Wherever It Leads(50)

We don’t know each other well enough to expect loyalty. He doesn’t owe me anything and delivered on his promise of a fun few days. He’s allowed to change his mind, especially when his decision to see me again clearly was made under too much sun and too much alcohol.

I gather my courage, and tuck the rest of my belongings into my suitcase. Latching it closed, I pull it into the living room. He’s sitting on the sofa, his fingers flying across his phone. He glances up when he hears me.

“Are you ready?” he asks wearily.

I nod.

“Brynne, let me explain—”

“There’s nothing for you to explain,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. “We both need to get back. I get it.”

The air is thick and it stirs between us. Any other time it’s felt this way, he’s leapt through the space and kissed the shit out of me. But this time, he doesn’t.

He starts to speak but, before the words eke out, he blows out a breath and turns away. He grabs his bag and tosses it over his shoulder and turns to me again. “Leave your suitcase here. The bellboy will come and get it.” He gives me a quick once over. “Do you have everything?”

“I do.”

His bottom lip clenched between his teeth, he leads me to the door and I follow, giving the suite a final glance.



The car coasts along the highway, the palm trees drifting back and forth in the breeze. It’s a picture-perfect California afternoon, one songs have been written about and people have envisioned as they migrate here from all over the world.

I watch the trees zip by from the rear passenger’s window. Fenton sits beside me. Just as he’s done from the moment we exited our suite a few hours ago, he barely says a word. I get the feeling often that he’s going to say something, that he wants to say something, but it never happens. And each time his mouth opens and closes, my spirits tumble just a bit more.

Although he said we’d see each other after we got home, I know that’s not happening. I feel it. I can see it in his beautiful grey eyes.

I feel his touch, his fingertips brushing across the back of my hand. My throat tightens at the contact and I squeeze my eyes shut, relishing the feeling. Still-shots from the last few days fire off in my mind, images of the way the corners of his lips nearly touch his eyes when he laughs, the way his jaw ticks when I’ve riled him up, the way the smirk skirts slowly across his mouth right before he says something ridiculously sexy.

“Brynne . . .” My name on his lips is the cashmere Presley first described. It’s soft and rich and textured.

He draws another pattern across my knuckles and I remove my hand from beneath his. Turning to look at him, he’s scanning me, searching for something that I don’t know how to give him.

“Yeah?”

He takes a swallow, his throat moving with the force. I wonder if his feels as constricted as mine. If he feels the awkwardness, yet the complete easiness, between us.

“I’m going to be really busy for the next few weeks . . .” he begins. He doesn’t look me in the eye, and I think that’s the hardest thing about the start of what I know is an about-face to what he said before. Even though I knew this was coming from the moment I looked into his face this morning.

I keep my features neutral and unreflecting of the jagged pain I feel inside when his eyes finally drag to mine. The hope I’d begun to feel, the visions of things that might be possible, vanishing through my fingers.

“This, whatever this is between us, is probably going to have to be put on hold a little while,” he mutters. I can’t tell if he doesn’t want to say it to me, or if he doesn’t want to say it at all.

“I get it,” I say, forcing an insincere smile on my lips.

“It’s not like that.”

“You’re busy,” I point out, as much to myself as for him. “And you told me we’d spend a few days together and you made them memorable and have been over-the-top in generosity. There’s nothing for you to make excuses for.”

“I didn’t just tell you that. I told you I wanted to see you when we got home–”

“And I never believed you,” I lie to the both of us. “Scotch makes people say funny things.”

His head drops into his hands. He growls, running his hands across his face, scrubbing it harshly before looking back to me again.

“Whatever I say is just going to make this worse, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I agree, “it is. So you should probably just shut up.” His shoulders tumble forward and he grins. It’s the one I love most, the one that shows me that I get to him. That he doesn’t know what to do with me. I guess this time, he really doesn’t.

“I wish you would’ve let me have Presley pick me up at the airport. We could’ve saved ourselves this conversation,” I half-laugh.

“But I would’ve had to give up this time with you.”

His words choke me, bolts of poison cutting me to the core. How dare he say something like that now? I can’t look at him. I miss him already and he’s still a couple of feet from me. How am I going to feel when this car pulls away and I probably never see him again?

His hand picks mine up, engulfing my small palm in his. He clamps over it in a gesture I would’ve deemed territorial at this time yesterday.