She shrugs. “I’m not really sure. I’ve been so busy taking care of Mrs. Hooper and notifying everyone that I haven’t had time to?—”
“Come to Ackerley with me.”
“What?” she says with a frown.
“You heard me.”
She looks so stunned that it takes her a minute to respond.
Hell, I’m feeling pretty stunned by this turn of events myself.
“I can’t stay with you,” she says. “It’s a terrible idea.”
“You can and you will. You need a place to stay for the rest of summer, right?”
I don’t like adding that last bit. Putting a timeline on it doesn’t feel right, and if it did, I’d choose one a lot longer than the end of the summer. But if that’s what it takes to convince her, then so be it. We can worry about extending the time frame later.
She shakes her head. “You don’t want to be saddled with me, Lucien.”
If only she knew how obsessed I am with her. What a joke. “I’ll worry about what I want and don’t want.”
“You’re so kind,” she says, and she does look touched if not tempted. “But it’s a bad idea. We both know it.”
Yeah. I know it for sure. Ackerley is too full of my old life. My regular life. Too many things happened there, and I’d hate for any of them to affect my budding relationship with Tamsyn. Plus, I keep thinking about her comment about ghosts in Venice. I don’t believe in ghosts. But if I did, I’d add Ackerley to the list of ghost-friendly places, along with Savannah, New Orleans and Venice.
On the other hand, I want to show her my world. I want to share it with her.
She’d love it there. I know she would. Maybe all it takes to lift the darkness from the place is a little of Tamsyn’s sunshine.
“I’m not kind,” I say. “Get that out of your head. You need a place to stay. We enjoy each other. Come stay with me. Make me happy.”
A sad smile from Tamsyn. “Do you do happy, Lucien?”
She’s got me there. Does it matter that I want to do happy but have never figured out how? “Come home with me. Let’s find out.”
She turns away again for a second. Swear to God, all my breathing stops while she thinks it over. When she turns back, she seems so vulnerable—so sweetly hopeful—that I can’t take it.
Something about this one woman absolutely rips me to shreds. She’s tapped into my inner caveman and established a direct and open line to it. Anything or anyone that tries to hurt her from this point forward will only do it by going through me. When she looks at me like that? I’d kill for this woman. No questions asked.
“I’m kind of a mess right now. You know that, right? My dad died recently. Mrs. Hooper suddenly doesn’t need me anymore. I don’t even have my own apartment yet. You and I may or may not be in a relationship that may or may not be good for me. I feel sort of, I don’t know…adrift.”
“I know, angel,” I say, and I didn’t know the endearment was there or where it came from. But I don’t plan to take it back.
“I don’t mean to dump all this on you. I just want you to understand,” she continues. “I don’t think I can take anything else anytime soon. No more emotional turmoil. It’s too much.”
“I know.”
“I want to be with you. I’m just not sure how good you are for me.”
I take her beautiful face in my hands and stare into her shining brown eyes. I love those eyes. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you. Trust me.”
“Yeah?” she says, brightening.
“Yeah. Come here.”
I pull her close and breathe her in, because I have no intention—absolutely zero fucking intention—of letting her go. And if I’m tiptoeing too close to the line of feeling, I don’t know, things for her, I plan to stay on the right side of that line.
I also don’t plan to let anything remotely unpleasant happen to this woman.