Always (11 page)

“I can’t do this anymore, Eamon.”

“What? You just told me you loved me. You have to give me a moment to process.” He took her hand, kissing the palm and she allowed herself a moment, eyes closed, to love the gesture, to receive it as his way of responding even if he didn’t acknowledge it verbally.

“Process what? This has been between us for over a year. We speak nearly daily. I’ve shared my hopes and dreams with you. It’s not just sex between us. It’s not just friendship. We’re not dating. It’s more than that for me. I love you,” she repeated. “I want to be in a relationship with you.”

“This is a relationship. Of sorts. Whatever it is, it’s good. Why do you want to change it?”

She nodded, trying very hard to stay calm and rational when she wanted to demand he pony up and make a damned decision. “Of sorts is a good way to put it, I suppose. I thought I could keep on rather than let go. I was scared to push so I let you put me off over and over. But in truth, I need more than just a few days here and there. I want to see you more than three times a year.”

“I’m not ready for this discussion. For this step, Caitlin. I feel very deeply for you. There’s no other woman in my life. There hasn’t been since December before last. But I have a condo and a business in Los Angeles and you have a job in Seattle. What do you propose we do about that?”

“Not ready? You can’t claim you didn’t know this was coming. I’ve brought it up multiple times. As for what I propose to do about our different situations? Nothing if you’re not ready to think about it. Which you clearly aren’t. I can’t be the source of panic in your life. I don’t
want
to be a responsibility or a burden and I don’t want to be a decision you make rather than a choice.”

“What the feck does that mean? Decision is the same as choice.”

It settled into her with horrible and yet certain reality. She had to take a stand here, no matter the outcome. Once she’d finally said the words there was no going back.

“No it isn’t. I want you to choose to make your life work to be with me. I’m asking you to make a move to Seattle work. I’m asking
you
to be the one who makes the sacrifice and moves. That’s choice. A decision is what you do when you have to take care of an ailing parent. It’s borne from responsibility and duty. I want to be a choice. I want you to want to be with me and to make it happen.”

“But you want me to do all the work. Because some arsehole fucked you over, you won’t move for anyone now.”

She shook her head, shoving back her frustration, wanting him to hear her. To
understand
. “That’s not it and you know it. It may have been at another time. It may have been even a few months ago. I’m willing to make many sacrifices for you. But being reasonable here, let’s lay it out. We can
both
have dreams in Seattle. Your business has you traveling all around as it is. I did some research on Seattle’s environment for a small business like yours. It’s just as good as Los Angeles considering how international you are anyway. My job is specialized. There aren’t a lot of openings for what I do. Add to it the fact that Washington doesn’t have reciprocity, meaning I’d have to go through the bar prep all over and essentially start from zero in another state without contacts when I have my dream job here. When you weigh that, my staying and you moving makes sense.”

“So now you’re making a spreadsheet about my life? So you can have me in Seattle? Because you think you love me?”

She touched his face. “Don’t. Don’t minimize it. I
know
I love you. I’ve known for months. But love isn’t everything, Eamon. It’s not enough.” She leaned in and kissed him softly.

“What does that mean?”

“After tomorrow, once we get back home it’s over. This isn’t enough for me. I need more. I deserve a man who’ll choose to be with me.”

“What? This is ridiculous. You say you love me and then you break up with me? All because I won’t give up my life to be with you? You knew from the beginning that I was based in LA.”

“I did.” She slid back down into the bed. “If you think moving to Seattle would be giving up your life I really don’t want to be with you. I’ve felt that way and I never want to be the source of anyone else feeling it. Especially you. We can still be friends. I don’t want to lose that. I can’t imagine you not in my life in some way. But just friends. We’ll have one last, lovely day and then we’ll both move on.”

He got up and began to pace. She desperately wanted to cry but wouldn’t. She didn’t want him to feel guilty nor did she want to feel like her tears would manipulate him.

“How can you just spring this on me now?”

“Spring it on you? Eamon, that’s not fair. I’ve tried to talk to you about this multiple times over the last few months. You said yourself we’d talk here and then you changed the subject over and over. Would you rather I did it on the phone? Via email? At the airport tomorrow? When is the right time to risk yourself and tell someone you love them and want more?”

“You’re giving me an ultimatum. That’s fucked up.”

She nodded. “I am and yes, it’s not fair. I’m sorry. I wish I could keep on this way but I realized as you were inside me just now, when I felt like I’d never been closer to any other person, that I can’t. I want all of you and I had to demand it since you wouldn’t just talk to me. I don’t want a
hey let’s get together in two months and have sex for a week
sort of relationship. Not with you. I love you. I want to be with you. I’m not trying to be unfair or unreasonable and yet, I can see why you think I am.”

“So you’ll let this go? Let us go on? Because I care about you. Deeply. More than I’ve ever felt for another woman and I don’t want to lose what we have.”

“No. I mean that part.”

He turned, his face plainly wearing the anger and frustration he felt. She
knew
he loved her, he didn’t need to say it back for her to know. But there had to be more.

She held her hand out. “Come back to bed. We’ll have this last day and when we go home, it’ll be as friends. Always that.”

“This is wrong, Cat.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t want to hurt you. We did this before and we came out just fine. We can do it again.”

“Five years ago I didn’t feel for you what I do now. You’re part of my life. I don’t want this.” He stalked back to the bed and grabbed her, hauling her against him and inside she broke at the knowledge this would be over in a day. He’d go back to his life, she to hers and there would be nothing else. For a moment, she considered relenting but she had to be strong.

His mouth was on hers, stealing her breath. His hands against her hips, fingers splayed, held her tight to his body as he continued to take from her with sweet, drugging kisses. She drowned in him and didn’t bother to try to save herself. She was already lost.

He kissed down her neck, slowly, his hands sliding over her skin, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. They weren’t just kisses, he was tasting her, committing her to memory. He wanted to burn himself into her skin, into her soul, blurring out any other man who’d follow.

Eamon wasn’t ready to walk away but he couldn’t follow either. All it left him with was a desperate need for her, a need for her to know she was his, even if she was with another man.

No other woman would taste this good. He knew it as he drew the flat of his tongue along the seam between her thigh and her body. No other woman’s gasp and throaty moan would bring him to his knees the way this one did when his mouth found the sweetness of the folds of her pussy. No other woman would give herself to him this way, opening her thighs, her fingers sliding through his hair, holding him to her.

He loved that she took what she wanted. Loved that she wasn’t ashamed with him. He loved that in bed, she was as much a match for him as outside it and he would miss her. God would he miss her. But he didn’t give in to ultimatums and he wasn’t ready for the next step. As angry as he was, he understood her perspective too.

For now, as the bundle of her clit slid beneath his tongue, as her thighs began to tremble and she cried out his name when she came, for now, she was his and there was nothing else.

He rolled her over, drawing his tongue down her spine, kneading her muscles, making her even more boneless before putting a pillow beneath her hips and entering her in one stroke.

The sheen of sweat on her pale skin shimmered in the light coming through the drawn curtains. Her hair covered her face as she arched back to meet his thrusts. Their timing was perfect. They’d been together so many times, the connection between them was so intense and deep that they were simply in synch.

Her inner walls hugged him, not wanting to let go as he pressed deep and pulled nearly all the way out and then pushed back again. So damned beautiful, so sexy and full of life, she was one of a kind.

And she whispered her “I love you” as he came deep within her.

Their last day was bittersweet. She seemed determined to put on a happy face and pretend nothing was wrong but damn it, his life was crashing down around his ears and he didn’t want to pretend.

He sat across from her in one of the resort restaurants and greedily took in the way she held her glass, the way the breeze caught a loose tendril of her hair and dragged it over her face.

“We don’t have to do this. We can put off deciding until after June when you’re graduated and everything.”

“I’m graduated now. I just haven’t walked in the ceremony. Besides, what difference will it make? I’ll just lose my heart in four months instead of tomorrow. The thing is, no matter how much it hurts for me to admit it, you’re not ready or willing to choose me. And that’s, well it is what it is. I’d say I didn’t blame you, but that’s a lie. I want to be enough for you. But I really, really don’t want to rehash this now unless you have something different to say. This is our last dinner together and I don’t want it spoiled by beating this dead horse any more dead.”

If he didn’t know her any better, he’d think she was so remarkably cool and calm, but he saw the faint tremble in her lips as she spoke, the sheen of unspent tears in her eyes and he couldn’t take it.

“Damn it, if it hurts you so much to do this, why are you doing it?” He stood, tossing his napkin aside. “I don’t want to break up. You clearly don’t want to leave me either. Tell me why we’re doing this!”

“Because I can’t go on living half a life. I’ve reached a place where I can live a full life and when I was with you last night I realized how alive I am when I’m with you and I compared it to how I feel as if I’m living half a life when we’re apart. I just admitted to myself that I can’t go on this way.” She took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. “I’m telling you that I love you enough to let you choose to not be with me. And I respect myself enough to want more than a long-distance relationship with a man who can’t even tell me he loves me out loud when he obviously does.”

“This is bullshit.” He tossed some money down and stalked away from the table. “I’m not playing this game with you!” he called out as he walked away.

She watched his retreating back and finally gave over to the tears she’d only shed in the shower. She put her head down on the table and wept.

And by the time she got back to the room, he’d packed his things and gone.

She read his note, his scrawl familiar and painful to see. He couldn’t stay and face the situation. He didn’t think there was anything left to say. He’d gone back home early and he hoped they could speak again in a month or so. As friends.

After Vittorio made her cocoa laced liberally with Kahlua, she tucked up on their couch and spilled the entire story.

“I know it was sudden. I feel like a bitch. But it just, I love him so much and it felt like a lie every time I tried to talk to him about the future and he evaded me. It hurt to leave him every time, more each time. Maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe he’s right and I should move. Maybe this is all about Adam and me not wanting to move.”

“In the first place, when is the right time to have that discussion? You’ve tried to bring it up multiple times over the last months. He’s put you off over and over. In the second place, he fucking
left
you in Mexico? I ought to fly down to LA and kick his ass. What sort of man does that?” Vittorio fumed. He never fumed! He rarely said much of anything about Caitlin’s personal life, leaving it to Anh to say what needed saying. “And lastly,
cara,
this might have some roots with Adam, after all, you do know what it feels like to give up everything for someone. But he’s not giving up everything. Much of his work
is
portable whereas yours is not. This new project will have him traveling even more you said. He can take wedding pictures in Seattle as easily as in Los Angeles. He can fly to New York from Sea Tac just as easily as he can from LAX. Being with someone means you give things up when they can’t as easily, so the next time
they
make the sacrifice.”

Anh butted in. “And why is it always the woman who has to move? Who has to give up her job for the man? That’s what you’d be doing. You’d be less than a 1L law student if you gave up this job now. You’d have to start over in California. Sure, the law is comparable in many ways for abuse and neglect. But they’ve got their own interns grooming for those spots. And you’d have to take the bar there, which means more time off. You’d be set back years for this move; conversely, he’s got contacts here and all over the damned world. Adam was a powerful object lesson but this is not about Adam. This is about you and Eamon. I’m sorry. I am. You’re amazing and wonderful and why on earth he’s not running to you, I don’t know.”

“He didn’t abandon me,” Caitlin said, her voice thick with tears. “He left a note. He’s hurting and he didn’t feel like there was anything else to be said. I had a way to the airport. He knew that. I just don’t want either of you to think he’d harm me or endanger me in any way. He’s not like that. He’s a good man.”

“He’s a moron.” Anh stood. “Come on. Guest room with you. Tomorrow Vittorio will make waffles and bacon and we’ll go shopping. You don’t need to be alone.”

Vittorio caught her looking at the front door. “Don’t even think about it. Let us be here for you.”

She let Anh lead her into the guest room while Vittorio got her suitcase from her trunk. She thought she’d be awake all night but after the way she’d cried pretty much for the last twenty-four hours and the Kahlua in the cocoa, she was out once she snuggled down under the blankets and closed her eyes.

“You did what?” Laura demanded, mouth hanging open. “You left Mexico early? You left the best thing that’s ever happened to you in a foreign country on her own? You just let her go? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Why are you taking her side? You were on my side a few months back, remember? You said she should move here! Anyway, I told you, she gave me an ultimatum that I had to move there. I have a business here and I don’t like ultimatums. Plus, who the fuck says I want to be in a permanent relationship? No, it’s better this way. I called the resort to be sure she had a shuttle to the airport. I just checked and her flight arrived in Seattle without incident last night. I didn’t leave her on her own anywhere. She got there on her own and she’s a big girl, quite capable of getting home.”

Laura shook her head at him. “I’ve never taken you for stupid. But Eamon, this is stupid. Beyond stupid. She’s perfect for you. Smart, beautiful, independent. You’d never have a dependent, you’d have a partner. You love her. I know you do.”

“She wants me to move up there! She refuses to come down here. How much does she love me?”

“I know I was on your side. At first. But I’ve gotten to know her and know her situation over the last year and a half. Michael moved to an entirely different country for me because he could do his job anywhere and my parents needed my attention. Look, I love you and Michael and I love having you here with us. But you can be a photographer in Seattle just as easily as here. I know contacts are hard to come by, but, well, your contacts are nationwide anyway. You can move there and have your business. You expect her to move here? To start over where she was three years ago and build contacts all over again? Re-take the bar here? Get a new job when she’s got her dream job there? The question is, if you love her, why would you want her to throw all that away when you moving would be the simplest thing? You love Seattle, you told me that many times.”

“I’m done having this discussion. No one gives me ultimatums.” He got up and left the room. He would get over her.