Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(91)
Life didn’t afford a single mother many opportunities to relax, and certainly, once she and Ava Grace were in their new condo, there would be lots of work to be done. While she was here, perhaps she should just enjoy an hour to herself.
Careful not to wake up Ava Grace, she quietly slipped out of her yoga pants and pulled on some jeans and heavy wool socks. Her T-shirt came off next, and she chose a simple black cashmere turtleneck sweater as her top. Her black UGG boots were waiting for her in the closet, and she grabbed her chic black ski jacket and black leather gloves trimmed in gray rabbit fur. She plucked a gray rabbit fur infinity scarf from the top of the bureau and slid it over her unruly hair, which she pulled into a low ponytail against the back of her neck. Checking herself out in the mirror, she noticed that her face looked thin and tired, but at least her threads were fashion-forward.
Giving Ava Grace one last peck on the forehead, she slipped out of the room as quietly as possible, closing the door behind her.
***
With a dozen other guests staying at the inn, Erik hadn’t expected to have the fire pit all to himself, and after a long day of facing demons, he was relieved to sink into the plush, comfortable couch on the roof deck and pull a shearling blanket over his legs and chest. The fire warmed his face enough after a few minutes that he leaned his head back, staring up at the stars, and unbidden, he was reminded of Laire’s words the first night they’d made out at Utopia Manor: We’re just two tiny specks of dust in a big, wide world. But I feel so much, Erik. I feel so much, it’s like the whole universe couldn’t hold it even if it tried.
He winced, closing his eyes against the familiar, yet unexpected, swell of anguish.
How could she have broken up with him like that?
How could she have turned her back on him? Without notice? Without warning?
How could she have let go of something that had made them feel so goddamned much?
And why? Why, goddamn it?
He would have done anything for her—gone to the ends of the earth—to make her happy.
Borne anything. Tried anything. Waited forever.
He wasn’t even given the chance. She turned her back on him and disappeared before he even knew she was gone, and it was So. Fucking. Unfair.
His attention was suddenly drawn to the sound of the door to the roof opening, and Erik opened his eyes, taking a deep breath of icy air and trying to quickly regain his composure. He wasn’t in the mood for idle chitchat with another hotel guest, but he was a gentleman, and he’d exchange pleasantries for a moment before heading back downstairs for a glass of bourbon before bed.
He cleared his throat and sat up, looking straight ahead at the person who’d interrupted his starlit silence. Several feet away, she leaned her elbows against the stainless steel railing that ran around the perimeter of the space, her knees pressed against the Plexiglas that separated the railing from the floor, her face, in profile, turned upward as she gazed up at the sky.
She was about five foot four inches tall and slim, dressed in jeans and a black jacket, with some sort of fur scarf around her neck.
As Erik stared at her wordlessly, his lips parted slowly, and his heart sped up, faster and faster, as it always did when he saw a woman with that hair color. It wasn’t quite blonde in the moonlight. From where he sat, whether it was a trick of the firelight or real, her hair appeared to be strawberry blonde. Held low against her neck with a simple band, it was straight and long, just like . . . just like . . .
Sitting up straight, Erik didn’t feel the blanket fall from his chest, pooling in his lap as he traced the lines of her face in profile, tiny puzzle pieces he’d fiercely longed for finally taking their place before him—the slope of her nose, the pursed bow of her lips, the swanlike grace of her long neck.
“Jesus. It can’t be . . .,” he murmured breathlessly, rubbing frantically at his eyes. It was only because he was here, where her ghost was everywhere, where he’d been so happy with her. It was a trick. It wasn’t real.
But his whispered words, only in competition with the light snap and crackle of the fire pit, had carried in the quiet darkness, and when he dropped his fingers to his lap and focused, he found she wasn’t a trick of light.
She was real.
Laire Cornish was facing him.
“Holy shit,” he murmured, his chest rising and falling so quickly, he was becoming light-headed. Was this a hallucination? A fucking joke? Without his permission, his feet had planted themselves firmly on the floor, and he was rising, standing, bound by a mutual searing, disbelieving gaze to the woman not ten feet away from him. “Laire?”
Under her puffy little ski jacket, her chest rose and fell as fast as his, and her eyes—her beautiful, beloved, sea-green eyes—stared back at him, wide and shocked, as she nodded her head.
“What the fu—what are . . ...?” he asked, his words barely audible in his ears over the fierce thumping of his heart. He forced his hands, which were sweating and shaking, to land and stay on his hips as he choked out, “Are you . . . are you, um, stayin’ here?”
“Y-yeah,” she whispered, wincing as she gasped, then sobbed, two mammoth tears slipping down her cheeks like jewels in the moonlight. “E-Erik?”
One gloved hand darted to the railing like she was having trouble standing up, and Erik lurched from the couch to her side, taking her free elbow with a firm hand.
“Breathe,” he commanded.