Page 54 of I Love a Good Challenge

“How are you doing this?” I yell over the noise, not even trying to hide both my concern and appreciation of her tenacity.

Hesitantly, I step toward her again, hoping it’s not my face she has pictured each time she’s practiced this little exercise. Ensuring that all my best bits, besides my face, are hidden, I look around my gloves cautiously.

“That’s not.” Grunt. “The point.” Punch.

My heart is racing so quickly I think it might punch out of my chest. She gives an additional grunt, hitting my right glove again, this time with enough force that it stings and almost knocks her out on the rebound. The strength she has is otherworldly.

Lily motions with her gloved hands. “Can you help? Stay steady for me, please?”

“How often are you here, beating the crap out of something?” I reply. I’m panting, my sweat dripping to the floor.

“I told you. If I’m not loving you . . .” she begins then pauses abruptly.

“You took up boxing,” I state, no emotion in my voice. This is why I’ve been bothered by the whole situation. Once, she jokingly remarked that if she weren’t loving me, she’d be boxing. And here she is. “Boxing or loving me, right?”

I really don’t think I want an answer, but sometimes I think I romanticize what we had. She doesn’t spare me a glance but pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, the light sheen of sweat on her causing the shorter tendrils of her hair to stick to the sides of her face and the curve of her neck. I swallow. Lily goes back to punching, but I’ve had enough. It’s time to lay the truth bare.

“Why did you walk away, Lily?” The question is spoken in a low tone, but she hears it anyway. She freezes, gloves pressed together.

“Because I’m a mess,” she replies tensely.

“Not true. And not enough.” I shake my head. By some stroke of good fortune, the gym is empty, except for Edgar, and he’s now talking quietly on the phone across the room. “I need a reason. Please give me a reason.”

I’m practically begging, but my analytical brain has repeated the day she left me so many times that I need some relief before I go mad. I need someone to give me another angle, another way to see why our relationship failed. I think she’s the only person who can.

“You did nothing wrong,” Lily insists.

I shake my head again.

“Is that still not enough?” she counters with fire in her eyes. They’re turning a darker shade of grey as my words hit a nerve. I won’t let her get off quite so easy. Not after all this time. I’m not seeking these answers to hurt her. I’m seeking them to give us both a chance to move on.

I pin her with my gaze. “You can’t apologize for the wreckage without telling me the cause.” I’m breathing heavily, and I hate it. “Were we . . . too much?” She shakes her head. “Too fast?”

Again, a head shake.

“Too slow?” My brain struggles as it tries to compute what’s happening.

Tears brim in Lily’s eyes, but there’s no hostility. If I had to guess, I’d think the expression on her face looks like fear. But that’s impossible. How could my seemingly fearless, brave, spitfire of a woman be afraid of me? I release a sigh.

“Too . . . afraid?”

Her eyes flash upward. I know I’ve found the thread of truth. My mind races as my stomach fills with dread.

“Of me?” Instantly, I deflate, my hands dropping to my sides. “Did I do something?”

I feel as if I could vomit just thinking of a woman being afraid of me. I’ve witnessed that dynamic in my mother’s relationships with men. I vowed never to allow fear to be something a woman associates with me.

“No,” Lily hastens to assure me. “No.”

She brushes tears from her eyes, and I want to take her in my arms. But it’s not the moment. Not until we get to the bottom of it all.

“Not of you.” Her shoulders tremble as she shifts her frame from side to side.

I sense there’s so much more going on that she isn’t saying, but I can’t do anything without the truth. We’re stuck in a holding pattern. While I had called the time of death on our relationship a couple of years ago, being thrown together with her these past couple of months almost makes me believe in us again. When I held her the night of the Regency Ball—when I nearly kissed her—it made me feel as if I were coming out of hibernation.

Her answer now causes pain to shoot throughout my heart and my limbs. I know what it’s like when Lily confides in me, the look in her eyes when she’s fully with me, and the feeling of her body melting into mine when she’s in my arms. She ran in fear once, and then I repeated the mistake at the ball. I’m terrified to admit, even to myself, that I wish I hadn’t chucked the engagement ring I once purchased to offer her.

Now, I see what I didn’t see before. Lily is wearing herself out. Framed by her furrowed brow, dark circles hover under her eyes. Seeing her in pain, knowing she’s been afraid of . . . something that I triggered, gives me the courage to make this the last time. Our friends are getting married, and this battle between tension and hope has gone on long enough.

---