One Foot in the Grave - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,131
I need help sometimes? Yeah, but so do you. I helped find out what really happened to Heather. I went to that cabin to save you from Paul Conrad. Surely I’ve earned your respect.”
“Of course I respect you. How can I not? But you can’t expect me to share everything I know just to make things more equal between us. Sure, your secret is huge, but mine? They affect more than just me. More than just my family. To expose them, I hurt far too many people.”
“And you don’t trust me not to hurt them?”
“No. You’re on a one-woman mission to bring my father down, no matter the cost. Look at what you’ve already paid.”
“What exactly have I paid?” I demanded. “A relationship with you?”
He turned to me and took my hand. “What we had was great, Carly. We could be great, if you’d only just let things be.”
I snatched my hand away from him. “Like you’ve done since you came home from prison?”
“Carly.”
I turned into his driveway and started down the lane to his house. “So here’s what I’m hearing from you. I need to shut up and sit down and stop making waves.” He started to speak, but I snapped, “No. I’m not done.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.
“You say you like me because I’m different than every other woman in this town, but you want to stifle the very thing that you like about me. Do you see how screwed up that is?” His house appeared in front of us, and I pulled into the drive and put my car in park.
“Oh,” he said. “Am I allowed to speak now?”
I fought hard to keep from rolling my eyes.
“I like you for more than that, Carly, which is why I need you to stop this insane mission to take my father down. Don’t you see how good we are together?”
“I’m attracted to you,” I said. “And a year ago, I could have turned a blind eye and assured myself that I was but one woman and there was nothing I could do. I would have enjoyed my peaceful, idyllic life with a man who claimed to love me, all under the shadow of a tyrant, and pretended everything was okay. But I am not that woman anymore, Wyatt. That was Caroline Blakely, who chose to live her life with blinders on. I’m Charlene Moore now, and the blinders are off. And they’re never going back on.”
His jaw clenched. “Have you ever been happy, Carly? Really happy? I know I haven’t, but I got a glimpse of it when I was with you. I liked it. What’s wrong with bein’ happy?”
“You know I’ve never been truly happy, because I’ve told you my deepest, darkest secrets. And maybe I would have known that about you if you’d shared yourself too. Your secrets are warning signs flashing in neon lights telling my psyche that I can’t trust you. I need security in my relationships.”
“You know I can’t do that,” he said, getting defensive. “There’s just too much.”
“I know,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “Which is why you and I will never, ever work.”
“Carly.”
“I would love you, of that I’m fairly sure, if I could pretend that Rome wasn’t burning around us, but I could never feel secure. I’d never feel safe with you.”
“You think I’d hurt you?” he asked in horror.
“Physical pain isn’t the worst kind, and you know it. I couldn’t live my life always wondering what else you were hiding from me.”
“Everyone has secrets. Everyone.”
“True,” I said. “But yours are way bigger than most people’s.”
“So you refuse to give us a chance because of my father?”
“No,” I said softly. “You chose that.” I took a breath. “It’s not fair for me to make demands of you. You need to do what you need to do. But at the same time, you can’t ask me to give up the things I need in a relationship. At the core of it, we need different things to make us feel secure, things neither one of us is willing or capable of giving.”
“So that’s it. We’re really done?”
“We were really done last December, Wyatt. You just chose not to believe it.”
He sat back in his seat. “I love you, Carly.”
Pain filled my heart and I fought back tears. “We’re not right for each other, Wyatt. Don’t you see that?”
“Let me guess,” he said in a dark tone. “Marco is.”