Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Daisy woke to the scent of coffee. Not yet opening her eyes, she smiled and stretched, reaching out for Diego, but he wasn’t in bed, and the sheets were cool on his side.
This had her opening her eyes and sitting up.
Diego was across the room in the galley area, leaning back against the counter, sipping at a mug of coffee.
Watching her.
He wore his jeans unfastened and nothing else, which meant they sat dangerously low on his hips. His hair was uncombed, his jaw unshaven, his bare feet crossed.
The wild mountain cat playing at domesticity.
She pushed the hair from her face, and even though the sheet covered her, she felt self-conscious. Which was silly, given that he’d seen everything she had. Seen. Touched. Kissed. Nibbled… “Hey.”
“Hey.” He set his mug aside and said nothing more.
She wondered how to get out of bed without revealing just how naked she felt. She tried wrapping herself up the best she could and stood. But when she took a step, the sheet—still tucked in at the foot of the bed—deserted her.
Instead of teasing her or enjoying the view, he tossed her his shirt from the back of a chair.
She quickly pulled it down over her head, thankful that it fell to her mid-thighs. “So…” she said. “Good morning.”
He poured coffee into a second mug and handed it to her. “I don’t know about good.”
Yeah, something was very off. Her stomach clenched. Last night had been good. No, correction, it had been amazing. So, what had changed?
“You got an email,” he said. “Poppy has the numbers on the new business and the perfect apartment for you.” He paused. “In New York.”
Oh. Oh, shit. “I meant to tell you about that,” she said softly.
“Before or after you said you wanted me to move back home?”
“Poppy’s my old college roommate,” she said. “And, yeah, we talked about starting up our own event company. The deal was that we each come up with a proposal for our prospective cities and then talk. I didn’t commit to going to New York.”
“But you thought about it.”
“I did,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going.”
Diego turned away. “You’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do. Same for me. I’ll be heading out of here right after the wedding.”
She ignored the way his dismissive tone sliced right through her.
Or tried to. But it was impossible to do so because, in spite of their off-the-charts chemistry in bed, he was once again not putting them first, or giving her the benefit of the doubt.
“So, you saw an email, and just like that, you’re ready to bail,” she said. “Again. Do I have that right?”
“Actually, the first time, you bailed.”
“No, Diego,” she said, voice tight with anger and frustration. And sadness. Damn, so much sadness. “You did. In fact, you’ve had one foot out the door since the beginning, even when just last night you let me think this was going somewhere.”
His expression was closed-off, eyes hooded, jaw set, mouth grim. “We’re not going to have a long-distance relationship and let it fade away like it did before,” he said.
“Well, you’re right about that. We’re absolutely not going to have a relationship,” Daisy said, looking for her clothes, which were still on the floor.
Damn. Hard to be righteous and strong when you had to bend over wearing nothing but a man’s t-shirt to pick up the clothes you’d strewn to Hell and back the night before.
“And just FYI, back then, nothing faded away,” she said tightly, pulling on her tights. “You checked out.”
“I apologized for that,” Diego said, his voice low and rigid. “And I meant it. I screwed up, and I know it. But I thought we had something, something good that we were going to work for.”
“So did I,” she said. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason I hadn’t told you about the NYC thing is because I wasn’t going to go?”
When he just looked at her, she shook her head.
“Good to know that you’ve got faith in me.
I’m not doing this with you again, Diego.
This is more than a stupid misunderstanding.
This is mistrust, a deep mistrust right at your core.
And I can’t fix that. I can’t change that.
And I won’t live with it, not ever again.
” She was trying not to cry, giving up on figuring out how to get her bra on beneath his shirt, which she wasn’t going to take off.
Yep, she was going to Lyft home in a man’s thankfully very long t-shirt, tights, and boots.
As soon as she got in the last word. “Last night, you let me think that you relocating here might be for me, but that clearly wasn’t true.
If you’re trying to get me to understand that I’m not now—nor will I ever be—your first choice, message received.
” She stopped to realize that she’d just picked up his socks, not hers, and threw them at him.
They may or may not have hit him in the face.
She zipped up her boots and turned in a circle, grabbing her remaining items. Her dress. Her bra. Her purse.
“Daisy—”
“No,” she said, snatching her phone from the counter and opening her Lyft app. “If I was really important to you, you’d say, ‘hey, you know what? We’ll make this work no matter what. And hell, I can even come to New York if that’s what you need to do.’”
Diego suddenly seemed just as angry as she was.
Actually, she could have sworn that she saw a flash of something else in his dark gaze.
Fear. But it was gone in a blink. “The only person in that scenario giving anything up is me,” he said.
“And I’m done with giving up everything for the people in my life. ”
Something in the way he’d worded that had her stop, checking herself.
Then she realized…it was the same way he’d described having to come home after only a semester of college when he’d had to drop everything—his entire life—to come back and take care of his dad.
“Diego,” she said, her voice softer. “I’m not asking anything of you.
I don’t want anything that you don’t freely give. ”
His expression didn’t budge, and with a shake of her head, she started to walk out. But she stopped and met his gaze one last time. “I want you to know that I really wasn’t keeping the new business plans from you. I’d already decided I wanted to stay here, in the city. Good luck in San Diego.”
“When did you make that decision?” he asked.
“Not that it matters, but I decided the night you came to my house and asked me what happened between us. And you know what? If back when your dad had started to go downhill, you’d wanted me to stay with you, I would have.
I’d have given up everything to be with you.
I even asked if I could, and you said no.
You had to bear the burden alone. You never asked me to stay.
And now I know why. Because if you had, you couldn’t be the martyr right now, standing there all righteous and blaming me for all of this. ” And with that, she walked out.
Daisy exited the boat and strode up the docks, getting a text that her Lyft was pulling into the lot. The only thing to go right so far.