something bigger he was missing. “Yes. It is perfect. For me, Pierce. Not you.”
He kept his voice mild. “How do you know? I haven’t told you my plans yet.”
“I didn’t want this to happen to us,” she suddenly whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth. “But we can’t keep pretending nothing’s changed.”
“I don’t want to pretend, either,” he said with a smile.
Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Then can we just agree we went too far and try to get back to the way it was? You return to Cape May. I stay in Paris. We take a break from . . . this. Get our bearings. Then, when we see each other again, we have our normal friendship back. Right?”
The words sounded terrible in his ears, an awful truth she was spinning in order to push him away. His jaw clenched, and he tried to calm the rising panic that told him she’d already made up her mind. “Wrong. I don’t care about our original agreement, and neither do you. Because we’re more than friends, Taylz. Don’t deny it. I’m in lo—”
“No,” she practically screamed, shaking her head. “Please don’t say it.”
He stared at her in shock, speechless.
Her voice broke. “If you say it, we can’t take it back. Listen to me, Pierce. You are the most important person in my life. And I will never forget this time in Paris together, ever. But we can’t go forward like this. I need to focus on my work, with no distractions. And you need to be real with yourself and what you want in life. I will never be the right woman for you long-term. I can’t pretend to be her, and then tear both of us apart when it’s too late. Don’t you see? If we walk away now, we can salvage us!”
He staggered back and tried to sort through her speech. My God, she didn’t want to deny as much as she wanted to ignore. Pretend the summer and Paris were just temporary, magical chapters in their story, never to be repeated or spoken of. Did she really believe he could ever look at her and not crave her naked beneath him while he buried himself in her tight, wet heat over and over? Was she imagining polite chitchat when she introduced him to her new lover, thinking he wouldn’t want to tear him apart and bury his body?
He had to make her see. Somehow.
“There’s no way to salvage what we once were,” he said quietly. “You know that. But we can move forward in a different way. Won’t you even let me tell you what I truly want, instead of not trusting me to know? I want—”
“I sold the painting.”
He stopped, trying to understand what she meant. “What painting?”
She lifted her chin, stared directly into his eyes, and said the words that changed everything. “The painting I promised to keep for you. I sold it.”
The trembling happened deep inside his core and radiated outward. The ground underneath his feet shifted. He was the same physically, but inside, something had broken, ripping apart the last segments of hope he’d clung to with a passionate intensity. He asked the only question he could. “Why?”
Pain flickered over her face, then a terrifying sort of resolve. “For money. I’m truly sorry, Pierce. I didn’t do it to hurt you, but I had to choose. And I choose my work. I choose this life, a brand-new one, not the one I left behind.” She paused and closed the final door. “Not the life I had with you.”
Agony shredded through him, but he took it stoically, wondering when the numbness would come. Later. Definitely later. Maybe he’d never be able to feel anything again after this. It would be a good thing.
“I understand.” His voice came from far away, as if he were in another dimension. “My flight leaves tonight. I’d better go now. Check out of my hotel, get there early.”
She didn’t say anything. Her arms wrapped around herself as if seeking comfort.
He got his camera bag and tripod, not caring if he left anything else behind.
“Pierce?”
He paused at the door. “Yeah?”
“We’ll be okay. We just need time to let each other go so we can make our way back to friendship.”
Even now, he wanted to reassure her. Hug her, stroke her back, and remind her that a crazy leap was just like a creative element. Sometimes you failed spectacularly. Sometimes you won spectacularly.
But this was a cop-out, a lie to keep