Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(70)

I trailed after him, making no attempt to temper the volume of my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“You’re kidding, right?” He gave me just his profile, his handsome mouth curving into a bitter smile. “I saw how you twisted yourself up for Ben, how you lied to him about what you wanted and what you were feeling, about how you lied to yourself. How, whenever there’s some sort of imbalance, you feel like you have to work for the other person.” Finally, he faced me. “You’re not my employee, Scarlet. I don’t want you to work for me. So, no. I didn’t want the kind of relationship you had with Ben. I didn’t want that for us. I wanted you to choose me free and clear, free of debts, free of obligations. There. Is. No. Debt.”

“There is a debt! You gave up everything for me, and then, when you could have told me the truth—”

“No. I didn’t give up everything for you. I didn’t give up my family. I didn’t give up their futures. I didn’t give up my mother. I didn’t give up my job at Payton Mills. I have built a life for myself hoping—always hoping—you’d eventually choose me. You’d want me. Not because you owed me. That’s how this works, Scarlet. Love isn’t about giving up. It’s about never giving up.”





Chapter Sixteen





Claire





“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”

E.M. Forster, A Room with a View





“And then what happened?”

“And then!” I threw my hands high in the air, pacing back and forth in front of Sienna. “He left. He just walked out. And he slammed the door on his way out!”

We were currently in her room. She’d found me in the basement assaulting bread dough (i.e. kneading it) and gently talked me down from the ledge, convincing me to come to her room and talk things through. And so I had. I’d told her everything. EVERYTHING. Even how I’d lost my underwear in the barley field.

She’d told me Lucy Honeychurch would be proud, whatever that meant.

“What did you do? After he slammed the door?” Sienna sat on the arm of their couch, her arms crossed, her eyes wide as she tracked my frantic movements.

“After a couple of seconds, I walked after him, figuring he would’ve gone to his room, but he wasn’t there. So I went downstairs and searched this huge monstrosity of a house looking for him.”

“So, he tells you love is never giving up, and then he leaves?” She sounded as confused as I felt.

“Yeah. Exactly. He drives me crazy and he makes no sense!” I mimed strangling him.

“And you couldn’t find him?”

“No. No, I couldn’t.” An aching breath left my lungs and I stopped my frantic pacing. “I can’t. I can’t find him.”

My friend was quiet for a moment, and then slid off the arm of the couch and onto one of the cushions. “Knowing Billy, I can believe all of these things. This sounds just like him. I mean, being stupidly noble and making incredibly dumb decisions based on black-and-white assessments that require nuance and subtlety. I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell you the truth originally.”

“At first, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know where I was or how to reach me. Given what I now know about Ben, I’m convinced he didn’t want Billy to find me.”

“So . . . Ben was an asshole?”

I shook my head, feeling helpless to answer this question. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. Sometimes. But—and I’m not defending him—but aren’t we all assholes sometimes? He wasn’t a villain, but he definitely wasn’t a saint.”

“I disagree, but that’s something you should definitely discuss with your therapist. Back to Billy, why didn’t Billy tell you the truth when you came back to Green Valley?”

“He said he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to feel obligated to him.” I rolled my eyes. “But what he still doesn’t seem to understand is that I’m freaking in love with him and was looking for a reason, any reason at all to throw my promises out the window and jump his bones!”

“Yikes.”

“I know! I mean, when I told Bethany Winston that I’d stay away from her son, I had no idea—”

“What? Wait, what? Bethany asked you to stay away from Billy? When was this?”

“Ugh. Just forget I said that. It’s ancient history. The issue is Billy and this impossible situation. I want to be with this man and he doesn’t trust me to be with him without feeling like there’s a debt to be paid. And so, I feel like he’s never going to trust me about how much I want him unless I do something to clear the balance sheet between us and make him indebted to me.”

“Don’t do that. Then it’ll be a lifetime of keeping score and I, for one, hate math.”

“And I’m still mad at him. He hasn’t apologized! It’s like, he’s incapable of seeing this from my perspective.”

“You should seduce him.”

I frowned, certain I’d misheard her. “What?”

“Seduce him. Then, in the middle of foreplay, explain it to him. Men are much more receptive to admitting they’re wrong when they’re just about to get laid.”