They hadn’t mentioned her leaving since the truck, and Jane stared at him, sensing the strength of his feelings being thrown off his body like heat. Sadness. Anger. Confusion. She had tasted them on his lips, felt them even when his body was fused to hers.
“You don’t have to ask that.”
“Okay.” His eyes dropped hers. “Fine.”
She stared at him, disappointed that he didn’t ask again, then swallowed, trying not to cry. “Will you come and see me?”
“Like, for a weekend? I don’t think so, Jane. I think—don’t get me wrong; I would come, if it was where you wanted to be. If it was somewhere you loved and I needed to learn to love it too, I’d come find you in New York. But you were ready to give it up. I don’t think you love your life in New York, I think you love your uncle. And I don’t love your uncle, because I think he’s trapping you into a life you don’t want for the sake of his selfish child. And I am angry with him that he doesn’t see that, or sees it, and still does it.”
“You’re angry at me too.”
“Yes,” he answered simply, capturing her eyes again. Cold, angry.
He took a deep breath and held it for a beat, then let it out slowly, and she felt it on her lips, on her cheeks, on her neck.
“If I come to New York, it makes it easier for you to stay there. I don’t want to make it easier, because I want you here with me. Because I think you want to be here with me, and I want to support that plan, not some other plan that has you leaving for all of the wrong reasons. Anyway, I don’t want a weekend, Jane. It would just mess with my head. It definitely wouldn’t be enough. I want you back when you’re all in. When you’re ready”
“I am all in. I am ready.”
She watched a litany of emotions walk across his face, ending in disappointment.
“No, love. No, you’re not.” He turned and sat up, swinging his legs over the bed putting his back to her. “I’m getting water. Do you want some?”
“No, thanks,” she whispered and watched as he padded around the bed and out of the room.
Jane rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, and felt a tear fall out of the corner of her eye and roll into her hair. She didn’t reach up to wipe it away. She closed her eyes against the assault of her feelings.
You’re making a mistake. You’re making a mistake. You’re making such a big mistake.
The right decision shouldn’t hurt this much. Shouldn’t feel this wrong.
She raised her hands to her face, letting the fleshy pad of her palm press hard into her burning eyes. She revisited her uncle’s words: We will have nothing more to say to one another. Nothing more. And I will not welcome you back to our family. I will assume you have turned your back on us. But if she went back she could settle things to Sara’s satisfaction and earn her uncle’s approval. She could return to Montana with a free and peaceful heart.
She thought through what the next few months would look like. A week to settle back in…another two or three weeks to convince Laney to step up to be Sara’s full-time assistant… another two or three weeks of on-the-job training…and one last week to pack up her apartment and ship her things. Two months. Two months and she’d be able to keep her uncle happy. She could come back to Lars after Thanksgiving. No, she’d have to stay for Thanksgiving. Crap, and Christmas was always packed with shoots. If Laney wasn’t ready yet, Jane would have to stay on a few extra weeks. After New Year’s, then. She could come back in January. Well, as long as Laney was ready for New York Fashion Week at the top of February. Jane would need to be sure she could handle that…or maybe Jane could go back to help. Just for that week. Or maybe it would be best to return to Montana after Fashion Week. Mid-February.
Five months. Like an albatross. Five months.
She ground her teeth together and turned onto her side, away from where Lars had been lying beside her, toward the door and raised her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The stark reality of the situation leeched hope out of her heart like a syringe. No matter how strongly they felt for one another now, what they had was way too new to make it for five months apart. Especially if he wouldn’t come to see her.
It hurt her when he said that he wouldn’t come. But what he said had made grudging sense to her. She didn’t love her life in New York, and she understood why he didn’t want to support her decision to return to it. She was only going back out of obligation, because she didn’t see a better alternative.
Could she live without her uncle? Could she turn her back on him? Could she refuse him, begrudge him a mere five months of her time? Just because the timing was bad for her heart?
Jane swallowed against her confusion and increasing hopelessness. No matter which decision she made, she would hurt and disappoint someone she loved.
Lars stalked back into the room, depositing a glass of water on the bedside table beside her, then squatting down beside the bed until he was eye-level with her.
“Heya, Minx.”
“Heya, Lars.”
“Don’t go.”
“I’ll come back.”
“Don’t go.”
A tear rolled over the bridge of her nose, and he caught it with his calloused thumb, raising the thumb to his mouth and pressing the wetness to his lips.
“Move over,” he whispered.
***
He stroked her curls off her forehead, loving the weight of her head over his heart, hating how long it would be until he felt it again. His still-racing heart throbbed with yearning, his mind desperately tried to find a loophole that would allow her to stay. Nothing in his life had ever felt as intimate, as visceral, as satisfying, as making love to Jane. Letting her go went against everything he felt, everything he wanted.
But she was leaving. In a few hours. He couldn’t shake the aching sorrow of her impending loss. His mind kept circling back to it.
“What will you do?” she whispered. “While I’m gone?”
“Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?”
“I have to do this. I have to try to make things right with him. How can I convince you I’m coming back?”
He stopped playing with her hair and laced his hands behind his head. “You can’t, Jane.”
“If Sara’s friend Laney will take the job, I can start training her immediately. Maybe I can come back for a weekend in November once she’s found her footing.”
“November.” He didn’t realize how much he’d been pinning his hopes on her return until he heard her say the word November. He had assumed that when she said she’d go back for a little while, she was talking about a couple of months. Now, she was talking about a visit in November. “Jane, when you talk about coming back, what’s the timeframe? When will you come back?”
“I don’t know for sure…it depends on how quickly I can find a replacement and train that person…and then—”
“When, Jane?”
She leaned up on her elbow. “The earliest would be after the New Year. F-February.”
He nodded at her, quickly, silently, holding her eyes. He knew they must look angry, furious even. “Five months.”
“I think so,” she whispered.