Page 53 of The Love Lie
“She asked me to keep it a secret,” Sam whispers, her voice torn. “All of it.”
“Well, that’s a fucked-up thing to ask of another person.”
“It was a small price to pay.”
“For what? For her health? Because the two aren’t related.”
“No.” Sam shakes her head sadly. “For everything she gave up for me.”
Cooper frowns. He’s not following, and it’s frustrating as hell because for the first time since he met her, he feels so close to understanding her. So fucking close. But he just can’t quite get there.
“Help me out here,” he eventually pleads. “Please.”
She waits a moment, licks her lips, and then sighs softly in surrender.
“Em got sick the summer before we were supposed to leave for college,” Sam explains slowly, each word a revelation pulled from some deeply buried spot. The more she speaks, the more quickly the words come, an avalanche waiting god only knows how long to be unleashed. “We were supposed to move to New York together, me at NYU and her at FIT following her dream to design jewelry. But instead, she…well, she found out she had a tumor. We both still went to New York, but Em went for treatment, not school. While I was out drinking, making friends, going to classes, doing all the stuff we were supposed to be doing together, she was meeting with doctors and having surgery and getting chemo. And I felt so guilty, but she wanted me to be having fun so badly, I couldn’t show her how awful I really felt. I didn’t want her to think she was ruining anything for me, because I knew that was how she would see it. So every time I went to sit with her in that fucking clinic, I’d make her laugh with crazy stories of wild nights out. I didn’t tell her how I criedmyself to sleep every night worrying what in the world I would do without her. I didn’t tell her how miserable I was. I couldn’t admit how much I just wanted to quit. But then she got better, and we all went home for Christmas, and I thought maybe it would be a fresh start, but it—it wasn’t.”
She takes an uneven breath.
“Jake came to the house over Christmas. He wanted to see Emily. He wanted to give her some stupid note. And I wouldn’t let him in the door. I was still so pissed at him for leaving her the way he did. Hell, I still am. So while she was back in the kitchen getting us ice cream, I practically shoved him off the front porch. The love of my sister’s life came to make amends, and instead of getting out of his way, I lied through my teeth. I told him Em sent me out. That she didn’t want to see him. That she hated him. If I’d just let him talk to her, if I’d put my own anger aside, they might have gotten back together that very night. Six years of my sister’s life, wasted because I thought I knew what was better for her than she did, and that’s not even the worst part.”
She closes her eyes as if trying to hide from the memories. He runs his hand up her arm and to the back of her head to massage her scalp. She leans into his touch. He offers what little comfort he can, not pushing but not retreating either, giving her time to find the words to continue.
“My parents aren’t rich,” she explains into the silence. Just like that, he knows where the story is going. “We took out loans even before Em got sick, and then after… Let’s just say cancer treatment in the United States isn’t cheap. She never explicitly told me, but I knew, when she told me she was transferring back home to a local art school, I knew. My parents couldn’t afford for us to both follow our dreams. I wanted to tell her I hated New York, that I wanted to come home to Georgia too if that’s where she was, but the look in her eyes, Cooper. She was acting so strong for me. I just couldn’t find the words to explain that I’dbeen lying, that everything she thought she was doing to make me happy was slowly breaking me instead. So she moved home, and I went back to New York, and that was that. She gave up FIT. She gave up the school and the connections that could have launched her career. She gave up her dreams. She sacrificed everything for me, and I just stood there and let her because I was too afraid of hurting her feelings to be honest. I mean, how pathetic is that? How fucking weak? How—”
“Hey.” He brushes away the tear cascading slowly down her cheek. “You did what you thought was right.”
“No.” She shakes her head sadly and takes a deep breath, sucking all her emotion back in. He watches in real time as she cuts the connection to her heart and jumps right back into the hard persona she wears as a shield. “I did what was easy. Instead of having a difficult conversation, I just went with what she said to appease her. And by the time the reality of what happened really sank in, it was too late. She’d already dropped out and transferred. She lost her dreams and the love of her life in one fell swoop all because of me, so I did the only thing I could do to earn back the loyalty I’d so deeply betrayed. I made two promises to myself. One, that Em would never know how depressed I really felt. And two, that money would never hold either of us back again. I researched lucrative careers, figured out which one fit me best, and worked my ass off to make it in a city that seemed to want to eat me alive.”
“Investment banking,” he states with sudden clarity. “That’s why you do it.”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she slides over until she’s straddling him and presses her lips to the center of his chest. But his mind is spinning.
“And that’s why you made our deal,” he continues as she works her way up his sternum. “That’s why you’re so determined to help her business. You think you need to make amends.”
Sam licks the tendon in his neck, then sucks gently on his skin. She glides her hands up his arms and slowly circles her hips. Heat barrels through his bloodstream. He knows exactly what she’s doing. Of course he knows.
“But that’s not what Emily would want.”
She flinches. It’s the smallest little hitch before she’s right back to peppering kisses along his jawbone. But he feels it.
“She’d want you to be happy,” Cooper presses, fighting the instinctual pull of her seduction as her hand drifts south. “I haven’t known her very long, but I know her well enough to know that much. She wants you to be happy more than anything.”
“I am happy.”
Liar, he thinks, but he keeps it to himself, because he knows it’ll only make her run.
She digs her teeth into his earlobe and tugs with a silent dare as she wraps her hand around him. “But I can think of something that would make me happier, cowboy.”
So can I.
He keeps that to himself too. She’s not ready to know the new plan coming together in his mind—the one to keep her. Now that she’s in his arms, he doesn’t want to let her go. Fuck the rules. Fuck the consequences. He’s never met anyone who challenged him so thoroughly, who made him want to stay in one place so long. He doesn’t want the morning to come. He wants to stay here in this room, in this night, wrapped up in these little revelations as long as humanly possible. Longer. Until he’s seen every part of her she has to give, and even then, he’s not sure it will be enough.
A salty droplet stings his tongue.
Sam buries her face against his neck, but he knows the taste of a tear. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. She doesn’t explain, perhaps because she’s hiding, but he hopes it’s something else.He hopes it’s because she understands that with him, she doesn’t have to.
Cooper sits up.
