Fight or Flight(101)
I shook my head, biting back my nervous laughter at his mischievousness, and gave him a little wave as he walked away.
Caleb’s gaze followed him and I swear he looked ready to stalk Leo and murder him.
Ignoring the zing of dangerous thrill at being in his presence again, I started to walk away. “So talk.”
“Where have you been?” he demanded as he caught up with me, grabbing hold of my arm to stop me on the bridge. A young girl passed us, giving us a quizzical look, and Caleb sighed, easing his hold on me.
My arm tingled and I had to force myself from taking the last step that would bring us chest to chest. Instead I looked up into his face, feeling too many emotions—anger, grief, loss, love, hate—to choose one. Anger, however, autonomously decided to trump them all. I yanked my arm away. “Not that it is any of your business anymore, but I had to go to New York to meet a new client.”
“Did you block my number?”
“Yes.”
He ground his teeth together, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “If you had just given me a second tae explain …”
“I’m giving it to you now.”
With a clipped nod, Caleb took hold of my arm again and started walking me off the bridge. We took a right just before the George Washington statue and Caleb stopped us at the end of the path, under the shade of a tree.
“I can see you better here,” he explained, his voice gruff as his eyes seemed to drink in every aspect of my face.
The intensity of his stare made me shiver in awareness and I had to pull my gaze away from his. “Talk, Caleb.”
“I think you’re wonderful.”
Astonished, I felt my gaze fly to his face to determine the seriousness of this statement. He looked at once fierce and sorry.
“I can’t let you think you’re anything else. I tried tae tell you that, but you ran out of my place before I could get the chance. As soon as I realized you thought I was … I’m not Nick. I dinnae think like Nick. No man in his right mind would, Ava. I am sorry for how I acted. I felt ambushed. I wasn’t expecting you tae turn up, let alone force that conversation. I honestly thought if I stopped calling you, you would just protect yourself and move on without ever confronting me. Bringing up nonsense about another woman … I acted like a child. And I’m sorry.”
Before I could even get over the monumental moment of alpha guy Caleb Scott apologizing and admitting to acting like a child, he reached for me, his palms on my neck, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. I knew he could probably feel my pulse racing beneath his hold. “You are the smartest, funniest, most caring, loyal, determined woman I have ever met. Having a beautiful face and a beautiful body doesn’t make you any less of those things and it doesn’t make you more attractive. Who you are makes you beautiful, Ava. When I met you, I thought you were sexy, aye, but the more I got tae know you the more beautiful you became. You are a find, wee yin. A precious find.” He pulled me closer, and I gasped at the frustration and pain in his eyes. “If it could be anyone … it would be you, Ava Breevort. In a heartbeat. But I just …” He sighed, a shuddering, harsh sigh, and I felt the hopes he’d just built up crash as he let me go and stepped back. “I dinnae have that left tae give. She killed it when she—” Caleb cut off, his voice breaking, and he glanced around the gardens as if seeking something.
When he didn’t find it, he stared off into the distance and whispered, “I need you tae be a good memory.” He wrenched his eyes to me again. “I could handle almost anyone else in my life turning into a regret. But not you. I can’t have what we had together going bad. I was an arse for trying tae make it that way. So we end it now the right way. In honesty and kindness. Because I can’t regret you.”
His words were agony. Tears of exasperation filled my eyes. “You know it would have been better if you never tried to explain. Better for me to think of you as a bastard than—”
“Than what?” he bit out impatiently.
I shook my head. “Caleb, don’t you see? You changed me. You made me brave enough to fight against what I was most afraid of and admit that I’m in love with you. I wish I could make you feel brave too. But that’s not going to happen apparently.” I swiped at my tears but refused to break eye contact. He needed to understand the reality of what he was doing to us. “Just because you’ve decided I’m not worth the risk doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to take it again. So I have to thank you for that. Because it might take weeks, months, but I will fight to get over you. I will fight to find someone who loves me and wants to make a future with me. I will move on.”
The look on his face … it nearly crippled me.
Caleb didn’t hide behind his usual blank mask. No. He looked furious and tortured and resentful of my words all at once.
I placed a hand on his chest, over his heart, hating to hurt him like he had hurt me but knowing it was necessary to get through to him. “Does that hurt, Caleb? To think of me with someone else?”
His answering expression was almost menacing and it said it all.
“Then don’t you see? If you don’t fight for me, if you let me go … there is no if or maybe about it. You will regret me.” I reluctantly dropped my hand from his chest, waiting for him to answer. To wake the hell up!
All he did was stare at me, so visibly conflicted I had to fight not to comfort him. Instead I turned to my disappointment and my resentment of him because they were the emotions that bolstered me. They stiffened my spine and gave me the strength to walk away from the man I loved.