Page 30 of Journey to You

She stabbed a finger in his direction, all bristling indignation and fiery righteousness, and he’d never seen anything so beautiful. “And now I’m ready to take a chance on us, you start hedging? What’s with that?” She ended on a half sob and he leaped to his feet and reached for her.

“Don’t.” She held up her hands to ward him off and he couldn’t blame her.

He was still a screw up. No matter how far he’d come from that lonely, desperate, filthy, street kid who’d scrounged food scraps to survive, no matter how rich or successful, he was still the same wary guy who wouldn’t let anyone get too close.

But he had to fix this, and fast, before he not only ruined any chance they had of dating but shot down their new friendship too.

“Tam, listen to me. I—”

“Why should I? Give me one good reason why I should listen to you?”

She folded her arms, her stoic expression at odds with her trembling mouth and it took every ounce of self control not to bundle her into his arms.

He held his hands out to her, palm up like he had nothing to hide, and shrugged. “Because I care about you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Care, right. If you cared, you wouldn’t say you want one thing and act like a jerk when you get it.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, turning them a luminous green and slugging him harder than his first shot of alcohol as a shivering fourteen-year-old squatting in a Melbourne hovel desperate to stay warm.

Shaking her head, she swiped a hand over her eyes. “I don’t need this. I didn’t ask for it, but at least I had the guts to take a chance, so I’ll be damned if I stand here and let you play me for a fool.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

If she’d shouted, ranted, abused him, he might’ve stood a chance at convincing her otherwise, but her soft, empty words, frigid with contempt, reached icy fingers down to his soul, freezing what little hope he had left.

“You’ve got a week to figure out what you want.” She held a finger to his lips when he opened his mouth to respond. “Let’s hope by the time we get back to Melbourne we can still be friends.”

He reached for her hand, briefly capturing her fingertips, before she snatched it away.

“Tam, don’t do this.”

She fixed him with a superior glare at odds with her shaky hands. “Do what? Stand up for myself? Speak my mind?” Her mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “This ismytime now. Time I start looking after number one, and that’s me.”

She gathered her hair, piling it into a loose bun on top of her head before letting it tumble around her shoulders again. He loved watching her do it, an absentminded habit she did when stressed.

“I want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he said, increasingly out of his depth but wanting to do whatever he could to salvage this mess he’d made. “As far as I know, I’m the first guy you’ve dated since Rich and that’s got to be a big step for you.”

“But it’s my step to take!”

He’d never seen her so irate and for a moment he wondered if there was more behind her flare up. Was she nervous and covering it with bluster? Or was she as crazy for him as he was for her and had no idea how to control it, something he’d struggled with daily for way too long?

“For the first time in forever, I felt safe yesterday.” She sighed, the dejected slump of her shoulders slugging him. “At first, I thought it was the Taj, the overwhelming sense of calm that flowed through me when I stepped inside. But it wasn’t that.”

She raised her wide-eyed gaze to his, her unguarded expression beseeching him to understand. And he did, all too well. Tam needed a man to make her feel secure, to cherish her, to spoil her, to do all the things Richard had done.

But he couldn’t be that man. He couldn’t relinquish control of anything let alone lose it over a woman, no matter how special. However, now wasn’t the time to get into all that. The way things were heading, it looked like their first date may also be their last.

“It was you, Ethan. You being there with me, sharing it, treating me with respect, made me feel safer than I have in a long time…” She trailed off, shrugged, and took a step backwards. “Maybe it was the monument after all.”

“Tam, I’m not sure—”

She raised her hand, to ward him off? To say goodbye? “I’ll see you in Melbourne.”

While Ethan’s heart urged him to follow her, to tell her the truth, to make her understand, his feet remained rooted to the spot as he watched the woman who’d captured his heart walk away.

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