Chapter Fifteen #2
Did she? She’d thought she had, but now she just felt like a fool.
She was wholly inexperienced. What did she know about desire?
What did she know about men’s natures? She’d known from the beginning that she wasn’t the first woman he had kissed, that there had been others before her.
It was obvious even if he’d never voiced it aloud, even if she’d never dared to ask him.
How could she trust what was real and what was pretense? How could she ever trust him again?
“I thought I knew you. But this, this article…when did you begin writing it?”
James hesitated.
“You owe me the truth.”
He nodded. “I write for a newspaper in Boston. It’s a small paper, and I’ve only been there for two years.
I started off as little more than an errand boy, but I convinced the editor to give me a shot and he started letting me write.
I was a student at Harvard. For a year, at least. But my dad got sick, and my mom needed me home to help run their shop.
That was five years ago. After he died and my mom went to live with her sister and brother-in-law in Providence, I started working at the paper. And writing the novel I told you about.
“Being here at Harvard was amazing. You see what it’s like here, the kind of opportunities that exist. Hell, even this library.
It opened a world of possibilities for me.
I don’t want to lose that. When they announced the summer school, there was a great deal of interest in Boston, probably because there’s been so much interest about Cuba.
And I started thinking about writing a story on the experience, not just from an outsider’s perspective, but also from that of someone who was attending the summer school—a Cuban teacher. ”
“So, it was never about me at all. I just happened to fit what you were looking for.”
Did he see the loneliness in her? Did he single her out because of it? Was there some sort of beacon inside her that displayed her vulnerability?
“No. That’s not it at all. Think about the night we met—think about how we met.
I didn’t go searching for you. I saw you, noticed you, yes.
You caught my eye because I was interested in you, but I had gone outside for a break from all of it when I saw you, when you came bursting through those doors and I thought I recognized something in you—that same restlessness that I felt.
“And then we started talking, and I was so fascinated by you. I asked you so many questions because I wanted to know what you thought, to understand what your life was like. You had so many walls up, and I wanted to be the one to bring them down. I aspired to earn your trust, to be the sort of man who would be worthy of someone like you.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, and she swept them away, choking on a sob.
Everything he described, that feeling of being seen, of having a connection with someone in this miserable world, had been everything to her. To have lost that—
“And yet, you kept asking me questions. You kept writing about me.”
“Eva.”
Each time he said her name, he inched closer to her, until he had crowded her space, until they were only a breath apart, and he reached up between them, brushing away the tears on her face with the pads of his fingers.
She shuddered, her body vibrating with tension, and misery, and the tangled knot of desire that arose in the pit of her stomach each time he was near.
She should take a step back.
She should put distance between them, should inject some logic and reason into this entire business.
She knew better. She was smart, and she was capable, and she was independent, and no matter how badly she yearned to believe the desire in his eyes, the caress threaded through his voice, he’d kept writing about her.
Even after that first night, even after his initial intentions, he’d never changed his course.
That quote he had taken from her had been from their time on the boat together, after something inside of her had irrevocably transformed.
“You’re using me to advance your career.”
She stepped back, taking a deep breath, filling her lungs with air, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
James moved forward, his hands reaching out to wrap around her, pulling her toward him until her body was pressed against his chest.
“I would never use you. I could never. I thought that once I’d finished the article, once it was something that I could show to you, something that I could be proud of, that perhaps I could convince you to let me take it to my editor and he could publish it.
Hell, maybe we could write it together and we could share a byline. ”
“I don’t want that.”
“Why not? You said it yourself when I met you, that you wanted to represent Cuba, to do your part.”
“Not like this.”
Did he truly not understand? For her entire life, her voice had not mattered.
She was a woman in Cuba—a woman living on the fringes of poverty for most of her life.
She might as well have been invisible. When she wrote, when she put pen to paper and exhaled all the thoughts, and fears, and dreams, and desires that existed inside her, she felt powerful.
It was the chance she had to say something that someone might listen to, the hope that the words inside her might one day resonate with another, a chance to form a connection.
The idea that he wanted to take that away from her, to somehow twist her words, her most private thoughts, felt like the ultimate betrayal.
She’d shared those parts of herself with him because she thought he was special, thought that what they had was special.
Not because she wanted to share it for the world to judge.
“I have no interest in being a celebrity, in the attention that comes with being on display here. I am proud to represent my country, and I hope that the people I have met here have thought well of me, that my actions have helped them look favorably on Cuba. But I don’t want the attention for myself.
I don’t want to be the star of any article, don’t want my words reprinted in your newspaper.
How and when I choose to tell my story is my choice. No one else’s.”
She could see the indecision in his face, could practically watch him formulating his arguments trying to change her mind.
Once again, he surprised her.
“I understand. I’ll scrap the article. I promise. I’ll think of another angle to write about or speak with someone else as my main subject. I’m sorry. I care about you—a great deal. I don’t want to jeopardize that. What’s between us is more important than any article. Forgive me, please.”
The whole time he had been speaking, their bodies had somehow become intertwined.
He lowered his head, resting his forehead against hers.
“Please forgive me,” he repeated.
She wanted to. Part of her did, at least. But somewhere in the recesses of her mind a warning sounded—
If he could lie to her about this, what else would he lie about?
“I don’t know.”
His lips brushed against hers, the caress featherlight.
“I don’t know how to move past this. I don’t—I don’t trust many people. I’ve never—”
This was mortifying. Completely and utterly mortifying.
But she needed him to understand, wanted him to realize what it cost her to let him in.
“I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never had a connection like this with anyone.” She swallowed. “Please don’t hurt me again.”
“I won’t.”
He deepened the kiss between them, his hands at her back moving forward, caressing her waist, moving higher—
Eva pulled back, her pulse racing.
Her body had taken over so easily, the passion between them burning bright and hot inside her. She couldn’t shut off her mind or ignore her misgivings so simply.
“Promise me. Swear to me that you will never lie to me again. That from this moment on, you will be honest with me.”
James held her gaze and she saw the vow in his eyes.
“I swear it.”