Chapter Twelve #3
‘It’s fine. I was…glad to see that you weren’t somewhere out there, missing me miserably,’ she lied. Because she’d wanted to know he felt as cut up by this as she did. She’d wanted…she’d wanted the exact opposite of everything she’d told him that morning. But it was too late.
She’d pushed him away and he wasn’t someone who forgave easily.
Especially not after what he’d been through.
‘Were you?’
Was she imagining the hint of scepticism in his voice?
She didn’t lie again. ‘Are you well?’ Her tone sounded so brittle she was surprised the words didn’t turn to dust in the air between them.
‘I didn’t come here for small talk,’ he said darkly, crossing towards her then thinking better of it and stopping a few feet short. She inhaled deeply and caught a hint of his fragrance in the air. Her stomach looped and twisted.
‘You don’t need to explain,’ she repeated.
‘When you’re done telling me what I need, perhaps you’ll let me talk?’
Her jaw dropped at the move from deference and back to equal footing—which she far, far preferred. She even liked arguing with him, because at least then their emotions were on display, rather than the cool hospitality she’d been extending a moment earlier.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, voice quivering.
‘The photos were misleading,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have sex with her.’
The words almost seemed to rush out of him, but it wouldn’t have mattered how he’d said it.
Her brain would have processed it with the same sense of giddy relief and reward anyway.
Her heart would have rejoiced in her chest, as it was doing now, thumping hard to her ribs.
But caution was still called for. She knew he wouldn’t have flown all this way to lie to her, but that also didn’t mean he still believed he loved her.
‘The media is having a field day, writing about how I broke your heart. I just wanted to be sure you knew the truth.’
‘And what is the truth?’
His eyes bore into hers for a long time. ‘I went out with Maria fully intending to bring her home with me.’
It was like a dagger thrusting into her chest.
‘But the second I saw her, I knew I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t ready.’
I wasn’t ready. Which wasn’t to say he wouldn’t be ready. Or wasn’t now.
She let out an uneven breath. He’d been so brave in proposing to her that morning and she’d been a coward, hiding behind formality and their stupid agreement, made when neither knew the other well enough to understand how much their relationship would come to mean.
She’d hidden from her own heart and had regretted it ever since.
But now he was here and she couldn’t keep hiding. She couldn’t be a coward any longer.
‘What we shared mattered to me, Astrid. I didn’t want you to believe the opposite—that I’d gone back to Spain and put you in my rearview mirror. It wasn’t like that.’
‘What was it like?’
He stared at her for a long moment. ‘What do you think? I’ve missed you.’
The words were so visceral and raw, so aching, that she did the only thing she could and closed the distance between them, doing what she’d wanted to do since he’d walked into her apartment.
She pressed herself to his chest, wrapped her arms around his waist and listened to the steady yet fast beating of his heart.
Did it still beat for her? Did he love her?
‘I’ve missed you, too,’ she sobbed, hands unlinking and pressing to either side of his spine. Why wasn’t he holding her back? Why wasn’t he wrapping his arms around her and returning this hug? Why wasn’t he saying that he wouldn’t go away again?
Because she hadn’t given him a reason to. She still wasn’t being brave. Not like he was.
She pulled back so she could look up into his face.
‘I was so wrong that morning, Javier, and you were right. You told me I was too scared to admit what you meant to me and I was. I was terrified. But only because I cared for you so damn much. Only because I knew that if I let you into my life, I’d be opening the door to more heartbreak than I could bear.
I let you go and it’s been so much worse than I imagined.
I have been miserable. I have missed you. And I’ve realised—how much I—’
‘Don’t.’ He pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her, his eyes deep with emotion. ‘You don’t need to say it.’
‘Don’t tell me what I need,’ she parroted back, but with the beginning of a sense of doubt.
Of worry. With a feeling that the world was unsteady beneath her feet and she didn’t know exactly why.
‘I’ve had a long time to think and to get to grips with how badly I messed up.
And how much I wished I hadn’t pretended that we weren’t what you said.
You deserved to hear me admit that I loved you, too. ’
As she said it, she saw how true that was. This man, in particular, who’d been denied that love from people who should have given it freely.
‘You talk about doing a disservice to our relationship, that’s exactly what I did. And I’m so sorry for that, but now that you’re here, maybe we can just—’
‘I’m not staying.’ He reached down, behind his back, caught her hands and removed them, then took a step away from her.
Her skin flushed hot, then cold. ‘I needed you to know the truth and as you wouldn’t take my calls, this was the only option.
But it doesn’t change anything between us, Astrid. It can’t.’
Her heart stammered to a stop. ‘What?’
‘You will always be protecting yourself and you will always need to control your feelings.’
‘I’m telling you I love you,’ she said, shaking her head, as tears slipped down her cheeks.
‘And tomorrow, you might tell me you don’t.
’ His nostrils flared, in a sign that he was feeling this far more deeply than he was letting on.
‘Tomorrow, you might tell me you want to go back to Plan A and find someone dull and dreary and suitable to marry. I will not live with that hanging over my head.’
‘I won’t,’ she whispered, pressing her hands to her lips. A sob burst from her.
‘You will do whatever is best for you and your people. That’s who you are.’
‘You’re what’s best for me.’
‘I thought so, once upon a time,’ he admitted.
‘The thing is, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong now.
But I’m not prepared to risk it again. Don’t you get it, Astrid?
You broke my heart and up until I met you, I would have said I didn’t have a heart to break.
There is no part of me that wants to go through this again. ’
‘I made a mistake.’
He dipped his head once. ‘And I can’t forgive you for it.’ He moved towards the door. At first, she watched him go, just as she had last time.
But then, she moved, following behind him. ‘Please don’t leave,’ she cried. It was agony, a fresh spurt of pain. ‘Please…’
‘There’s no future here,’ he said. ‘I just wanted you to know that I did love you—far too much to sleep with some other woman so soon.’
‘Can’t you see that’s because you still care about me? Because a part of you wants this?’
‘Oh, I know a part of me wants this, wants you, and always will. But I learned my lesson, Astrid. I’ll never forget it.’
It was, quite possibly, the cruellest thing he could have said, because it made her see that she was just like Carlotta, to him. He’d offered love and she’d withheld her own.
‘I learned my lesson, too, Javier. If you give me a second chance, I promise, I will never hurt you again. You are my heart and soul. I love you with every part of me. I know I will for ever.’
The only sign that he’d heard was the straightening of his spine. A moment later, he was gone and she was more bereft than she’d known it possible to feel.