not take. Not if I had any intention of being able to look myself in the mirror with any kind of pride.
I had to go home.
I took a deep breath and began the painful process of removing all but what was necessary of Dylan Daniels from my life. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “For lying.”
“I understand why you did.”
“You…seem so calm.” I thought that if I’d found out that everything I believed about a person was a lie and that I’d been sucked into something as filthy as adultery, I wouldn’t be quite so forgiving.
“Baby, I’m fucking furious. I’m…crazy pissed, and if I ever have the pleasure of getting my hands on this Hoyt asshole, I will end him. But I’m not mad at you. You were protecting yourself. And that I understand.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For…all of this. For…” calling me. For letting me call you. For keeping me safe. For the pleasure you showed me how to give to myself and the even greater pleasure you gave to me. For making me tell you this secret. For…for helping me now, when I feel so alone. “For everything.”
I sobbed again and pressed my hands to my face. It was over. This was goodbye and I couldn’t believe how sad I was. How grief had carved a hole in my stomach. I wanted to walk away from him with my head held high and perhaps a lying smile on my face, but I couldn’t even manage that.
“Shhhh,” he said, pulling me into his chest. I soaked him in as best I could. His scent. His touch. Everything. I memorized as much as I could for the Dylan Daniels–free days ahead of me. All of them. “Shhhh. Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” he said. “You got about twenty more hours on that birthday wish.”
No. I didn’t. I had about twenty more minutes.
I wrapped my hand around his shirt, feeling his heart pound under my fingers.
“I can’t stay.”
“Come on, now,” he said against my temple. He put his arms around my shoulders. “You haven’t slept much in two days. Take some time.”
I’d taken all the time I could. I’d been greedy. A liar. So much so I didn’t recognize myself. Now that the secret was out, I couldn’t look back at the things I’d done and see any of it that wasn’t desperate and selfish.
I’d played at being Layla and I allowed myself to use this man in a pretty unconscionable way.
“I’ll take your lawyer’s phone number, but I won’t be going to Charleston—”
“You’re going to Charleston.”
“Dylan, please, don’t make me more indebted to you than I already am.”
“It’s not a debt, Annie. It’s help.”
“I used you, Dylan. To make myself feel better. To allow myself to forget that I was married.”
He shook his head, and those sleepy hooded eyes were so sad. So serious. “I used you too, Annie. I have things I’d like to forget too, and for a while, being with you let me.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is exactly the same.”
“Then…I need to go home for both of our sakes.”
He watched me for a long time and then, maybe, he agreed with me. Or maybe he just saw that despite my tears and my grief I was more than serious. “I’ll get the car.”
I shook my head. “You’re not going to take me. Margaret can take me. Or the man who brought me here. Not you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“A clean break. For both of us. Nothing has changed, Dylan. We still need to end this. And I think it’s better to end it now. Like we’d planned before I told you about Hoyt.”
“Everything is different now, Annie. Everything.”
“No. Nothing is different. Not one thing. You just know who I really am. This is how we end, Dylan. The only way for us to end.” He looked like he was going to argue. “Are you forgetting that Ben is down there?”
“I don’t give a shit about Ben,” he snapped.
I lifted my eyes to his and told him what I didn’t fully understand yet, that despite Ben’s crimes, the ones I knew about and the ones I didn’t, I still cared. “I do.”
And I care about you, too much to drag you off this beautiful mountain into my swamp. Even for a minute.
He stepped back, rubbing his hands through his hair. “This is what you want?”
“This is what I want.”
“Fine,” he said, stepping back again. “I’ll get Margaret. But you’re keeping that damn phone.