Casanova(69)

I beat down the pain that was slowly making its way through my veins courtesy of my aching heart. “I don’t know.” Honesty sucked, but it was all I had left.

“What about now? What if I packed up my car and left, would you follow me now?”

“Would you want me to?”

“What difference does it make?” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “It doesn’t matter what I’d want you to do.”

“It does.” I scuffed my foot across the sand like a little kid, glancing away from her to the step that lead up to the house. “Makes a big difference,” I said, bringing my attention back to her. “If you told me you never wanted to see me again, I would let you go. I would hate it, but I would.”

“And if I didn’t say that?”

“Then I’d follow you to wherever you took me.”

Her bottom lip trembled, but she took it between her teeth to stop it. “Why?” she whispered after a second, blinking back tears again. “If I were anyone else, you wouldn’t even remember my name.”

“But you’re not anyone else.” I stepped closer to her, and when she didn’t move, I took another. I hovered my hand by her beautiful face before I lightly brushed my fingertips across her cheek. My touch swept loose hair back behind her ear.

What if this was the last time I saw her? Would she really leave? Maybe take her sister with her?

I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to forget what she looked like. From her dark eyes and lashes to the way the tiniest of freckles dotted the skin beneath her eyes, I wanted to remember. Even the wispy hairs around her hairline and the little chapped bit of skin on her lower lip.

All of it.

“You’re you,” I finally said after a moment of committing her every feature to memory. “That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s it.” Her lips twitched, but it wasn’t warm. It was...sad, because even as they flicked upward, somehow, the corners of her mouth were still turned down. “Tell me one more thing. Me. What am I to you? A means to an end? The mountain you finally conquered?”

“Neither of those things.”

“Then what?”

“Everything.” The word fell from me on an exhale. “To me, you’re everything.”





CHAPTER NINETEEN


LANI



I licked my lips and stepped back.

Everything.

That didn’t make sense. How could I be everything to somebody who was so used to treating people like they were nothing? When it came down to it, I was no different than the women who’d kept his bed warm for the last few years. Physically, we were made the same.

Mentally, I didn’t know if Brett Walker knew what it was really like to have someone be your everything.

“I need to go,” I said, my voice scratchy. “I can’t have this conversation anymore.”

“You can’t drive this upset.”

“I’m upset, not dying.” I pressed my hands against my stomach. “I just—I need to be alone so I can process this. I can’t...I can’t.”

I turned away from him and ran to where my shoes were on the sand. Barely stopping as I swept them up, I kept my attention fully focused on the steps that would take me back to Walker House and my car. At least I didn’t have to go back through the house. There was that, at least.

I slipped my shoes on at the top of the rock steps. I probably should have put them on before, but I didn’t care. I needed to get away from Brett—as long as I breathed the same air as he did, I was in trouble. I was at risk of breaking, because damn it.

I believed him when he said he hadn’t stopped loving me.

I don’t know why. I didn’t want to believe him. I had no reason to believe him.

No reason except the haunted, raw look in his eyes when he said those words.

And that? Well, he was a freaking good actor, but he wasn’t that good. Nobody could be that good.

“Lani? What’s wrong?” Camille rushed toward me, her car keys in her hand.

I shook my head and diverted around her to my car.

“Ask Brett?”

All I could do was nod in response. If I started talking, I would cry.

Hell, I was going to cry anyway. I was going to cry the damn second I got home, but I knew if I broke the dam holding it all in right here in her driveway, I wouldn’t be able to go home.

“Brett! What the hell did you do?” Camille shouted, walking into the house.

I got in my car, slamming the door behind me. Somehow I managed to dig my key out of my pocket and shove it in the ignition to start the engine.

Then I tore the hell away from the house.

I probably broke every speed limit in the state as I drove across town to my grandma’s house. Well, that was an exaggeration. I didn’t break any speed limits at all, but it felt like it. Probably because the roads were clear and the stop lights always ran in my favor.

It was almost as if the universe knew I was seconds from falling to pieces.

My tires squeaked as I pulled up outside the house. I turned my key in the ignition but left it there, my two key rings jangling as they hit into each other.

That conversation. The one I’d waited years to have yet hoped I’d never have to actually have. It’d happened, and it hadn’t gone the way I thought it would.