Page 126 of Worth Every Moment
I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that I told my father he could take everything from me and I wouldn’t care if I still had her. I’d still choose her. That the only reason I’m not fighting him this time is because I can’t let him destroy her career.
My father is a cold-hearted bastard, and I will destroy him for this, but I cannot let it impact Erica. She’s going to walk away from me and go straight to Hollywood. The Oscars. Super-fucking-stardom. I will not get in her way. I will sacrifice everything so her dreams can flourish.
“You’re right,” I say. “I did, and it was unfair. But I gave you all I had to give. My heart is yours. I’m pretty sure it has been all this time. And it will be, even after I’m married. I love you, totally, completely, obsessively. For years, I waited for you to think I was good enough. For you to want me too, but you never fucking did. So this was it for me. This was my last chance to ever have you, and call me a bad fucking man if you want to, but I took it.”
She swallows hard, looking as though she’s holding back more tears. For a second, hope swells that she might give in. That Imight be able to take her in my arms. But her next words are spoken with such vitriol that I know I can’t.
“How could you do this to me? If you really cared as much as you say you do, you wouldn’t have let this happen. You wouldn’t have hidden this from me. You humiliated me in front of everyone. Your whole family. The whole world. You think this won’t be in the media as soon as word gets out?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I step towards her but she steps back, maintaining the distance. “If it were up to me, I’d give you everything, forever. This was never fake for me. Every fucking moment was real, and even though I knew you didn’t feel the same, and I’d never really have you the way I wanted, it was worth it. Worth every moment of agony, knowing I loved you and you didn’t feel the same. Worth every moment, because you’d never have had me any other way. I would have done anything for you. I still would. I love you. I’ll always love you.”
She draws in a shaky breath, shoulders trembling, and locks onto me with such a potent stare that I feel myself tied to her. Chained, heart to heart. “Then call it off.”
It’s as good as a confession from her, but I can’t meet her halfway. “I can’t.”
She lets out a wail, clutching her chest. “Is she pregnant? Is it yours?”
“What? No. How can you ask that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Because you fucked me without a condom. Maybe you do it all the time. Maybe there are hundreds of tiny Sebs running around the world, and you don’t know any of their mother’s names.”
The accusation hits like a punch to the gut, nearly taking me out. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” she snaps, then her chin quivers, and she repeats it, much quieter this time. “I don’t think itis ridiculous.” She crumbles, finally breaking and sobbing real fucking tears that run in makeup ridden tracks down her cheeks.
Her heartbreak cracks through my chest as though it’s mine. It probablyismine. A sharp, painful agony that tears at my lungs, rising up my throat with each breath. I cross the sand, taking her in my arms.
“No,” she says, pushing me away. There isn’t a hope in hell she could actually shove me off, but she keeps trying. “Fuck you, fuck you.Fuckyou.”
“You love me,” I say, and she stops, looking up at me. “Tell me you love me.”
The air swirls hot around us.
She yanks herself free. “You bastard. You heartless bastard.” She launches herself at me again, shoving both hands into my chest, tearing at my shirt with her nails, but then her arms collapse, and she folds, sinking against me, sobbing into my shirt. “I love you. I love you. Of course I love you. And I fucking hate you for this. All of this.”
A raw, aching groan escapes me, and she reaches up to my face with trembling hands, cupping my cheeks, stroking a thumb over my cheekbone, wiping away a tear I wasn’t aware had fallen. She kisses the same spot, again and again, and then moves to the other side, kissing deliberately as though there are more fucking tears she’s trying to get rid of. Pain courses through me, swelling and receding with the reliability of the tide, each crest of it worse than the one before. “Don’t do it. Please, don’t do it.” She kisses my lips. “We could run away. You and me. We can go to Hollywood.”
“Because no one would ever find us there,” I say with a dry laugh.
“You could come with me,” she continues. “Live with me. Leave your dad and all this shit.”
I slide my hand to the back of her neck, and everything in me wants to say,‘Yes.I’ll come with you. Live with you. Support you as you take this next step in your life.’But if I go with her, there is no next step in her career. There is no Hollywood. No movies. And I know how much she wants that. Needs that. More than she needs me. “I can’t.”
Her hands skip over my face, fingers stroking every part as though she’s trying to memorise my bone structure. Every curve and line of my face. It’s not sensual or erotic, but desperate, as though I’m dying and any minute now she’ll lose me forever. “So this is it? This is all I get?”
I nod, unable to force the affirmative from my lips. I hold her closer, burying my face into her hair, inhaling her scent, feeling her bare skin beneath my hands.I don’t want to let this woman go.
“You’re going to marry someone else? Raise a family with her?” A lone sob breaks free. “Do you even know her?”
“I’ve spoken to her, yes.”
Erica’s sobs spill out uncontrolled, painful to listen to, and the sound draws tears to my eyes too. My shirt is damp, black streaks of mascara marring the white fabric.
Inside, I’m breaking. “You’re the only woman I’d want to marry,” I whisper. “The only one I’d want to have children with. Raise a family. You. Only you.” I lift her hand and press it to my chest. “Even if you hate me for the rest of your life, my heart belongs to you. Forever.”
With a gut-wrenching scream, she pushes away from me. A fury I’ve never seen before swims in her eyes. “That means nothing.Nothing. I will never forgive you for this.”
She turns, grabbing her shoes from the beach, and runs, feet sliding in the sand, racing towards our cabin.
