Chapter Thirteen #2
My mouth snapped shut at that, jaw clenching as I stepped into his space. I pressed on my toes so I could at least try to match his height, and I pointed my finger right in his face. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Finn’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t back down.
“You don’t get to be jealous,” I seethed. “You lost that right when you left me behind.”
“When I left—” It was his jaw hitting the ground now, and he barked out a laugh, shaking his head before he turned and gave me his back.
“I don’t need saving,” I spat, already making my way back toward the bar. “Especially from you.”
I took one step before his hand found my wrist, tugging until I pivoted.
“Finn, what the fu—”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“So why did you?!”
The words might as well have been a foghorn in a cave for how they echoed in the space between us. Finn’s jaw muscle ticced, his hand releasing me, but I didn’t try to run this time.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the restaurant until the night before we were supposed to leave?” I asked, chest heaving. The question felt like a rusty nail driven into my heart. “Why did you let me assume you were serious about us when you weren’t?”
You’re wearing a mic.
They’re watching you.
I didn’t care.
“I was,” Finn croaked, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard. “I was serious about us. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
I frowned, shaking my head. “What? That makes zero sense.”
“I was torn between opening a restaurant to honor the woman who practically raised me, who gave me my life’s passion, who instilled the love of food and cooking so deep in my soul it’s forever a part of me…
” He paused, rolling his lips together, his eyes flicking between mine so fast it was dizzying.
“And you. The woman I loved. The woman I knew I’d lose in the process. ”
All the blood drained from my face, a numbing sensation sliding over me like a cold waterfall.
“It wasn’t black and white, Em. It wasn’t easy. It fucking killed me.”
I didn’t know if it was his words or the alcohol or a combination of the two, but I suddenly felt very unsteady, the world spinning around us in a violent swirl of colors. I reached my hand behind me until I found the brick, then I let myself lean back, hoping it would steady me.
“The restaurant was for her?”
Finn swallowed, but didn’t confirm. He didn’t have to.
“You never told me that.”
“When could I? As soon as I told you about wanting to open the damn thing, you shut me out.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but slammed it shut again.
“Do you know how bad that hurt?” he asked, stepping closer.
“I’d never told anyone about it. You think I didn’t know it was stupid, that it was a long shot?
Young chef wants to open their own restaurant, how fucking original.
” He threw his hands up and let them slap against his thighs.
“It wasn’t just a pipe dream for me. It was a way to honor Gran and her legacy, to do what she always wanted to do but never could because she was too busy taking care of her kids, her grandkids, our whole fucking family.
Telling you, telling anyone meant exposing the rawest parts of me. ”
He wet his lips, breath coming in ragged pulls.
“I was already afraid of failing. I was already afraid I wouldn’t live up to her memory, that I wouldn’t do her justice. And then the first person I felt safe to tell proved to me why I was so scared in the first place. You dismissed it. You dismissed me.”
I blinked, over and over, my heart thundering in my ears and lungs struggling to give me oxygen. I pressed a hand against my aching rib cage as my mind raced to catch up.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I… I’m sorry, Finn.”
“No, don’t,” he said instantly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know it was on me. I should have told you sooner. I just… I didn’t want to until I was certain it would happen. I was waiting to hear from my potential business partner, and I didn’t… I couldn’t tell you until I knew for sure.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, nodding. My brain was still swimming from all the alcohol. My mouth was dry. I needed water. I needed sleep.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
When I did, tears pricked my eyes.
“You think I didn’t try to find a way?” he asked, stepping more into my space.
He was just inches away, his eyes searching mine.
“You think I didn’t scour my brain for any possible chance I could have both — you, and the restaurant?
But like you were so quick to point out that night on the beach, there’s no yachting season in Dublin, Firefly. ”
I closed my eyes at the nickname, at how it still made my stomach flip.
“I knew it wasn’t the place for you to chase your dream.
” He swallowed, waiting until I opened my eyes again before he continued.
“And still, I asked you. I asked you to leave your passion so I could chase mine. It wasn’t fair, and I can see now why it hurt you.
I didn’t get it then, even though I should have, because you shared everything with me.
I was just angry and thought you were choosing yachting over me.
” He shook his head. “Feckin’ eejit, I was — thinkin’ what I was buildin’ mattered more than what you’d spent years fightin’ for.
It was selfish and I’m sorry. But what I regret most is that I never asked the obvious next question.
” His eyes flicked between mine. “I asked you to walk away from yachting. What I never asked was if you’d make Dublin your home in the offseason. ”
My heart cracked.
“I never asked,” Finn repeated, nostrils flaring.
“And Jaysus, do I regret it. I was just… young. Scared. Pissed off. Wanting it all. I convinced myself that if I waited to tell you until everything was set in stone, until I had this grand plan… I thought…” He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the ground.
“Finn…”
“I didn’t want to ruin what we had. It was… fecking magical, wasn’t it?”
I covered my shaking lips with one hand, squeezing my eyes shut and freeing the tears that had been pooling.
Finn thumbed one away, and I choked on a sob as I leaned into that touch, into what we used to be.
“Maybe na?vely, I thought by the end of it all… I don’t know. I thought maybe we were so in love, you’d come with me.”
For the first time since that night, I wondered why I hadn’t.
I’d been so angry, so hurt. He’d hidden his true intentions from me all season. He’d let me think we were leaving together when that was never his plan.
I understood now why he did it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
And why hadn’t I thought about the option of being in Dublin in the offseason? Why hadn’t I looked for any way to make it work?
I was just as guilty as he was for turning my back on us.
I was the same — young, angry, wanting to prove a point.
God, it seemed so terribly stupid now.
“But listening to the way you talked about your dad tonight,” Finn said, snapping my attention back to him.
He shook his head. “About how you’ve risked disappointing him because you love yachting so much, because it makes you so fucking happy…
I knew you two had a strained relationship, but I didn’t realize, Em…
I didn’t realize how much this all means to you. ”
“You didn’t realize how much you meant to me, either,” I shot back, pushing off the wall to stand straight again. My chest brushed against his sternum when I did. “You still don’t.”
Finn swallowed, staring down at me over the bridge of his nose. He opened his mouth, and then we both jumped, a high-pitched scream ringing out in the night as footsteps barreled toward us.
“There they are!”
It was Palmer’s voice, he and most of the crew spilling out from the bar. The footsteps and scream belonged to Gisella, who threw herself into Finn’s arms with a wide smile and me still standing just inches from him.
Finn caught her easily, swinging her up into his grasp as she locked her ankles behind his lower back and started kissing him all over.
His eyes were still on me until I peeled my gaze away, blinking over and over as I struggled to clear my mind through the haze of the alcohol.
“Babes, you okay?” Eli asked, slinging his arm around my neck and grinning down at me with tipsy eyes. “I’ll go bliksem that oke if he was getting too handsy.”
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the bar where I’d been dancing with a stranger, but I shook my head, forcing a smile.
“He was harmless. I just… needed air. I was about to get sick.”
“Ag, that must be why Cheffy hauled you outside, hey? He saw the signs from when you two worked together before.”
Finn caught my gaze again, and I swallowed. “Exactly. And he got me out here just in time. That last shot was my death warrant.”
“Well, on the bright side, I’ve never known someone to barf and have as nice of breath as you do right now,” Eli said, tapping my nose. “I’d still kiss you.”
“Gross, bru,” Palmer said, wrinkling his nose. I didn’t miss how he kept that grimace in place as he watched Gisella maul Finn.
Everyone laughed as the cabs pulled up to the curb. We piled in, ready to head back to the boat and call it a night.
My mind whirled the entire way, the alcohol working to actively erase my memory of what was said between us before I could even properly digest it.
I was still uneasy when we got back to the boat, and while everyone else was getting changed to go to the hot tub, I just needed to be alone.
I grabbed my phone charger, toothbrush, and something to sleep in before retreating to a guest cabin.
But it didn’t matter what I was wearing.
I wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.