Page 76 of Degrees of Control

The stupidity of this situation hit her at full force and she began crying in earnest. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep coming here.”

James clasped both of her hands. “Charlotte, I know you think I’m a dog, but don’t say that. It doesn’t have to be the way it’s been. I’m sick of pretending I don’t want more from you when that’s the only thing I want.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to be with you properly. I want to be your boyfriend.”

She gaped at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.“What?”

“I mean it, I want us to be together. I think I love—”

She clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t. Don’t say that.”

James looked up at her, utterly miserable. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a piece of shit, but you felt somethin’ for me once and I swear I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you. You’ve changed everything. When I’m with you I feel, okay. Good.Alive.”

Charlie felt fresh tears rolling down her cheeks like rain. “I’m not a big believer in the ‘good girl reforms bad boy,’ James. You told me you weren’t ready for a girlfriend.”

“I lied. I was a fucking coward and I was scared. I want what we had again. I want to fuck you in your bed and protect you and take you out for dinner and make you laugh.”

The sincerity shining from James’ gaze made it all the harder to say what she knew she had to. “What if I think you’re not ready for a girlfriend?”

“If this is about the drinking and fucking around, I swear to you I’ll stop.” He pressed a hand to his chest, right next to his tattoo. It was his family crest, she’d learned. The Hunter family crest. “Charlotte. I’ll do anything.”

She closed her eyes. “Drinking and fucking around isn’t the problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There are a million reasons why you’re not ready for a relationship! You’re apathetic about pretty much everything, you push me away, you hate being vulnerable, you don’t like commitment. Deciding that you love me doesn’t change any of that.”

“ButIcan change.”

“Can you? Really?” She wiped her face on her arm, leaving a shimmering silver trail. “I think something happened to you, James. Something that made you believe you’re not worth anything, I can feel it whenever we talk about your family and I hate that you feel like that, but I know I can’t fix you.”

James’ face was blank. “Charlotte, I can’t—you don’t understand…”

She put her fingertips to his mouth. Even kneeling down, James’ head reached her torso. He was so much bigger than her, richer and better-looking. How was she the one who was standing over him? “I know you’re hiding something, okay, I know. You don’t hide it half as well as you think you do.”

James turned his back on her, his hands clenched at his sides. “I can’t talk about that, not with you, not with anyone.”

Her stomach dropped. It hurt just to hear him confirm her suspicions. “Please, can’t you just tell me what happened and we’ll sort it out? It’s always easier with everything out in the open—”

James stood and moved toward the door looking as though he had half a mind to leave his own apartment than answer her question.

“James…”

He stalked back toward her, his chest and abdomen rigid. “Whatever happened to me, it’s in the past. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. I’m in love with you. There I said it, love. All you have to do is tell me that you love me back.” His hand brushed over her cheek. “Please just tell me you love me back and we’ll go from there.”

Charlie hugged both arms across her chest, wondering if she’d ever felt so alone, so helpless.

James stared at her. “Baby…please say something.”

“Whatever I feel for you, whatever you feel for me, it won’t work like this, James. I can’t love someone who makes me a distraction from his own unhappiness.”

He stepped back, the light from his bedroom lamp gleaming on his golden skin. “What? How do I make you a distraction?”

“Tonight, you could have called me and asked if I was seeing Travis. I would have told you in a heartbeat. Instead, you tied me to your bed and played some fucked-up sex game that hurt both of us.” Charlie drew in a deep shaky breath. “You push me away and ignore my feelings and if you’re like that now, what will it be like when we’re partners? How would I ever feel close to you?”

Deathly silence filled the apartment and it seemed to Charlie that her words hung in the air like fog, poisoning whatever once blossomed between them. She watched as all color fled James’ face. He wandered over to the bed and sat down. Charlie went to him, reaching forward to embrace him, but he gently moved her hands away. “Not now, Charlotte.”

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