Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Her eyes met mine and we looked at each other for long moments. The air was heavy. My heart was heavy. I could see that she was out of ideas too. She was slipping away from me and I was desperate to hold on, but it felt impossible.
She let out a breath, looking away. “This is going to hurt more if I stay with you until tomorrow morning,” she said quietly. “I can’t stand it hurting any more than it does now, Carson. I can’t…”
“I know,” I said, something inside pulling tight and snapping.
She nodded and stood up and started gathering her things. I felt both numb and hot, my skin prickly. I sat silently, staring ahead, hating life, hating myself and my stupid choices, and most of all hating the fact that we could never explore what had just started blossoming between us.
When she was done, she knelt down in front of me just as I had done to her yesterday. Tears shimmered in her eyes and my heart beat so slowly I thought it might stop. “I’ll always think of you when I get on an elevator or see a sunrise,” she said quietly, her voice breaking on the last word.
I managed a small smile, my heart giving a hollow thud. Maybe it’d cease beating, right here in this hotel room. I was so fucking sad. I would never know what we could have been together, and it felt so damn unfair. My gaze moved over the lines of her face, the shape of her lips. I tried to memorize the shade of her eyes, the exact way her hair fell around her shoulders, so I could keep the image of her in my mind’s eye forever. I thought of all the things that would make me think of her—too many to mention them all. “I’ll always think of you when I watch Titanic…or see a buttercup,” I said. I hated this. It was exactly how it was supposed to end, or at least what we’d planned, and yet it was all wrong.
Stay. Don’t go.
She smiled sadly, standing slowly and then leaning in to kiss me, her lips lingering on mine. Then she turned away too quickly for me to see her face and she opened the door and closed it quietly behind her.
Thud, thud…thud.
Fuck!
I stood and grabbed the vase of flowers off the desk and hurled it at the wall. Glass shattered and water and flowers rained down as I sat back down on the bed heavily and put my head in my hands.
CHAPTER 13
Grace
The tears started to fall before I was halfway down the hall. I knew this was the right thing to do—I couldn’t stay a minute longer knowing where he was headed in the morning and admitting to myself that my heart was involved. But it didn’t change the fact that I was forcing myself to leave. It didn’t change the fact that it hurt to leave. It didn’t shut out the memory of the stark misery that had washed over his face when he realized I was leaving. As I stepped on the empty elevator and the doors closed behind me, I swiped at my cheeks and leaned back against the wall.
This is where it had started. On an elevator. And now here I was on an elevator again—only this time it was ending. And I don’t want it to. I wanted to go back in time and do it all over again, even knowing what I now knew, just to spend a couple more days with him.
When I made it back to my room, I dropped my things on the floor, and sank down on the bed. I curled into a ball, allowing myself to release the sobs that I’d barely been holding back as we’d said goodbye. I missed him. I already missed him, and we’d only been apart for fifteen minutes.
I couldn’t stay here. Once I’d managed to gather myself, I stumbled to the bathroom and washed my face. Then I threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and started packing. There was no way I could remain in this hotel with Carson a couple floors above me. There were several reasons for this, mainly that I simply didn’t trust myself not to run back to his room and fling myself at him. But to what end?
Grace, Grace, Grace. What did you do? Yes, I had gotten myself into this situation. But how would I have known that I would develop feelings for Carson Stinger, Straight Male Performer? If someone had told me two days ago that that would be my reality, I would laugh and say such an idea was ludicrous. Now? Now it wasn’t ludicrous at all. Because what I hadn’t known, was that he had an impossibly sweet side and that he was exciting and brave and generous in every way possible. Would I rather not know? Would I rather go back to the time when it was easy to walk away from him if I had to agree that I would never experience the beauty of our weekend? I was too hurt and confused to answer those questions right now.