Tinsel (Lark Cove #4)(88)

“You already are,” she whispered.

My heart squeezed that she saw me like that. “I’m not there yet.”

“Where is there? You work so hard. You’re so ambitious. And I thought you were doing it for yourself. To be free and travel the world or whatever you wanted. I can give you that. Right now. And that doesn’t make you any less successful.”

“It’s not . . . it’s not just for the money.”

“Then why?” Her eyes pleaded with me for an explanation she’d understand.

“Because I want my family to see me as successful. So maybe they get why I left. That the life I’ve chosen isn’t a bad one. And if I take your money, they’ll never recognize my own accomplishments.”

Even with Dad gone, maybe because he was gone, the desire to prove myself was as strong as ever.

“Oh.” Her eyes flooded, and she blinked them rapidly to keep the tears from ruining her makeup. “So you’ll stay here. Struggling and working yourself to the bone. Making me watch as you refuse to let me help you.”

“Sofia—”

She shook her head, stepping away from me and out of the bathroom. Stripping off her towel, she tossed it on the bed and went to the closet. With her back to me, she pulled on some panties and strapped on a bra. Then she dug through the hangers for something to wear.

She’d unpacked her things into my closet the week she’d come here after Dad’s funeral. I’d been so fucking happy not to have her living in those suitcases this time around.

But after she pulled on a long sweatshirt-type dress that hung to her ankles and some stark-white tennis shoes, she paused. Her face was aimed toward the suitcase in the bottom of the closet.

Fuck.

She was going to leave.

I took a step forward, reaching for her just as she spun around. The tears in her eyes made me stop.

“If you asked, I’d give it all up.”

“I’d never ask,” I said gently.

“I know. But I’d give it all up. Every cent if it meant we could be together and on the same wavelength. Should I?”

“No.” I didn’t want that for her. She shouldn’t be without, forced to work for an hourly wage with a small-town job just because I had something to prove.

“It’s not fair.” She wiped a tear away from one eye before it could fall. “Why is it that money is the reason I can’t be happy? My ex-husbands just wanted my money. My feelings and my heart were an afterthought.”

I grimaced, hating those two bastards and the pain they’d caused her. Though today, I wasn’t doing much better.

“And now you.” She swung out a hand. “You want me but not my money. Why can’t I have both? Why can’t you just accept that it is part of who I am? Why can’t we share a life?”

“We can.” I hoped.

“How is that going to work?” She cocked a hip. “I decide to go on vacation. But you can’t afford a last-minute trip so you stay behind? Or how about something is happening at the studio, and I need to spend a few weeks in the city, but you can’t take off work because you need to make a few thousand dollars.”

“I’ll stay.”

“And I’ll go,” she huffed. “Separate lives. We’re doomed to live separate lives. You are so hung up on the version of your life you’ve been living for years, you can’t see the new version, the better version, right in front of your face.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted.

“I am.”

Without another word, she turned and walked out of the bedroom. I followed her down the hall and through the living room. But instead of going to the kitchen like I’d expected, she went to the front door, lifting her coat from the hook as she walked.

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“Don’t.” I snagged her arm, stopping her before she could put on her coat. “Don’t go.”

It didn’t take much coercing for her to drop her coat. Just a gentle tug on her elbow and she tossed it on the floor and came right into my arms.

“I don’t want to fight.”

“Me neither,” she said into my chest.

“What are we going to do?”

“You have to decide, Dakota. You.” She walked out of my hold. But instead of going to the door, she walked over to the couch and sank down on the edge.

I followed and sat by her side, relieved she hadn’t left. After how I’d left things with Dad, I couldn’t stomach leaving things undone with anyone, especially Sofia.

“I want to get married again.” She said it quietly and without hope. “I want to have a marriage. A real marriage with my best friend. I want children.”

I cringed, and she felt it.

Her eyes snapped to my profile. “You don’t?”

“It’s complicated.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. If she had reacted like this to the money conversation, my issues with children were going to send her racing out the door. “I feel guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“Yeah. Guilty. I wanted kids once. But then things got so twisted up. If we had kids . . .”

“Oh my god,” she gasped, figuring it out so I didn’t have to say it. “Your family. You can’t have kids with me because I’m white? You’d feel guilty?”