Sweet Love - Mia Kayla Page 0,92
back of my throat, but that did nothing to my tears, nothing to stop the stream from falling down my face. It came harder and harder until a sob escaped me.
“Charlie?”
Connor immediately rushed to my side, and I swiped at my tears, ignoring his looming presence above me.
’Cause if I looked at him, met his beautiful face that I loved so damn much, the tears would flow endlessly.
I’d get over this, right?
My father had left, and it had taken me a while to get over that. I remembered the anger at first, as though it were his fault that he had gotten sick, and then the utter sadness that took me under, but over time, I did recuperate. I’d healed.
But this was different, and I knew that. If my father had had a choice, he’d still be here. Connor had a choice, yet he was choosing to leave—leave his company, his legacy, his nana, and more so me.
Connor didn’t give me a choice to deny him because he pulled me into him and wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, dropping his head to the crook of my neck.
“Stop crying. I can’t take it when you cry,” he said, his voice broken.
Even though I shouldn’t, even though it would make it harder in the end for both of us, I hugged him against me, feeling his chest rise and fall against mine.
I sobbed into his chest, and he squeezed me tighter.
I loved this man—so damn much. He’d lifted me up in some of the lowest points with my mother, and he believed in me, in my art, in my paintings. He made me want to be a better person, to strive for utter perfection, to believe in myself and my abilities. And he was leaving.
“I love you, Charlie. So much. Maybe …”
I lifted my head and placed one heavy hand on his chest, pushing him away. I swiped at the tears—angry now. “Don’t say that.”
His eyes widened, and when he reached for me, I slapped his hand away.
“Don’t say you love me because if you did, you’d stay.”
Boom.
There it was—my ultimatum—what I really wanted out in the open. Like fireworks on a silent night, clear and deafening. Hadn’t he told me to do that—to tell my mother how I really felt, to not sugarcoat my feelings?
“I … I can’t.”
My hands fisted at my sides, and I let out a ragged breath. “Why not? Because you have family and a girlfriend in New York? What you’re doing here is running. Staying is the easiest choice, and you refuse to do it. You have your family here and your friends and”—I placed both hands over my chest—“me,” I rushed out.
I swiped at the last of the tears, and all that was left was this never-ending anger.
“All you have there is a job, a desk you go to every single day.” I shook my head. “But here, you have a legacy—your legacy—and I know you don’t want to believe it, but it is yours. When your parents leave this world, it will go to you and your brother. Or would you rather it go to some investors who couldn’t give two shits about the families Colby’s employs and who would rather tear your company apart and sell the different lines?”
He took a step toward me. “You don’t understand, Charlie.”
I raised a hand. I didn’t want him to touch me; it would slay me. “No … I do. You are resentful. Your parents were never there for you, growing up, obsessed with setting up this company. I get your anger toward them. I get why you feel the need to run away …”
“I’m not running away,” he snapped.
“But see … you are. You have this underlying bitterness toward them, and because of that, you want nothing to do with anything that they are ever involved with. I get that too. Where is forgiveness and compassion and all those qualities that make you … you?”
His facial features dropped, and he tilted his head, a frown heavy on his face.
“I can’t … it’s just too hard. But me leaving has nothing to do with you, Charlie. I stopped considering this my home a long time ago. When I left, I promised myself that I would never come back, so I set up a life in New York.”
“A life? You call a desk at your financial institution, an apartment that’s bare, and friends you see every other weekend a life?”
He was unhappy. That was the fact of