Tess #3
Abruptly, I pushed out of his arms. “Scott, I can’t. We can’t.”
“Nothing changes. I love you.”
“I know, but.” He reached for me again, so I stood up, away from his inviting embrace. “But this is different. This isn’t a couple of weeks of keeping our relationship on the down-low. You’re talking about a year. Maybe longer.”
He subtly adjusted the bulge I’d left in his lap. “It will be difficult, yes, but we can make it work.”
“How? How will it work? What does our relationship look like? I still work with Kendra. I’m supposed to listen to her plan her never-going-to-happen wedding and not say anything?”
“She knows. I told her.”
“She knows what? That you aren’t really going to marry her?”
“And…that…” He stood and tilted my chin up toward his. “I’m in love with you. She understands. She’s willing to go along with it.”
Wow. That was surprising. Nice surprising, considering that Kendra rarely did anything that didn’t serve herself.
But her knowing didn’t fix much. “She’s just one person.
It doesn’t matter if she’s in on it, you have to convince everyone else who isn’t in on it.
You’d have to go to events with her. Be photographed with her.
Be interviewed about her. Be interviewed with her.
She’d be the one at your side at family gatherings.
You certainly can’t bring me to your great-aunt Ida’s birthday party. ”
A flash of disappointment crossed his face. Then it was gone, hidden behind a stoic expression. “I wouldn’t bring her either.”
Yeah, he hadn’t really thought this through. I knew he hadn’t.
I pulled his hand down from my chin. “And when would we see each other? Would you have to pay off your doorman? We couldn’t go out to dinner together.
Couldn’t go to the opera. Couldn’t be seen in public.
Sneaking around is hot for a minute, but it gets old real fast. Always worrying if someone’s going to see us.
Always carrying the weight of the consequence if your parents find out.
I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about you.
For all intents and purposes, we’d be having an affair.
“And what happens if your father drags it out? What if he offers a second term of funding? What will he do to bribe you next?”
“He won’t. I won’t. It won’t matter.” He put his hand on my hip, but I stepped out of his hold.
“You say that, but trust me, I know how these things go. It’s always something else. Always another reason to stay under his thumb. He’ll never let you be your own man.”
“No,” he said adamantly. “It won’t be like that.”
“See, I know that you can’t promise that because I’ve had a lot of relationships like that. I’m an experienced string-along girl, Scott, ready to believe the next line. Easily convinced this time will be different.”
“Are you saying I’m stringing you along?”
“Maybe not purposefully…”
“Stop. Listen to me.” He gave me a stern look. “These are all excuses. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, there will be parts of it that are truly miserable, but we’ll have each other.”
“In secret.”
“In secret,” he admitted.
It should have been so easy to accept that. The terms were straightforward enough. It was more of a commitment than any other guy I’d been with had ever given me. This was a step up for a girl like me.
Except...
“I’m not like that anymore. You made me not like that.
You made me know that I’m better than that.
I don’t deserve to be a secret. And you asking me to be one now is like…
” I tried to think of an example, settling on the first one that came to mind.
“It’s like Pretty Woman. When Richard Gere asks Julia Roberts to be his glorified whore after convincing her she wasn’t just a whore. ”
“I am not asking you to be my whore.”
“I’m not saying that you are. I’m saying you can’t convince me I’m worth more and then ask me to accept less. You can’t tell me to expect to get and then ask me to settle. I expect all of you. I’m worth all of you.”
“You are,” he said, closing the space between us in a rush, wrapping me in his arms. “You are. And I want to give you all of me. And I want all of you. I’ll call my father, okay? I’ll call the whole thing off, and we can be together.”
For half a second, I felt relieved.
But the relief was instantly replaced with something hard and hollow. “You and I both know that would turn the beautiful thing we have into something selfish and ugly.”
“Tess…” His grip tightened around me. “It feels like you’re breaking up with me.”
I couldn’t have said the words myself. But now that he had said them first... “I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t.” The tears were back, slipping down my cheeks like a slow rainfall. “I can’t stay with you like this.”
“No. No. Don’t say that.”
I couldn’t say it again. My throat was too tight.
But it didn’t mean I could stay, though a strong part of me was begging to do just that. For the night, at least. For the week. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Try it out and see.
And then get more invested? More hurt? More heartbroken?
Shaking my head, I reached around my back to pull his hands off my waist. Pulling away from him felt like resisting against an intense magnetic field. Like I was fighting against the laws of nature. Like it was wrong.
I wouldn’t be able to leave if he didn’t let me go.
“Please…” I whimpered.
“Don’t,” he said again. But his grip released. “This is not how this ends. I don’t accept this. I’ll find another solution.”
“I hope you do,” I said, backing away slowly. One step. Another. “Call me when. Okay?” I couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. I spun around and hurried down the hall, toward the door.
“Tess. Tess!” It was a wounded sound. Sharp and shrill and unignorable.
He was right there when I turned, and I buried myself in him. One more touch. One more embrace. One more brush of my lips against his.
When I broke away this time, it felt like I’d lost a part of me. “God, it really hurts.”
“Don’t do this.”
But my hand was on the doorknob. As though I were outside myself, I watched it turn, watched it open just enough to let me out. “I have to go.”
And then I was gone.