Chapter Twenty-Two #4
He looked across at her and reached over the table.
She placed her hand in his and gave it a squeeze.
She’d promised herself she’d be good tonight.
She’d been good all day. She’d made it through the shock of his news this morning and managed to focus on the fun they could find in going to Chania, even in the ridiculous business of folding him into her tiny new car.
She’d kept things light and kept them both laughing, because falling apart wouldn’t buy her a single extra minute with him and would only spoil the ones she had left.
She could fall apart tomorrow. She’d have all the time in the world to fall apart tomorrow.
“Bea.”
She looked up.
He’d put his fork down too and was watching her with that steady gray gaze, and it felt as though he could see straight through every bright thing she’d been building around them all day.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Make it all right.”
And there it was. Everything she’d been holding in since he’d come downstairs this morning and told her about Cash came rushing up through her chest faster than she could get hold of it. Her eyes filled before she could tell them not to.
“I don’t know how to do anything else,” she managed.
He was out of his chair and crouched in front of her before the first tear had gone very far, his warm hands covering hers where they were clasped tightly together in her lap.
“Hey.”
He didn’t tell her not to cry and he didn’t tell her everything would be fine. He simply held on.
“I know, darlin’. I know.”
“I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t—”
“Don’t.” His thumb moved over her knuckles. “Don’t apologize for it. Not to me.”
She let herself look at him properly then, something she’d been avoiding all evening because she’d known this would happen if she did.
His jaw was tight, and she could see how much the fact that he was leaving was costing him too.
He’d spent the whole day helping her laugh, helping her choose a car, helping her prepare for tomorrow, but none of that meant he was finding this any easier than she was.
For a moment she thought he was going to say something else.
She saw the breath he drew, saw something in his face open up in a way she hadn’t seen before, as though there were words right there waiting to be let out.
Then he closed his mouth and pressed his lips to her forehead instead, and the moment passed.
“C’mere.”
He drew her up out of the chair and into him, and she went willingly because it was the only place she wanted to be and there were only so many hours left when she could.
They stood at the edge of the terrace while the last of the light disappeared from the sky, his arms around her and her face resting against his chest. Lights began to twinkle in the village below while the cicadas refused to let the night fall silent, and even through them she could hear the steady beat of his heart.
She thought about how, this time tomorrow, she’d be standing here on her own, then made herself stop.
He was still here now and that was all they had.
“The moussaka’s getting cold,” she said eventually into his shirt.
She felt his laugh, that low rumble she was going to miss more than almost anything.
“Let it.”
She smiled against him. He tipped her face up and kissed her, slow and certain, and when he took her hand and led her inside, she didn’t look back at the two plates going cold on the table, or his bag by the door, or the empty gateway where he’d never got around to hanging his gate.
Tomorrow she would have to look at all of it; tonight there was only him.
~ ~ ~
Blane stared up at the ceiling with both arms wrapped around Bea.
They’d made love one last time. He’d never thought of sex in those words before, but it was the only way he could think of it with Bea.
The thought he couldn’t get away from was, one last time.
It shouldn’t matter this much. He’d known the woman for three weeks. They’d had a great time together.
Even as he tried to put it into those words, something in him rejected them.
She wasn’t just some woman he’d spent a few good weeks with.
He’d never known anyone like her, and nobody had ever affected him the way she had.
Somewhere along the way, she’d found a place in his life he hadn’t known was waiting for anyone, and now the thought of leaving her behind felt wrong in a way he couldn’t reason himself out of.
His arms tightened around her, and she snuggled closer, her hand resting in the middle of his chest. He covered her fingers with his own.
“You’re not asleep, then?” she asked quietly.
“No, darlin’.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep at all, Blane.”
He cleared his throat. “Not sure I will either.”
She tipped her head back to look at him, and even in the dim light he could see the shine of tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Bea.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry.” She gave him a watery smile. “Of course I’m going to be heartbroken, but that grief is a price I’m willing to pay for the time we’ve had. I can’t imagine never having met you, and I won’t ever be sorry that I did.”
He flattened their hands over his heart. “I won’t either, darlin’.”
He didn’t explain what he’d really meant. She thought he was apologizing for coming into her life when he couldn’t stay, for leaving her with hurt she wouldn’t have known if they’d never met.
He wasn’t. He’d never regret coming into her life; he was sorry that he had to leave at all.