I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(73)

I shook my head. This was why I didn’t talk about this stuff. Liam thought he knew best, but he didn’t get it.

Tears gathered behind my eyes, and I drew in a quick breath, trying to put them off. I held Liam’s stormy gaze, the color of his eyes matching the sea in the painting he held. “Liam, you don’t get it. You are successful, wealthy, and date movie stars. Your life is privileged. You’re oblivious to the fact that your little brother was playing my little sister, completely broke her heart, and then turned around and tried to get girls to come over while his absentee brother focused on work. Then you come here and talk about painting like you have authority on the subject. I may not be perfect, and I have insecurities—”

“I’m not perfect either,” he cut in. “And I have insecurities too.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it’s different.” I scoffed. Liam, not perfect? Please. “When you have insecurities but people are telling you how much they love you or are giving you positive reinforcement, it’s easier to remind yourself that the thoughts in your head are only self-doubt. That you’re being too hard on yourself or that those thoughts are probably wrong.”

I drew in a long breath, doing my best to keep the tears at bay. I didn’t want to cry in front of him right now, but I needed to speak my piece. I held his gaze, feeling strong. The bitter sting of my rejections fell in fresh waves in my mind and gave me strength.

“But when your insecurities are being voiced aloud and consistently said to your face, it opens up that vulnerable place in your heart and makes them real. They become solid and tangible—no longer something you just worry about yourself and you hope is wrong. It’s not wrong anymore. It has become fact.”

Liam looked so sad and pitying that I stepped away from him. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want pity. I just needed him to understand why I had reasonable cause to walk away from my art.

“But what if they’re wrong?” he asked.

“They aren’t wrong. Maybe if I heard it from only one source I could believe that, but I’ve heard it from many.”

“Many other sources? You are still taking someone else’s opinion as fact. If art is subjective, then why are you allowing other people to decide whether or not yours is worth anything?”

“Because they are successful in the field.” Why was I defending my choices when Liam clearly wasn’t going to understand? He watched me with glittering eyes under a confused brow, and even while he was so infuriatingly stubborn, he was still the most handsome man I knew.

He shook his head and looked down at the painting he still held. “Your worth shouldn’t be dependent on other people.”

It wasn’t like that, and I didn’t know how else to make myself clear to him. We were not going to see eye to eye on this, and it begged the question: what else would come between us? Was it better to end things now, before they became too serious, to save ourselves the heartache later?

Painting was in my soul. It was a pastime I was never going to make into a career, and the way it had been ripped from me was part of who I was—it had shaped the course of my life and carved the path I now found myself on. If Liam could not understand my choices, then he couldn’t understand me.

A tear gathered and fell down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away. “I’ve had a long day, and I don’t want to do this right now. I think you should go.”

He leaned the painting against another one on the floor and reached for me. “Come on, Charlie—”

“No,” I said, stepping out of his reach. “It’s been a really long day. I didn’t sleep last night, work was hard, and I just . . . I’m done.”

“Okay,” he said easily. “I’ll go. We can talk tomorrow.”

“No,” I said, my voice sounding surer than I felt. My body had turned into ice, cracking and splitting under the pressure of the conversation, and I was afraid one touch from Liam would shatter me completely. “I don’t want to talk tomorrow. We’re so different. I don’t think we’re compatible. I don’t want to date for fun, and I said that from the beginning. We should stop wasting our time.”

“Let’s slow down,” he said, lifting his hands. “I don’t want to be too hasty about this.”

I held my ground. “I’m not being hasty. I’ve been thinking this from day one, and I just don’t want to pretend anymore.”

His face contorted, hurt and anger drawing his eyebrows together and staring at me hard. “Pretend about what? Your feelings? Because I’m not pretending, Charlie. I’m falling for you.”

His hurt expression ripped my heart out of my chest, but I wasn’t going to back down now. I couldn’t be in a relationship with a man who I felt was so utterly out of my league and constantly be afraid that he was going to wake up one day and realize I wasn’t gallery material—I was hobby material.

I needed someone I was confident in. I wasn’t a woman from 1815. It didn’t matter that we shared a name or that I felt I could relate to her—I’m not Charlotte Lucas. I was Charlie, a woman of the 21st century and fully capable of being alone as long as it took to find the right man for me.

Tears were falling rapidly now, like I’d opened the faucet and it wouldn’t turn off. Liam wasn’t budging, and I couldn’t leave; it was my house. I let out an exasperated little huff and wiped my eyes.