“And I love you. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re it for me. Don’t leave me. I love you, Nina, and I’m sorry. Let me make it right.”
“Mason—”
I step forward and slide my hands across either side of her face. “I’ll be the man you need me to be, I swear it. Don’t leave me again,” I beg, unashamed.
Her dainty hands wrap around my forearms with a tentative grip as if she is afraid to touch me. “You sold my studio.”
“I couldn’t have you involved. If what happened ever came out, and my girlfriend was renting the studio that the woman I blackmailed owned. Can you imagine how it would look?”
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters. “all of it.”
“I couldn’t risk it, Nina. I wasn’t willing to put you in that position. Baby, please.” I smooth my thumbs across her cheeks, knowing if she leaves now, it’s done. She won’t come back.
How do you live without the woman you love?
My father couldn’t do it, so why would I be any different.
“You have to stay.” I wet my lips and my eyes drift closed, feeling completely bared to her. “You’re my Pixie.”
32
Nina
My mothernever begged me to stay. Not once. Most weeks, I’d leave to stay with Maggie and John, and she wouldn’t ever put up a fight. She wouldn’t tell me to stay or that she would try to be better. She let me go. Every. Single. Time.
I should leave him. I should protect myself and run far away. But I can’t. For the first time in my life, I want to plant my feet and throw myself into somebody else’s world. I want a home—a forever one.
“I don’t want you to help me buy a studio.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t want you buying me anything, period. It’s too much, and everything needs to be slower. We are moving a million miles an hour.”
“But you will live here?” He means it as a question, but he is telling me, his tone definite.
“I will live here because I chose to, yes. And I will contribute to the bills.”
He narrows his eyes at me. He doesn’t like that. “I only want to look after you.”
“It’s too much too soon; give me time. I need to do this my way.” I should have done this at the start, made it clear.
I told him I didn’t want to be bought, and I know I made that clear, but I should have told him that I needed to move slower. I’ve done more with Mase than I have with any man ever.
“I know I love you, that part I am certain of.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but?” He glares.
“I don’t know if I trust you anymore. I feel like we lost it before we even had it.”
He closes his eyes, but it’s not in sadness. He is annoyed that I feel that way. “You know you can trust me.”
“No, I don’t. You haven’t given me any reason to. The studio, Cara, they’re not small things. It’s life-changing for me; this is my life!”
“I know that.”
“You don’t.” I pause, fighting against my head, which tells me to hotfoot it out of here, but my heart screams at me to stay, begging me to feed it with the love it craves. The type of love that makes it beat stronger. The type of love only he can give me. “But we can work on it,” I force out.
“Yeah?” He questions, taking my face in his hands again.
