Page 53 of Skin Deep

Chapter18

Gigi

Regret ate me up inside. It would get to the point where it would spill over onto the physical. To the point where I’d jump from the yacht, if I was speaking in metaphors.

I hated myself for being weak-minded, for hurting the people who loved me.

Harrison didn’t love me, but I could tell something had changed between us on this trip. I’d shared things with him that I’d never shared with anyone else.

I’d never taken anyone to dinner to meet the older couple I became friends with when I first moved to the island. We met when I’d decided to try their place for dinner one night. The woman had told me she’d admired me because I was brave enough to eat alone. I didn’t feel alone, not with them. Then we started swapping recipes and I helped them cook. It became a tradition whenever I was in town.

I’d never shared the sunflower field, either.

I’d shown him a side of me that others rarely got to see. It was harder for me to be that woman because she ran deep. Deep enough for a man to follow the length of my veins, a clear path to my heart.

The other woman? She was who Harrison believed me to be.

Shallow. Hard. A bitch. A woman detached from everything around her. Because I couldn’t stand that side of my reflection.

The mirror always has two faces, remember?

How could I forget?

I almost gave him more of my truth when I’d admitted that my choices in men were not wise, and I wanted them to want me like he wanted her.

It was more than want, though. After spending time with Harrison, I realized that it was a need.

To have someone look at me that way. To follow me around the world because he loved me so much that any other man meant I was making a mistake. He’d fight lions for me.

He’d done the latter the night before. And that was when I knew—after our moment—that he did feel something for me.

The problem—I couldn’t get it out of my mind that it was pity he felt.

This gorgeous, loyal, and a bit boring man pitied me. I laughed at that because he was. He could be gloriously boring, but still interesting at the same time. He didn’t have to speed every second. He could take long walks on the beach, but he had the courage to jump off cliffs and into the water. He was protective, but he never made me feel like he wanted to own me. Yet he’d made me feel like I washis.

Harrison Ryan belonged to a rare breed of men.

And I fucked it up.

I am not enough.

I am sad.

I am so sad.

I am so lonely.

I hurt.

I ache.

Why am I not worthy of love?

Why am I never enough?

I want…love.

I need to feel it.

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