Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(79)
It’s not that he actually thought about Laire very often. He didn’t. He didn’t allow it. But she was the truest and realest thing he’d ever known, or so he’d stupidly thought. He’d loved her harder and better than anyone who’d ever come before. And he didn’t intend to ever put himself through that misery again as long as he lived. If he didn’t love anyone, then no one could hurt him as Laire had.
It had become a challenge of sorts among the most charming, beautiful, successful women of North Carolina: to be the one who finally melted Erik Rexford’s frosty heart. But Erik knew something they didn’t—his heart was beyond touching, beyond warming, beyond caring. His heart had been crushed into a million pieces, then shoved back into his hands. It wasn’t just frozen. It has been broken first. And now it was virtually untouchable.
So they could call him the Ice Man as much as they liked.
It was perfect and he welcomed it.
At least any woman who went out with him knew exactly what to expect.
Not that he dated very often, if you could even call it that. When he needed a date, he had a slew of eager admirers ready to stand up beside him. And there was always Van.
Vanessa Osborn had grown only more beautiful in the years since Laire had shattered his dreams, and she was perpetually in demand. But when she was single, between boyfriends or fiancés or affairs, she was Erik’s preferred date to events and dinners, merely because he’d known her for so long. There was an easiness he found in Van’s company that owed itself to history and childhood. Maybe he still felt some small bit of warmth toward her since they’d been friends for so long. She was a good companion, funny and interesting. She knew how to drag out a small smile from Erik when no one else could.
And sometimes—sometimes when he was with her and felt an unexpected surge of longing for a home and family of his own—he wondered if she would eventually wear him down . . . and if he and Van would end up together in some affectionate, passionless arrangement. He knew that she still cared for him—that she would drop everything in an instant for the chance to be with him. He fought against the loneliness and weakness that might lead him down such a path because he knew in his heart that he’d ultimately destroy Van’s chance at happiness, the way Laire had destroyed his.
The bottom line was this: no matter what Van hoped, his regard, without his love, wouldn’t be enough for her in the long run. And he would never love Van the way he was, at one time so long ago, capable of loving a woman. His bitterness and disappointment would become hers, and ultimately he’d kill the light inside her that some other man would have cherished. Staying away from Van as much as possible was the best course of action. At least until she found someone who loved her.
“Erik?” said Hillary. “Are you listenin’ to me? Because I think you should go spend a few days out there. See the places where you and . . . and she spent time together and say good-bye to those memories. See if you can’t move on now. It’s been years. You need to face your past, or you’ll never be able to move forward. I mean, wouldn’t you like to love someone? Be loved by them? Maybe get married and have a baby?”
The problem was, the only time he’d really ever envisioned himself happily married with children was with Laire, and when she crushed his heart, she crumpled up that dream and threw it away.
“Do I look like I want a kid?”
Hillary stood up, her patience over, her eyes flashing. “Well, I’m not goin’ out there. My plate’s full. Either you go or you call Fancy up in Vermont and tell her to figure it out herself.”
“Hills—”
“No! You shut up. You just shut up!” She tucked the résumés under one arm, then crossed both arms over her chest. “You want to live in a cold dark place because love stomped on your heart once upon a time? Fine. Go ahead. But you’re damaged, Erik. You’re broken. You let her break you. And you’re still lettin’ her break you every day.” She nodded emphatically to make her point before continuing. “You have given the memory of some eighteen-year-old girl this . . . this . . . this power over you, and you know what I think?”
Erik narrowed his eyes. “Enlighten me.”
“I think you like it. I think it makes you still feel connected to her in some sick way. You’re like a . . . a male version of Miss Havisham.”
Whatever the fuck that means.
“But one day you’re goin’ to wake up thirty or forty or seventy, and you’re goin’ to have nothin’ good to show for your life. and you know whose fault that’ll be?”
Hers.
“Yours!” she cried, as though she could read his mind. “Yours. Because you chose not to move on. You chose to wallow in your memories of her. You wasted your life. Willfully. And it’s such a goddamn shame!”
He stared daggers at his furious little sister, wanting to say something to slap her back into her place, but no words came. His mind was a blank, her words reverberating in his head like pebbles in a tin can and just as annoying. As much as he hated to admit it, she made sense.
Turning around, she marched to the door and yanked it open, then looked back at him, raising her chin and pinning him with a sour look. “I’m not goin’ out to the Banks, Erik. Furthermore, I’m takin’ vacation time until after the New Year!”