She had purposely tried not to be alone with Lars for most of the day. Knowing she had to leave him tomorrow was proving almost unbearable. Not to mention, spending hours appearing normal and happy while her heart was in turmoil was unbelievably exhausting.
She could feel the façade coming down now that they were alone. She had hoped to have one last night with him. One last happy night together without worrying about tomorrow, but she knew it was going to be impossible. She could barely keep the tears from falling.
They rode to his house in heavy, fraught silence and he turned to her as he pulled into the driveway.
“Do you want to go back to the hotel instead?” he asked quietly, staring straight ahead.
“No.” Her voice broke when she answered.
He turned to look at her and she could see the pain on his face. “What’s the point of coming in, Jane?”
He knew. How did he know?
A fat tear rolled down her cheek as she gazed at him.
“I love you,” she rasped in a whisper. “That’s the point.”
***
I love you. That’s the point.
It was like the wind had been knocked out of him. It was the last thing he expected to hear. He hadn’t buckled up for the short ride from his father’s house to home, and he lurched across the seat, grabbing her into his arms, burying his face in her neck as hot tears gathered in his eyes, threatening to fall.
Is that what this was all about? Saying ‘I love you’? For the first time all day, he took a deep, relieved breath.
“Oh, God, I thought…I thought…”
“You were right,” she answered in a broken voice, her arms around him, her chin on his shoulder.
What? What did she say?
He leaned back, staring at her glassy eyes, confused.
“I can’t stay.” She swallowed, looking as miserable as he felt. “My uncle called this morning. He wants me to go back with her.”
He had been holding his breath, and now he exhaled, letting go of her, running his hands through his hair. He gave her a hard look, angry with her, angry with this situation.
“But you told him no, right? You told him to go to hell, right? You’re staying. You’re staying with me.”
He looked at her face and his heart twisted, like a knife gutting him from the inside out.
“He asked for a little time,” she said in a small voice. “He reminded me about the responsibility of family. Think if it was Jenny or Nils or Erik. What would you do?”
He closed his eyes against the pain of what was happening. She said she would stay and now she was leaving him. She was going back to New York.
“Lars. Lars, look at me. Please look at me.” He looked up at her, biting his lip against the unfamiliar sting of tears in his eyes. “It’s not forever.”
“I hate to state the obvious, Jane. But we’ve only known each other for a week.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Even though she knew it had to do with everything.
“We needed time to build this. We’ve already had a shaky start with Paul and Samara between us. We needed clear road. We needed time together.”
“I love you. A few months isn’t going to ch—”
“A few months!”
“—to change that. We’ll build while I’m away. We’ll build when I come back.”
“We can’t build while you’re away and there’s no guarantee that you’ll come back,” he shot back, leaning away from her. His voice was a shadow of its normal self. “You’re going back to your life, Jane.”
“You’re my life,” she whispered.
“Right,” he said dryly, swiping at his nose.
“You are. But, he’s my uncle. He’s all I had for so long. He was the one who loved me. He kept me from falling into the chasm. He stood between them dying and me wanting to die. I owe him.”
“You shouldn’t owe family like that. He doesn’t own your life just because he honored a promise to your father, Jane. That’s not how things are supposed to work.”
She hung her head and wept, the unfairness of it all crashing down on her. She had never loved anyone as she loved Lars…and here he was. Hers. Someone who belonged to her. Someone who wanted her to belong to him. She felt as if she was being ripped away from him in the most painful, unbelievable way. After this weekend she never wanted to wake up without him again. Their time apart stretched before her like eternity.
He slid over beside her, pulling her close to him, his cheek against hers. He inhaled raggedly. “I don’t know what will happen, Minx. Once you get there. Once you’re at home again. This could all change in your head—feel more like an infatuation and less real than it really was. Than it really is. I just want you to come back.” He finished simply, “I want this. Come back.”
She started sobbing again, so relieved by his words, she clung to them desperately, even as she suspected he didn’t actually have much real hope. She held on to the back of his neck, shuddering from the onslaught of emotions. “I’ll come back…I promise.”
He kissed her hair and down her neck, then caught her lips in a hungry, longing kiss, holding the back of her head with one strong hand, his other hand on her hip, keeping her close to him. When he stopped kissing her, he leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. She knew he was upset. Terribly upset, even, and she remembered his words under the Roosevelt Arch: If anyone gets hurt between you and me, it’ll be me. Not you. I promise.
It made her want to weep that he’d been right. It wasn’t that she wasn’t hurting too, but she was making a choice that was hurting them both.
She leaned back from him, tilting her head to the side as he often did, memorizing his face with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. She didn’t want to sacrifice another moment to despair while she was still with him, while he still belonged to her for a few more hours.
“We still have tonight,” she murmured, placing her hand on his face.
He turned his head to kiss her palm. “Stay with me?”
“I checked out this morning. Where else would I go?”
His face shifted the slightest bit from sad to…well, still pretty sad.
“I could go stay with Paul.”
His lips twitched.
“Or Nils.”
More twitching.
“Or your dad. He’s a good-looking man…”
He was definitely biting back a smile now.
“Nah. I already made my choice,” she drawled in the gravelliest murmur she could muster and watched as his eyes changed. “Let’s go to bed. And just stay there.”
Without a word, he pulled her out his truck door, up the porch stairs, into his house, through the living room, down the hallway, into his bedroom, into his arms and into his bed, just as she had asked.
***
“Tell me about New York, so I can picture you there.”
He lay naked on his side, his head only slightly raised, pillowed on his bent elbow, looking at her. She exactly mirrored him, so that they were face to face, but they didn’t touch, as if by mutual, unspoken agreement. Their bodies had been in almost constant motion for over an hour, touching, loving, clinging to each other. They were cooling down.