out of her mouth, seemingly no blood in her veins—if her pallor was anything to go by. Okay, so she was shocked. That wasn’t a total surprise. Shock wasn’t a bad reaction… Was it?
Shit. What the hell are you doing?
“Is that such an outrageous suggestion?” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “I thought you had a good time here.”
“Oh my God, Trent. Of course I did. I had an amazing time with you.” Her features softened. “But I can’t pack up my whole life and move to another country because I had good sex.”
The words were like being slapped across the face. “I’m not asking you to stay for sex, Cora. I can get that anywhere.”
She winced. Okay, so that’s not how he’d wanted that statement to come out.
“I’m aware you can have any woman you want,” she said stiffly. “Although I’d rather not think about you with anyone else, to be perfectly honest.”
See, that was a sign she felt something for him.
“That came out wrong. What I’m trying to say is that we’re more than good sex. You’d be staying for more than good sex…” Why was this so hard? He’d seen enough of those cheesy romantic comedy movies to know the whole big declaration at the end was what won a person over. He couldn’t beat around the bush now. “Cora, I like you a hell of a lot. I like us. I like the way I am with you and the way you are with me. I like holding you and listening to your dreams and getting excited over things I’d never be excited about on my own.”
Her eyes were glassy, and she clasped her hands in front of her pretty yellow dress. “I like us, too.”
“So stay. Move here and work on your novel and…be with me.” There it was, the thing he wanted most out in the open. Soft and squishy and fearing the worst. Another word hovered on his tongue, a word he’d sworn he’d never say again.
Love.
He loved Cora. Against every fear in his heart and every scrap of logic telling him it was utterly and completely ridiculous, what he felt for Cora was real. It was forever. He wanted to build them a house and a life. He wanted to see her soar.
“I…I can’t stay.” She shook her head. “I have a life in New York, an apartment. I have a job.”
“A job you don’t like.”
Her eyes cast downward. “Not forever. My dad has been talking about maybe making me an agent and…”
She smiled like she was happy about this offer, but Trent could hear the pain in her voice. It wasn’t what she wanted.
“I could help other writers achieve their dream of being published,” she finished.
“What about your dream?”
“I’m still working on it. But that’s why I need to go home.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “You told me you wanted to have a beautiful house by the water one day, somewhere to write and create. You could have that here.”
“But what about my family?” she asked. She was barely looking at him now, her hands white-knuckling one another. “I can’t leave them.”
“Your family, who treats you like dirt.”
“They’re still my family.”
It made his blood boil the way she clung to her loyalty when it sounded as though they’d done nothing to deserve it. “Family is what you make it. I know that more than anyone.”
“And where would I live, in your sister’s house?” She gestured to the back door. “A few weeks ago, you didn’t even seem to care where you would sleep after Liv came home, and now all of a sudden you want to plan a future?”
She was freaking out; he could see the wildness in her eyes. Hear it in the heightened pitch of her voice. Maybe he’d gone too hard, too soon. Perhaps he should have eased into this conversation more.
If she wanted to stay, she wouldn’t be freaking out.
“Now I have a reason,” he said. “I want to build it for us.”
“Trent, everything you do in life is for someone else.” She shook her head. “You have to want to do things for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Instead of building your home, you’re here doing things for Liv. Whenever Nick calls you for extra work, you drop whatever you’re doing. If I asked you to give me the moon, you’d find a way to get a lasso around it.”
He blinked. “Am I missing something? I thought it was a good thing