of the speeches he’d rehearsed during her absence. Not a word of them came to mind. Hell, he thought. What now?
A seagull swooped low, and his eyes shifted, his gaze once again landing on the sun. “We haven’t ticked off the green flash yet,” he said quickly. “Don’t you think—”
She shook her head, her refusal emphatic.
Vance’s mouth dried. It was like waking up to that empty bed all over again. The alarm he’d felt upon opening his eyes and discovering her gone had turned to dread when he’d read the note she’d left. Thank you, thank you so much for everything, she’d written, but now it’s time I go. Goodbye.
Maybe she’d really meant it, after all.
“Why did you leave like that?” he asked baldly. Those few words had felt a thousand times worse than Blythe’s long-winded Dear John. He swallowed, then forced out the question that had to be asked, though it put his pride on the line. “Is it because that night I told you I loved you?”
Her Bambi eyes flared wide. “What? That was me.”
He frowned. “No, I said it. I wasn’t sure you heard me before you fell asleep.” His heart started thumping, hammering in his chest, his throat, at the ends of his fingers, for fuck’s sake. Had she just implied she loved him, too? “I’m in love with you, Layla.”
Her knuckles went white on the frame, and then she shook her head again, clearly panicked. “I thought we were clear we didn’t want that.”
He laughed a little, trying to ease his anxiety. “Yeah, well, sometimes it just happens, remember?”
“That was chemistry,” she said, edging toward the stairs leading to the sand.
“Layla, stay put.”
Instead she kept moving. “I didn’t plan for anything like...like love.”
He held himself still, worried about frightening her away. “Well, it’s not something you plan,” he said. “Just ask Baxter. Or Fitz. But if you’re ready, and in the right place—”
“I’m not ready!” she cried out. “I’m not in the right place.”
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” Concerned by her distress, he took a careful step toward her. “Would the two of us...would love be so bad?”
“Yes.”
He blinked.
“Because it’s weakness,” she said. “And dependence and...and...”
“And what, honey? And what?”
“And heartbreak!”
“Heartbreak?” He blinked again.
“My mother didn’t make it to my third birthday.” She swallowed. “My father was in and out all my life and now he’s gone forever.”
Oh, sweet girl, Vance thought, as a crack crawled over the surface of his heart.
“So how do I know that what you say you feel will last beyond...beyond the next moment? Or the one after that? I can’t trust it.” Her brown eyes were as big as he’d ever seen them, and so, so serious. “Because the fact is, Vance, I’ve only ever been loved in very small doses.”
Oh, God. The fracturing organ in the center of his chest made him slow to react, so slow that when she whirled and leaped down the steps and onto the sand, he missed his chance to catch her. Keep her.
And this time he worried he might have lost her for good.
* * *
LIKE THE OTHER TIME SHE’D run from the beach house, Layla sprinted northward, frantic to outdistance herself from Vance and the confusing and conflicting feelings he’d provoked. He said it had been his whisper in the dark. He said he loved her.
The idea of it terrified her even more than knowing she loved him. If it was true, how could she ever leave him? And if she didn’t, how could she ever be safe from pain? Attachment is the source of suffering.
Her eyes and lungs were burning when she finally dropped to the sand, all breath gone. Her resting place was at the base of the same dune where she’d stopped before, the night he’d danced with her on the beach house’s deck. Air heaving in and out of her chest, she tried directing herself to calm, but the order wasn’t working. Realizing she still clutched the frame Vance had given her, she dropped it to her lap and buried her face in her hands.
“Layla? Are you all right?”
Her head jerked up. So unnerved was she by her confrontation with Vance, she hadn’t noticed that Jane Pearson was sitting on top of the dune, beside Skye. The brunette’s focus was out to sea, her arms wound tightly about herself.
“What are you two doing?” Layla asked, picking up the frame so she could clamber to her feet.
Jane glanced at Skye’s set face then looked back at Layla. “We’re getting some