I took a breath. ‘I’m tired of silence. I’m tired of half-measures. I’m tired of trying so fucking hard for people who don’t give a shit. And I’m tired of loving you and getting nothing back. I don’t want to live on whatever scraps of attention you choose to give me—not any more.’ I looked into his eyes. ‘Nine years, Eli. Nine years you ignored me. And now all you have to offer me is a few dates? A few nights? A “see how it goes”?’
His expression was taut, the emerald-green of his anger flickering in his eyes. ‘You think I don’t feel like the biggest asshole in the world about that? That I don’t regret every second? Fuck, Vesta, if I could change anything in the last ten years it would be that. But I can’t. Just like I can’t give you what you want, either.’
I couldn’t stop myself then, stepping right up to him, all the anger, all the pain, rising up and spilling out. ‘Can’t or won’t, Eli? Which is it?’
The tension rolled off him like thunder. There was fury in his eyes and a kind of self-loathing too. Last night I’d backed away from any confrontation, not wanting to add to the burden he was already carrying, and not wanting to destroy the mood. But now the mood was in pieces and I had nothing left to lose.
He wasn’t the only one who was angry.
So I didn’t back down this time. I stared at him and I did not move.
‘You really want to know?’ he said finally in his ruined voice. ‘It’s won’t. I don’t want to love you. I don’t want to love anyone. I loved my parents. I would have done anything for them, and I did. But the weight of it was just too fucking heavy. And I’m not doing that again, carrying someone else’s hopes and dreams. I’m done.’ His eyes blazed. ‘I told you I was a selfish asshole. You should have listened to me.’
The pain was bright flames across my skin, but I ignored them.
He was right. I should have listened.
‘Good thing I’m listening now,’ I said hoarsely. ‘But just remember something, Eli Hart. The past is part of you, whether you like it or not. It made you. And you can’t cut it away just because you don’t like it or because it hurts. Pretending to be selfish, pretending you don’t care, won’t help. Because you’re not selfish, and you do care, and that’s the real problem, isn’t it? It’s not that your skin is scarred and you can’t feel a thing. It’s because your heart isn’t and you can’t deal with the pain.’
He went white. ‘Pain? You don’t know the first fucking thing about pain.’
I just looked at him, struggling to hold the tears back. ‘Just because you can’t see my scars, doesn’t mean I don’t have them. And at least I’m willing to acknowledge that they’re there.’
The look he gave me was furious and I thought he was going to say something. But at the last minute he turned away from me, striding back to the table and standing there, giving me his back. Making it obvious he wanted me to leave.
My throat felt sore. I could feel the tears prick at the backs of my eyes and I knew I had a choice. I could cave, do what I’d been doing for nine years and go after him. Tell him I was sorry, that of course I wanted another night or a date. That, yes, we could see how it went. Or I could believe that I was worth more than that and that he was too. That we were both worth the love we’d never had from anyone else, that love that we could give each other. And I could walk away. Hold out.
But I was done with caving. With pursuing. With apologising.
I wanted his love and nothing less.
So I turned, and I went to the door, and I pulled it open.
And he didn’t try to stop me. And he didn’t call my name.
And, when it shut behind me, there was only silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Elias
ANGER SMOULDERED INSIDE ME, but I let her go. What other choice did I have? All those things she’d said, about not wanting to settle and not wanting half-measures...they were all true. And she shouldn’t have to settle. She’d done that all her life, as she’d said, and she deserved more.
She deserved more than I could give her.
What you won’t give her.
I ignored that and went back to the table as the door shut behind her, thinking I might as well eat, but the appetite I’d had when I’d woken up that morning was gone. I’d pictured her sitting opposite me, talking about what we might do the following Friday. Or even earlier than that. A date tomorrow night, perhaps. Somewhere nice, where I could spoil her, and we could catch up on the past couple of years...
My chest hurt, a pulsing kind of ache.
That wasn’t going to happen now. There would be no leisurely breakfast and maybe some more time in bed. And there would be no date. There would be no sweet, candy-floss scent. No stars on warm skin to trace with my fingers. No eyes of liquid midnight watching me as pleasure unfurled across her beautiful face, looking at me as if she’d never seen anything as beautiful.
Me, the ruined hulk of the man I’d once been. A man full of selfishness and anger, who’d had the success he’d always dreamed of and yet it felt like nothing in this moment. Felt empty and meaningless.
A man built of nothing but scar tissue, lacking sensitivity and feeling, with a heart so scarred nothing could get through.
It was better that she walk away from a man like that. A man who’d treated her like dirt. Better that she give up and that she didn’t fight. There was nothing here worth fighting for, after all.
That all sounded good—the same things I’d been telling myself for years now without feeling a thing. So I shouldn’t have felt anything now.
But my chest still hurt, with a pain that went deeper than my scars. That felt as if it scoured my soul.
I found myself standing at the window, watching the sidewalk outside, watching a small figure in a blue dress go down the steps.
She was walking away. Walking away from me.
You fucking coward. She’s loved you for years and that’s all you’ve got to give her? Breakfast and the offer of a couple of dates? Another night?
The pain in my chest deepened, along with a sense of loss I had no idea what to do with. It shouldn’t hurt like this. It shouldn’t bother me. I’d told her I was selfish, and I was. I’d embraced it. Become it.
So why did I feel as if I’d made a mistake? As if I’d somehow stumbled back into the blaze that had nearly killed me and was burning me all over again?
Pain was there for a reason. It was the body’s way of telling you something was wrong. Some pain was good, some pain was useful and had a purpose...
I couldn’t figure out the purpose of the agony in my chest now. What did it matter that there would only be me and an endless succession of strangers in a hotel room from now on? Why did that feel like the bleakest thing I’d ever imagined?
You know why. Why would you ever want that again, when you could have her?
But I couldn’t have her. I didn’t want her. I didn’t want to love her. I didn’t want love, period.
I didn’t want to sacrifice myself for someone again, carry someone’s expectations again. Fail someone again. Because that was what love was. Sacrifice and pressure and failure and pain.
How could she ask me to put myself through that again? Go back into the fire again?
Did you ever really come out of it?
My breath caught, freezing in my lungs.
I thought I’d put what had happened behind me, that I’d moved on. I’d cut my past from me like dead tissue from a wound, and I thought I’d healed.
The past is part of you, whether you like it or not. It made you. And you can’t cut it away just because you don’t like it or because it hurts...
I tried to push away what she’d told me, but it sat there in my head, repeating itself. I’d tried hard to put the past behind me, but it was true—I could never escape it entirely. Not when it was literally burned into my skin.
I’
d thought that cutting away the bad pieces of that life would help healthy skin to grow, but...
Sure. Choosing to be a selfish asshole, and also to pay for sex because you can’t stand intimacy, is healthy.
Realisation hit me.
She’d said it wasn’t the fact that my body was scarred that was the problem. It was that my heart wasn’t. And she was right. I was covered in scar tissue, all the nerve-endings damaged or dead. But...my heart didn’t have that scar tissue. It still felt. And it was still burned, bleeding and raw. Full of anger at what had happened to me. At how let down I’d been by my parents. At how abandoned and worthless I felt. How helpless. Choosing selfishness in that moment, choosing not to care, had felt like a power move and so I’d embraced it completely.
But... I’d never left behind those feelings, had I?
...You’re not selfish, and you do care, and that’s the real problem, isn’t it? It’s not that your skin is scarred and you can’t feel a thing. It’s because your heart isn’t and you can’t deal with the pain...
I stared out of the window at nothing, my chest on fire.
She was so sharp. She saw right through me. Because what if selfishness was just a facade? A veneer? A skin graft over a wound? And what if she was right? What if it wasn’t selfishness that drove me at all, but fear? Fear of abandonment, of being worthless, of being helpless. Of pain.
It came over me then like a wave. A backdraft in a blaze. I hadn’t healed. I hadn’t moved on. I was still stuck there in that hospital bed, fighting those goddamned feelings and trying to cut away the part of me that hurt the most.
Like my heart. That had been burned, yet it had never scarred over, was still raw and in pain. And it hurt because, no matter what I told myself, I still cared.
I cared about her.
It’s more than caring and you know it.
Outside, Vee walked determinedly along the sidewalk, lifting her hand to her face a couple of times. Brushing away tears...?
The pain in my heart felt like knives. Felt like the truth I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. She’d meant a lot to me—she’d always meant a lot to me. But there was a reason I’d cut her out of my life, and it wasn’t to do with putting the past behind me, being selfish or her deserving more.
It was because, if I’d let her get close, I wouldn’t have been able to hold out against the feeling that pushed at me, demanding acknowledgement.
At sixteen, I’d loved her as a brother, a protective kind of love. But deep down, right down deep inside, a part of me had always known what she would become, that she would bloom like a rose and shine like a star. And that the love I had for her had the potential to change, to become more adult, more complex.
That was why I’d ignored her. That was why I’d cut her from my life. Why I hadn’t let her get close.
Because, if I had, I’d have fallen for her completely and irrevocably.
And I had. And all it had taken was one night.
One night to see the incredible woman she’d become. Brave and strong and tenacious. Blooming like a rose, shining like a star.
One night to show me the lie I was living. The lie I couldn’t keep telling myself was true any more. That I didn’t need her. That I didn’t care.
But I did care and, not only that, the worst had happened: I’d fallen in love with her just as I’d been afraid I would. And, just as I’d dreaded, it was agony and it cut me to pieces.
Yet pain had a purpose. It was a warning that something was wrong, and right now the pain in my heart was telling me that something was critical.
I shouldn’t have sent her away. Which meant the only thing to do was to get her back again.
I’d turned from the window before I was even conscious of it, striding to the door and then going through it. I walked fast through the hotel, and then down the stairs outside, and then I began to run, moving through the crowds as I’d once moved down the football field heading for the touchdown.
People turned to look at me but I didn’t care. My focus was only her, getting closer now. And then she was right in front of me.
‘Vee,’ I said hoarsely. ‘Vee, wait.’
She shook her head and then slowed, coming to a stop and turning around. Her face was pink and streaked with tears. I could see them in the light. Her eyes were black, and in that second there was no other choice for me. No other decision to make. She was hurt. She was in pain.
And I loved her.
I loved her so much.
‘What do you—?’ she began.
But I didn’t let her finish. I reached for her and pulled her into my arms.
‘Hey,’ she said breathlessly, trying to push at me, but I didn’t let her go.
‘You want to know the real reason I cut you out of my life?’ I asked hoarsely, staring down into her beautiful blue eyes. ‘It’s because, if I’d have let you get close, I would have fallen for you. I would have loved you, Vesta. And you were right—it wasn’t about selfishness. It was about me being afraid of that. Afraid of the pain, of not feeling good enough, of failing people. Afraid that you wouldn’t see me the same way, that you wouldn’t...want me.’
She blinked, her eyes filling with tears. ‘No. I told you. Why would you think some scars would ever change the way I feel about you?’
Of course they wouldn’t. How could I have doubted her? Nine years she’d held on to me, nine years without a response, yet she hadn’t wavered. Not once.
‘Because I’m a fucking idiot.’ My voice was even rougher than normal. ‘And because I was afraid. You were right, though. I can’t put the past behind me. I can’t cut it away. It’s part of me. Like you’re part of me.’ I held her tighter, drawing her close. ‘I don’t want to let you go, Vee. And I don’t want a night. I don’t want a date. And fuck seeing how it goes. I know how it goes.’ Keeping one arm around her, I lifted one hand and pushed my fingers into her hair, easing her head back. ‘It goes like this.’
And I bent and took her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss that went on and on until we both had to come up for air.
Then she pressed her forehead to mine, breathing fast, the long streaks of tears on her cheeks. ‘So what does that mean, Eli? Tell me. And be honest—because I can’t stand too much more of this.’
My heart ached, the pain raw, but this time I didn’t run from it. I embraced it, made it mine. She had scars too—as she’d so eloquently told me—and it was time I helped heal hers as she had started to heal mine.
So I released her and stepped back. Then I dropped to my knees on the sidewalk in front of her, not giving a shit about the crowds as I looked up into her lovely face.
‘You wanted my heart, Vee. So it’s yours. It always was. It’s selfish and guilty and filled with regret, but it loves you so much. And it’s willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy.’
She was still crying a little, but the smile she gave me was radiant. ‘You don’t have to do anything, ace.’ She took a step closer to me, then reached down and cupped my face in her hands. ‘You just have to hold me and never let me go.’
There was only one answer to that.
I got to my feet and swept her into my arms, turning back to the hotel.
She relaxed against my shoulder, her fingers resting lightly in the hollow of my throat where the scars were. ‘So, what happens now?’
‘What happens now is breakfast,’ I said. ‘And then I’m taking you to buy a ring.’
‘Wait, what?’
I glanced down at her safe in my arms, right against my heart where she belonged. And I smiled. ‘I’m going to marry you, Vesta Howard-Smith.’
Her eyes glittered a deep, endless blue, full of the love that had always been part of her and that I’d just been too blind to notice. ‘Are you, now?’
‘Yes. Any objections?’
‘Hmm...’ she said, snuggli
ng against me. ‘Are there waffles for breakfast?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘In that case...’ She smiled again, the special one she saved just for me. The one I’d missed for so long and never known it. The one that healed something broken inside me.
‘No. No objection whatsoever.’
EPILOGUE
Vesta
WE SPENT THE weekend in that hotel room and we didn’t leave it. Catching up on our lives. Catching up on ourselves. I’d never been so happy in my entire life.
And he bought me a ring. And a month later I still had no objections.
We married the next month and invited our families and, despite the issues we’d had with them, they all came. It was beautiful. It was the happiest day of my life.
I opened my second tattoo parlour in LA and, after a famous rock star was spotted with one of my designs inked on his chest, my client list went through the roof.
The best part, though, was after hours, when everyone had gone and I had my own personal rock star laid out on my chair, watching me with his intense, glowing stare of gold and green as I inked my design into his skin.
Turning his scars into art. Into something unique and beautiful.
A story of courage and strength.
And, most of all, of love.
* * *
If you loved In the Dark, look out for the next book in Jackie Ashenden’s Playing for Pleasure miniseries
With the Lights On
Coming soon from Harlequin DARE.
Dare to read more sexy stories! Check out our other Harlequin DARE titles, available now:
Bound To You by JC Harroway
Have Me by Anne Marsh
Devoured by Cathryn Fox
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In the Dark--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Page 16
