about what she was about to do.
The water went on and she waited. What did she open with? That she was leaving? That she was crazy in love with him. No, that would be cruel. Poppy couldn’t put that on him and then blow out of town.
While she was still thinking, he reappeared in the bedroom doorway drying his hands.
“Did you ventilate?” She didn’t follow and he obviously saw that because he smiled. “You’re wearing the dress.”
“Oh,” Poppy said, looking down at herself as he tossed the towel aside and came toward her. “I wasn’t painting.”
Sliding both arms around her, he crouched to kiss just behind her ear. “Nostalgic?”
Not in the slightest, though his deep suggestive tone implied he was.
Running her hands across the width of his humbling shoulders, she lost her fingers in his hair.
“You’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met,” she said, her eyes closing to relish the caress of his mouth on her neck. “More than my fantasy.”
“What’s it you say?” he asked, dipping lower to hook her thighs and pick her up. “This is our reality, Candy-Cane.”
She swallowed, knowing he expected to carry her to his bed. As much as Poppy wanted it, she couldn’t let it happen. It wouldn’t be honest.
“Baby, I can’t stay,” she said, enjoying the sensation of his hair between her fingers.
He stopped, just in his bedroom doorway. For the first time, he looked at her, into her eyes, scrutinizing her.
“Your sister?” She nodded. “How long does she need you?”
And there was the question she didn’t want to answer.
Licking her lips, Poppy stroked his face, leaning in to touch her mouth to his again. “Thank you for letting me be a part of your life,” she whispered. “Every second we spent together will always be precious to me.”
Putting her on her feet, he stepped back. “You’re leaving.” Poppy didn’t respond. “You’re not coming back.”
“I…”
He backed away when she reached for him. “So I was right,” Turner said, scowling at her. “It was a vacation. Just slumming it ‘til you got bored.”
Poppy wasn’t bored with her life. It was so close to perfection that it was almost surreal. The only thing that was missing was him. All in. Hers. Always. Forever.
Knowing that would never happen, she didn’t fight him. He’d find out about the reward eventually, but it didn’t matter. Poppy was leaving and she wouldn’t look back, she couldn’t. He’d worried about her leaving and it turned out that he was right to be. If they were together, actually together, maybe things would be different. But that was a reality they would never have.
“Goodbye, Turner,” she said, desperate to find the door.
Poppy only got halfway there before he was in front of her.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m not gonna do it again. I lash out at you then regret it.”
“You lash out at me when you’re hurt and you have a right to be hurt. I’m leaving and I won’t be coming back. It hurts me too.”
“Then come back,” he said, picking up her hands to guide her arms around his torso. “Deal with your family shit and then come back to us. We’ll be here. Your apartment will be here…” He smiled, finger combing her hair from her face. “I’ll finish your floors, could be I even get the painting done and your appliances in.”
He wanted her to agree because he didn’t want things to change. Turner’s life was destined to continue on its same track, never wavering. Once she’d believed herself to be the opposite, but Poppy had learned that day she wasn’t cut out for forging her own path.
“I can’t,” she whispered, backing away. “What we’ve had has been amazing, but we can’t keep doing this forever… We can’t keep sneaking around and getting wrapped up in each other in private.”
In a slow blink, his eyes closed as he processed her words. “It’s not enough for you,” he murmured.
Poppy was quick to shake her head. “Let’s not get into that. There’s no point breaking it down. We had an arrangement that was amazing… incredible. I wouldn’t change anything about you, Turner Maddox. Not a single thing.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t be leaving.”
“I have to go, for my family,” she said. “You of all people should understand that. You taught me how important it is to prioritize my family’s needs.”
“Not to the detriment of your own.”
If he thought for a second that he didn’t put his needs behind that of his family’s, then he definitely wasn’t paying