Hard Sell (21 Wall Street #2)(63)

When I finally do manage words, they’re hardly eloquent. “What?”

She flinches. “I know. I was surprised, too.”

I don’t move; I can only stare. “Sabrina, I thought—”

“It’s not like I’m joining a cult, Cannon,” she says, some of her usual sass returning.

“Might as well be.” The words are cold and callous, and I don’t mean them to be, not really. But to say she’s caught me off guard here is an understatement. I can barely think clearly, much less speak eloquently.

Her blue eyes seem to blaze at me as she comes closer. “You’re terrified.”

Damn straight.

“I’m confused. Just a few days ago, we were on the same page. You yourself said you wanted to avoid the emotional, messy stuff.”

“I know I did! And it’s precisely because of moments like this,” she says, sounding slightly frustrated. “Because this”—she gestures between us—“sucks.”

“Exactly,” I say, reaching out and grasping her shoulders. “So let it pass. It’s just the proximity messing with your head. We can go back to the way we were, just friends who enjoy each other’s company. Or we can go back to fighting.”

Just don’t leave me. Don’t walk away.

“Look, Matt.” She lifts her shoulders and eases away. “I’m not asking anything of you. I know I changed it up. You don’t feel the same, and that’s . . . f-fine.”

She stutters over the word as though it pains her, then takes a deep breath and continues.

“I get it. I’m not exactly thrilled, either, but my feelings are there, and they’re complicated, and they’re not going away anytime soon. You don’t want a wife who loves you, and I don’t want a husband who doesn’t love me. Where does that leave us?”

I close my eyes and try to sort out the mess of thoughts going through my head. “I don’t know.”

“Well I do,” she says matter-of-factly, as though she didn’t just drop the L-word up in here and destroy every good thing we had going on. “We need some space.”

“I don’t want some damned space!” I shout, opening my eyes again. “I want . . . I want . . .”

“What?” she says.

You.

I try to tell her out loud, but the words don’t come. It’s as though they’re buried deep, lodged in my throat.

“I want things back the way they were,” I say instead, hating the pleading note in my voice but unable to hold it back.

She says nothing.

I’m losing her. I know I’m losing her, and yet the only way of keeping her is to take that idiotic plunge, to go over the edge with her, and risk everything.

I won’t do it. She matters too much.

“Sabrina,” I say quietly, closing the distance between us. “You know I care about you . . .”

Her face twists. “Don’t. Please don’t do that.”

I clench my fists in impatience. “Don’t what, speak the truth?”

“Not if the truth involves some sort of placating but. You care about me, but. You want to keep sleeping with me, but. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I want what we have without the buts. I want what Ian and Lara have. What I suspect The Sams have. I want someone to be with me not just because it’s convenient and we’re well suited but because he can’t stand the thought of not being with me.”

I swallow, thinking of my parents. Thinking of how they made all those promises to each other, how they were supposedly once like Ian and Lara, but none of it lasted.

I think of how they are now. Indifferent to each other.

I won’t do that to Sabrina. I won’t do that to us.

But neither can I bear to see her unhappy. If this is what she needs . . .

I reach out and gently cup her face, my thumbs drifting over her cheeks. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want,” I say quietly. “But if you want to chase the fairy-tale ending, I won’t stand in your way.”

Her face crumples for a moment, but she recovers almost immediately, giving a quick nod. “Thank you. I still need some space, though, Matt. I can’t fall in love with someone else as long as I’m in love with you.”

I feel her words like a knife in my chest.

But I nod, knowing what she means. No more casual sex when it suits us. No more verbal foreplay disguised as arguments. And for me, no fellow realist—no more safety in Sabrina’s shared knowledge that love destroys relationships, not fosters it.

“Still friends?” she says, sounding more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard her.

My gut clenches at the word, somehow both vitally important and not nearly enough. “Of course,” I whisper, setting my forehead to hers. “Of course.”

Our arms slowly find their way around each other, and there’s a desperation to the goodbye hug—not forever, not for good, but goodbye to the way we were. The way we’ve become.

I press a lingering kiss to her temple. “Be happy.”

I hear her swallow, then she nods.

I pull back, intending to give her my standard cocky smile, but I can’t summon it forth. Not when I see the unshed tears in her eyes.

Her hands drop from my waist, and I release her with a backward step.