Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(92)

Looking up at him with green, glistening eyes, she sucked in a long, deep breath, filling her chest, which lifted her breasts again.

“Let it go,” he said, holding her eyes with his.

Her body relaxed in increments as she released the air, ignoring the stream of gray steam that disappeared over their heads.

“Do it again.”

She nodded and breathed deeply again, and he could feel her strength returning. As she filled her lungs, she pulled her elbow away from his grasp and took a step back. Despite the distance she imposed between them, she never looked away, her eyes incomprehensible, storming with too many emotions and not enough light for Erik to decipher their meaning.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered, crossing her arms over her chest.

Wondering if his proximity was actually doing more harm than good, he backed away from her as he would a frightened animal. Once there was a good three feet of space between them, he dropped her eyes for a moment, running his hand through his hair as he tried to collect himself.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said softly. When he looked back up, his hand remained curled around the back of his neck. He needed to hold on to something.

“I know,” she said.

His eyes narrowed at her response. “You never wanted to see me again.”

Because her lips were still parted, he could see her clench her teeth, flexing her jaw and flinching at his words. Finally, she murmured. “No.”

His heart clutched with pain at the stark, simple word.

You never wanted to see me again.

It occurred to him that this was his long-awaited chance to ask her why. Why didn’t you ever want to see me again? But fuck if a lump the size of the ocean hadn’t risen there, making it impossible for him to speak. And his eyes, focused on hers, burned from the prick of tears, making him blink rapidly before looking away from her, out at the Pamlico Sound, which had conveyed them, time and again, to one another.

He cleared his throat, trading pain for anger. “Well, too bad for you, then, because here I am.”

A small sobbing noise made him whip his head back to face her, his eyes drawn inexorably to hers, where he found such fathoms of grief, it made the muscles of his face flinch as his heart skipped a beat. His anger took a hike. He knew that look. He’d felt it every day for the six long years he’d been apart from her.

Agony.

“Laire?” he whispered, taking a step nearer to her, his hands reaching up to cradle her cheeks without his permission as his eyes owned hers, searching them for answers: What is it, darlin’? Why’re you so sad?

She took a step back just before his hands made contact, shaking her head, reaching up with her gloved fingers to swipe the tears from her cheeks. He dropped his hands, letting them fall uselessly, listlessly, to his sides.

“I . . . I have to go,” she cried, lurching away from the railing and hurrying toward the door.

“Wait!” he called, turning to follow. “Laire! It’s been six years. Please! Just fuckin’ wait!”

But the door had already closed behind her.

She was gone.

Again.





Chapter 20


Laire raced down the stairs, stumbling over her feet in an effort to get as far away from him as quickly as possible. Tears streamed down her face, and her heart—oh, God, my heart—throbbed with longing, with memories, with love, with hate, with disappointment and loneliness and the sheer horror of running into him without any preparation.

One moment, she’d been fighting against the memory of stargazing with him at Utopia Manor, and the next, he was standing across from her, staring at her, saying her name, holding her elbow, helping her breathe.

“Oh, God,” she sobbed, reaching for the door to her room, only to discover she’d somehow locked it from the inside before leaving. “No!”

She resisted the urge to rattle the knob out of sheer frustration, knowing it might wake up Ava Grace. Out of options, overwrought, and exhausted, she turned her back to the door and slipped slowly down to the floor. As silent sobs racked her shoulders, she compressed her body, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her forehead down on them, so her tears could flow freely.

Erik.

Erik Rexford.

My Erik.

The Governor’s Son.

Here.

Here with me.

Here with . . . Ava Grace.

She shook her head against the sheer insanity of it, reaching up to run her fingers into her hair until they met at the back of head, lacing together.

We should leave.

We should get in the car and go.

We could find another place. We could—

Except there were no other hotels near Hatteras with a working generator. Where would she go? All the up to Nags Head or Kitty Hawk? Were the roads even passable yet?

“Fuck,” she muttered, blinking against the watery burn in her eyes and sitting up. She could hear footfalls coming down the stairs, and she prayed it wasn’t Erik.

She should have known her prayers would fall on deaf ears.

Four doors down, at the entrance of the hallway that led to the main staircase, Erik Rexford suddenly appeared, looking first to the right, then to the left. His eyes landed easily on her crumpled form, crouched outside her hotel room door at the end of the hall.