve made a lot of progress on my own. I’ve reconnected with my family—they still drive me nuts, but I’m learning to live with them—and I hope I won’t be as judgmental of them going forward. I’m going to return to my job, because I love it, hoping I can do it to the standard they require. If I can’t, I will find something else,” she told him.
How could she sound so calm when he had a million fire ants crawling under his skin?
“I never asked you to give up exploring for me, Fletch. It’s not something I’d ever expect you to do. Loving you—and yes, I’m going there!—means accepting exploration is a huge part of you, accepting I’d only have minimal time with you.” She shrugged and sent him a sad smile. “The thing is, I’d rather have minimal time with you than no time at all. I might not be able to scale mountains, cross raging rivers, or even complete a stupid-ass race without doing myself a permanent injury, but I’m brave enough to be honest, and courageous enough to recognize love when it drops into my life.”
Fletch’s world now rested on shifting ground. He wanted to apologize and explore this new world she’d introduced him to, but another part of him, the biggest part, was terrified of taking her hand. Terrified of taking the first step into a new landscape. A life, emotionally connected but physically apart.
Because he was petrified, at the end of his emotional rope, and unable to deal with any of this, he uttered words he knew would stop her in her tracks.
“You’re not that brave, Rheo! Jesus, do you really think you are?” he asked, hating himself for lashing out, but unable to stop. “You can’t even call your grandmother and tell her you’re living in her house and that you’ve been out of work for nearly six months. You say you are being honest, but you’re not. Do you honestly think you’d be happy with me dropping in and out of your life? You’d resent me. What if we had kids? You’d hate me because I wasn’t doing my share. Try being truly honest, Rheo.”
She stood up and wrapped her arms around her torso, her hot blue eyes slicing through him. “I’m not an idiot, nor am I blinded by love. I would go into a relationship with you with my eyes wide-open. But you don’t love me enough, or at all, and you’re not prepared to find a way to make it work. And that’s okay, Fletch. There’s no rule stating you have to jump in.”
Rheo pushed her hair off her face, and he could see she was holding back tears. She forced her mouth into a smile. “My parents are leaving tomorrow, and I’m catching a ride to the airport with them. I’ll be in New York by tomorrow morning.”
Wait, hold on! “You can’t just dump this on me and walk away, Rheo!”
“Actually, I can, Fletch. All you’ve said, over and over, is that we won’t work,” Rheo told him, her expression and voice dignified. “I’m not going to beg you to love me, plead with you to find space for me in your life. I did that with my parents, and I deserve better.”
Rheo placed her hand on his arm and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the side of his mouth. When she dropped back to her feet, she squeezed his arm. “Have a good life, Fletch. And, for God’s sake, be careful. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
Rheo hauled in a deep breath, turned, and walked away.
And Fletch watched his heart leave with her.