Page 114 of Between Love and Loathing
“So, I get my kittens back today?”
I didn’t answer that. “How’s your flare-up doing? It’s gone down a bit.”
I studied the emotions flying over her face, how she touched her cheeks that I knew she covered up because of the rash but I also saw that it had faded. “You noticed?”
“I notice everything about you,” I told her and meant it. Every moment I caught with her was beautiful and I didn’t want to miss a single one. Clara Milton was stunning in her strength to overcome every obstacle that had been thrown her way.
“I’m not used to people noticing, I guess.” She picked at a linen napkin on the table before she cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m okay. I’ll meet with doctors next week.”
“Good. I’ll come if you’ll let me.” My jaw ticked. I couldn’t command her here like I could within the resort and with her bakery. Her life was hers, but I wanted her to trust me enough to allow it.
Her eyes sliced to me then, studying me. “Since I’ve been here working with you, you’ve told me to own it, Dominic. So, I’m going to. I heard your conversation with Natya the night I left.” Her voice was shaky.
“Okay?” I dragged out the word, not sure why it mattered.
“You said you used me,” she whispered. “On the phone with her, you said I was the perfect girlfriend to her.”
“What?” I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I keep wondering if you just nurtured and pretended to like me so I would do all this perfectly?”
“You didn’t hear the whole conversation then, Clara.” She couldn’t have or she wouldn’t have looked so broken. “Of course I would have done anything for this resort, but we agreed to all this together, and then—”
I saw how her mind was racing as she frowned though. “You taught me how to hold myself confidently, to relax into your touch, to be the idea of what you thought was the perfect girlfriend. But I’m notjustan idea, Dominic. I just got away from my mother and sister treating me just how they wanted.”
Her and this thing about ideas, I was starting to get it though. Clara had been a tool for her family for too long and she was feeling the same with me. “If I was only molding you into the perfect fake girlfriend or real one for that matter, Clara, I wouldn’t have had you change all the colors in my resort and put a bakery in the center of it that everyone is obsessed with.Weagreed to start out like that, okay?” Didn’t she see that?
“No. That’s not fucking okay.” She blurted out and then looked shocked that she had. “I fell in love with you, Dominic. I fucking loved you.”
“Youdolove me. Don’t do that.” Her use of the past tense had my jaw tightening, my throat burning.
“How could I love a man who was using and molding me into some idea as I fell for him?” She replied and then she leaned back in the chair to look me over. “You know that Valentino asked me tonight what I saw in you? I saw the artist, the man that wouldn’t stop even when everyone told him something wouldn’t work. Having a resort taller than the tallest, one that jutted out into the ocean, or a completely transparent bridge. You proved everyone wrong, and I looked up to that, respected it. You know why? Because you defied logic, and you owned it. You told me to own it too. Over and over again.”
I didn’t say a word. Her lip trembled, and I knew there was more coming.
“I’ve felt undeserving my whole life. Not good enough. Too big, too small, hair too red, too many freckles, too much or little of something. And I wanted to defy that logic too. I started to believe I could with you. You’re a master at it, defying logic, constructing something beautiful from something not. But now, I think… I know, I don’t want to be anything but myself. And now I’m not sure if everything you want me for who I am or who you want me to be. Was all this a lie?”
“They weren’t lies, Clara.” My teeth clenched together. “We’re not a lie. Take it back.”
“I won’t,” she whispered. “Because I don’t know. You said youwantedto believe we were meant to be together on the beach that night. You didn’t say youdidbelieve it, that you wouldfightfor it, that you would fight for me.”
She tried to stand up in her anger, but I caught her wrist before she did, and she sat back down to listen to me. “You think I haven’t been falling too? Of course, everything was real, even when I didn’t want it to be. You’re the damn light in my world that I didn’t want.You. Nothing else. I told you that. I knew I was going to be that black hole that snuffed out your light, babe. I didn’t expect you to instead explode within me and fight off all the darkness.”
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to wrap my mind around how I felt for her and explain it. I heard her sigh and start, “Dominic, maybe we—”
I cut her off. “I said Iwantedto believe we were meant to be that night only because I don’t believeanyoneis good enough for you, Clara. But I’m going to try every day to be good enough. Don’t you see? Every idea I thought I wanted out of my life was obliterated when you stepped into it. You changed the trajectory of everything, and I fought to keep my sanity, to not fall victim to what I had before because loving you is much more fatal than loving anybody else. Any idea or person. If you leave, I’ll lose the life you gave me back.”
She stared at me for moments. Maybe minutes. Her mouth opened then closed. Then she asked softly, “You want me to apologize for being lovable?”
“Yes,” I bellowed. “I want you to apologize for making this resort something I don’t even give a damn about. The papers could write that the resort was my baby for days and I wouldn’t give a shit now. They could rip me and the resort apart and if they left you out of it, I’d be happy. I’m obsessed with only your well-being. With being with you. And you’ve done that. You can apologize for being irresistible. Being you. Being everything I wanted but don’t deserve.”
“You don’t deserve me if you were trying so hard not to fall for me,” she whispered, and that shit broke my heart because she was right. I couldn’t even correct her.
“No one deserves you. But I tried not to fall for you, Clara, because of the fear I feel now at losing you.” I told her and then looked at the table between us, at the restaurant another man had invited her to. “But I’ll be damned if anyone tries to have you over me. I’m yours and you’re mine.”
“You don’t get to make that decision alone, Dominic.”
“I know, but I’m going to show you that over time.” There was a brilliance to Clara Milton, and I was sure no one could compete with it. They’d have been stupid to try. ButIcould show her that.
