by Marie Force
“I…” She took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his gaze. “I want more.”
Again she saw sadness and weary resignation in his expressive eyes. “I’m not capable of more.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, Victoria, I’m really not. I like what we have. It works for me. If it’s not working for you, all you have to do is say so.”
“It does work for me, but—”
“No buts. It either works for you or it doesn’t. Which is it?”
She once again swallowed a lump in her throat as a hundred scenarios flashed through her mind in the span of a second. One thing became crystal clear—if they weren’t together, they’d never be able to move forward. Right here, right now, preserving the relationship they already had was her top priority.
“Vic? What’s it going to be?”
“It works for me.”
“No more poking around in my past, you got me?”
“Were you ever going to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Just no? That’s it?”
“Just no. That’s it.” As he said those words, she saw more passion and fire in his eyes than she had ever seen before—and all of it for a woman who had died.
Something inside her died at realizing she couldn’t compete with that woman. She couldn’t—and wouldn’t—compete with her. “I… I’m sorry. It turns out that this isn’t going to work for me after all.”
“What’re you saying?”
Since she might not get another chance, Victoria decided it was time to lay it all on the line. “I love you, Shannon. I’m in love with you. I want a life with you. I want us to have so much more than a shared address, a shared bed and the best sex I’ve ever had. I want a family. I want kids and a husband and a commitment from a man who loves me and only me. I want the fairy tale.”
“I’m not capable of fairy tales.”
“Yes, you are!” She closed the distance between them, placing her hands on his chest and sliding them up to encircle his neck. “You’re so capable. You’re everything I want and need. All you have to do is be willing to accept what I want to give you and then give it back to me.”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. If I was going to have that with anyone, it would be you.”
“Shannon, please. All I’m asking you to do is try.”
“I have tried. I’ve tried my best for a year, and you’re telling me that my best isn’t enough for you.”
“Talk to me about her. Tell me what happened. Let me share your burden.”
He pulled free of her. “I don’t talk about her. I hate that you even know about her.”
“Why don’t you want me to know? What do you think I’ll do with that information besides love you more than I already do?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t love me, Vic. I’m not worth it.”
“It’s far, far too late to tell me that.” After taking a moment to summon the courage she needed, she looked him in the eye and lowered her voice in case little ears were nearby. “I know how to turn you on and just how to touch you to make you shout when you come. I know what makes you tremble and what makes you sigh with pleasure, but I didn’t know about the most important person in your life until someone else told me about her. I don’t know what you hope for, what you dream about, what you want for yourself. All I’m asking for is the chance to know you, Shannon, not just what turns you on.”
He broke the intense eye contact and looked down at the ground. After a long moment, he finally returned his gaze to her, seeming devastated by what she’d said. “I’m sorry to have disappointed you this way. I never intended for that to happen. Jesus, I never intended for any of this to happen.” He caressed her face, his touch electrifying her as it always did. Then he kissed her forehead. “Give me an hour, and I’ll be out of the house. I’m so sorry, love.”
Riveted by the sight of him walking away from her, Victoria stood there until long after he’d disappeared around a bend in the path. Tears rolled unchecked down her face as she tried to process what’d just happened. He’d ended it with her rather than share himself, his past, his pain or his love with her.
Her chest tightened, the ache centered in her heart, which had been shattered in the scope of a few minutes. Blinded by tears, she bent at the waist, trying to force air into lungs that felt compressed by the magnitude of the pain. Nothing had ever hurt like this did.
Victoria had no idea how long she was there before she heard Seamus say her name.
“Come with me,” he said, helping her to stand upright and guiding her toward his home with his arm around her shoulders.
Victoria pressed her face against his chest and let him lead the way for her. She was incapable of even the simplest things at the moment. He settled her on the sofa in their sitting room. Even though it was summer and hot outside, she shivered uncontrollably. Seamus pulled a blanket over her and then sat on the edge of the sofa.
“There now,” he said in that hauntingly beautiful accent. “It’s going to be okay.”
Victoria shook her head. She had a hard time believing anything was ever going to be okay again.
“There’s an old saying… I can’t remember who said it, but it went something like this. If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.”
A sob hiccupped through her, and tears fell in a steady stream. She already knew that Shannon wouldn’t come back. He’d never been hers. She just hadn’t understood that before now. “I… I should go. You don’t need this here. The boys—”
“Are fine, and you’re welcome here for as long as you’d like to stay.” He pulled the blanket up farther. “Close your eyes and try to rest for a bit. You’re in no condition to drive.”
Victoria knew she ought to get up and go home to her own house to mourn in private, but she couldn’t seem to make her body heed the call to move. So she stayed put on Seamus and Carolina’s sofa and cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 7
Shannon guided the motorcycle out of Seamus’s driveway and drove much faster than he should have on the island’s winding roads, the careless disregard for his own safety an unwelcome reminder of the years that followed Fiona’s death when he hadn’t given a flying fuck about anything, least of all himself.
A jumble of mixed emotions assailed him—anger, grief, sadness, frustration and love. Yes, he loved Victoria. How could he not? She was amazing, sweet, sexy, smart and funny. They’d had an incredible year together, or so he’d thought. Apparently, it hadn’t been as great for her, which was a huge surprise to him. He’d had no idea she was in any way unhappy until Seamus told him she’d been asking about his past.
No, he did not want to talk about Fiona. It had taken him years to be able to take a deep breath around the searing, agonizing pain in his chest after she died. It had taken years to be able to do anything other than relentlessly grieve. The last fecking thing in the goddamned world he wanted to do was talk about Fiona or what it’d been like to lose her. That would be like pouring battery acid on a festering wound that had never truly healed—and never truly would.
Crushed shells crunched under his tires as he pulled into the driveway at the home he’d shared with Victoria. It had been a good year, the best one he’d had since losing Fi. He’d never deny that or even try to. Vic said she wanted more. He didn’t have more to give. It was that simple.
He parked the bike and went inside, where the familiar scent of home greeted him. Vic fancied her candles and smelly things. The memory of teasing her about a candle that smelled like laundry detergent stopped him in his tracks, the same way a punch to the gut would. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but that couldn’t keep the old familiar despair from creeping up on him. He’d woken up this morning thinking everything was fine and now… Now it was a fecking mess again.
Life with Victoria had been peaceful and s
weet and… Fuck, he was going to miss her. He sat down hard on the bed they’d shared for so many blissful nights and dropped his head into his hands. This, right here, was why he’d once vowed to never get involved with a woman again. Who needed this kind of pain when it ended? And it always ended.
Running his fingers through his hair, he thought about arriving on Gansett Island, meeting Victoria that first night and being instantly wowed by her. The first thing he’d noticed was her smile and the way it lit up her entire face. Her pervasive joyfulness had soothed him from the beginning. It hadn’t taken long for him to become addicted to her joy and the way he felt when he was around her.
He hadn’t come to Gansett looking for anything more than a couple of weeks away from the memories and the ghosts that had haunted him for the long years since Fiona was taken from him. To say that his relationship with Victoria had been a huge surprise was putting it mildly. Out of sheer necessity, he’d been with other women since he lost Fi, but Victoria had been the first relationship he’d had, and now that too was gone, leaving yet another gaping wound for him to contend with.
How many such wounds could one heart withstand in a lifetime and still beat the way it was supposed to?
Reaching under the bed, he pulled out the duffel bag he’d stashed there when he moved in and tossed it on the bed. Without thinking too much about what he was doing, he emptied the two drawers Vic had made available to him in her dresser and retrieved his shaving bag from the bathroom. Then he went to the closet to retrieve the few items he had on hangers and came face-to-face with the sexy black dress Victoria had worn to Dan and Kara’s wedding earlier in the month. God, she’d looked beautiful that day.
He recalled being eager to get her home the whole time they were at the wedding and thought about slow dancing with her to one song after another. Then he’d watched her crazy antics on the dance floor with the other women to the faster songs. At the time, he’d thought she was life personified—energy, intelligence, beauty and joy. He kept coming back to that word when he thought of Victoria. In recent years, he’d had so little to be joyful about that it had been the first of many things that’d attracted him to her.
“Ah, bollox,” he muttered to the empty house. “What does it matter now what attracted you to her? It’s over. You’ve seen to that.”
Ten minutes after he began, he was completely packed, which made him realize that for all the time he’d spent in this house, he’d done almost nothing to make it his home as much as it was hers. Probably because he’d known, in his heart of hearts, that he wouldn’t be here forever.
In the kitchen, he put down his bag and peeled the key she’d given him when he moved in off his ring, placing it on the table. His entire body ached with regret as he stared down at that key and everything it stood for, remembering the hopeful, excited expression on her face when she’d given it to him after he decided to stay on at the end of his two-week vacation. At the time, he’d figured he’d be here a month, maybe two. Now here it was a year later, and he’d found a whole new life here with a job he enjoyed, new friends and…
Sighing, he picked up his bag. The best part of his new life on Gansett was over now, and he’d have to find a way to accept that and move on. He pulled the door closed behind him and made sure it was locked. As he was strapping the duffel onto the back of his bike, his phone rang. Seeing the call was from Seamus, he took it.
“Hey,” he said.
“Did you move out of Vic’s?”
“Yeah.”
“The company has a room at the Beachcomber. I left word at the desk that it’s okay for you to stay there.”
“I… um… Why are you helping me out after what I did today?”
“Because you’re still my cousin, and I still care about you even if I think you’re being an absolute gobshite to walk away from the woman who loves you.”
Shannon closed his eyes against the burn of tears that infuriated him. He refused to be sucked into the bottomless rabbit hole of grief once again. “I know it’s not possible for you to understand, but this is what’s best for me right now.”
“Fair enough.”
“Seamus… I’m really sorry again about today. You’ve been… really good to me through all of it, and you deserve better from me than what you got from me today.”
“And I’m sorry if I overstepped by talking to Vic, but I like her for you. I’ve enjoyed seeing you happy again after a long dark winter filled with despair.”
Shannon’s throat closed around a lump. He closed his eyes tight and tried to contain the rush of emotion. Everything his cousin had said was true, but none of it changed the simple fact that Shannon was no longer capable of the level of intimacy that Victoria needed and deserved from the man in her life. For the first time since he lost Fiona, he wished he could be different or more or whatever Victoria needed to make her happy. But that wasn’t possible.
“Call me if you need anything,” Seamus said.
His cousin’s generosity in light of the day’s events only added to the weight pressing on Shannon’s chest. “I will. Thanks.”
He stashed the phone in his pocket and straddled the bike, taking a long last look at the little house where he’d lived with Victoria. Seamus was right—he had been happy with her. He’d never deny that, but one of the reasons he’d been so happy was that she’d never asked for more than he had to give.
Until now.
Kick-starting the bike, he turned it toward the road and left behind the house he’d called home for the last year, weary at the thought of starting over.
Again.
* * *
Victoria woke to darkness, low voices and the giggles of little boys trying to be quiet. For a moment, she couldn’t recall why she’d been sleeping in Seamus and Carolina’s sitting room, but then it all came flooding back in a wave of painful memories that took her breath away.
Shannon was gone. Their relationship was over.
As she remembered their heated exchange in the yard and the despair she’d seen in his eyes, it literally hurt to breathe.
She gave herself a few minutes to get it together before she sat up, ran her fingers through her hair and hoped her ravaged face wouldn’t scare the boys. After folding the blanket Seamus had covered her with and putting it over the back of the sofa, she took a deep breath and braced herself to face her friends.
The four of them were seated around the table eating hamburgers and french fries. Jackson had ketchup on his cheek, and Kyle was talking with his mouth full while Carolina gently corrected his manners. They made for such a sweet little family, and Victoria admired Seamus and Caro tremendously for what they’d done for the boys.
“She’s awake!” Kyle cried when he saw Victoria. “Can we be loud now?”
Seamus laughed at the question and the mouthful of food that nearly fell from Kyle’s face as he spoke. “Close yer mouth and chew.”
“I’m so sorry you had to be quiet for me,” Victoria said to Kyle.
“Hope you had a good nap,” Seamus said, studying her with concern on a face that was almost as handsome as his younger cousin’s, even when bruised and swollen. She would always be partial to Shannon’s handsome face, whether they were together or not.
“I did. Thank you so much for letting me stay. I’ll get out of your hair now.”
“You’re not in our hair,” Carolina said. “How about something to eat?”
Victoria placed a hand on her abdomen. “I don’t think I could, but thank you anyway.”
Carolina stood to hug her. “Hang in there, and if you need us, you have friends here.”
“Thank you,” Victoria said softly, afraid to say anything more than that due to her shaky composure.
“I’ll walk you out,” Seamus said.
Victoria waved to the boys and preceded Seamus out the door. When she reached her car, she turned to him. “Thank you for everything. You went above and beyond. I’m sorry that I put you in this position to start with. I never shoul
d’ve come to you yesterday.”
“That’s a load of shite. You didn’t do anything wrong. You wanted insight. Who else should you have asked if you didn’t feel comfortable asking him?”
“That’s just it, though. If I didn’t feel comfortable asking him, that should’ve been a sign to me that something was wrong.”
“Maybe so, but your heart was in the right place trying to figure him out. And you suspected there were things he was keeping from you that would matter at some point.”
Victoria ran her hand over the heart that ached from the loss of the man she loved. “How long will it hurt this bad?”
“For a while, I suspect. After Caro and I first got together, she decided our age difference was too much for her to take on. We went round and round for quite some time until I couldn’t take it anymore. I actually gave Joe my notice, intending to go home to Ireland, because I couldn’t be here if I couldn’t have her.”
“I had no idea you guys went through all that.”
“Aye, it was a terrible situation for a long time. I know what it’s like to have your heart feel like it’s cracked down the middle and nothing can fix it except the one you love.”
“What happened? How did you end up staying?”
“Joe told his mum that I’d given notice, and that night she came to find me, asking me not to go—and not because my departure would create a nightmare at work for her son, but because she wanted me to stay. What started out as one of the worst days of my life turned into one of the best.” He drew Victoria into a hug. “I know it’s awful right now, but don’t give up hope. This break might be just what he needs to get his head out of his arse and see what’s right in front of him.”
Though she wanted to cling to Seamus’s hopeful thought with everything she had, Victoria also had to be realistic. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I appreciate you trying to cheer me up.”
He released her from his embrace. “You heard what Caro said. We’re your friends. If you need us, you know where we are.”
