I grab a simple pair of sweats and a black hoodie, throwing it all on in record time before Natalia makes a run for it. By the time I’m grabbing my keys from the floor, she’s already out the door, speed-walking toward my SUV.
She doesn’t give me the chance to open the door for her. Instead, she hops into her seat, buckles herself in, and curls toward the window—all before I can lock the door behind me.
I wish I knew what I could do to make her not run away from me. Maybe it felt like just sex during it, but it definitely didn’t feel that way before or after. And it certainly doesn’t feel that way right now. It feels like I’d lay my life on the line for her.
But I’m still stuck chasing a girl who keeps running away.
How do I get her to understand that she’s safe here? How do I get her to see that, with me, she doesn’t ever have to hide?
As soon as I’m in the car, I press the button to start the engine and turn up the heat, adjusting all of the ventilators toward her body. I sit back and wait with hope that she’ll turn and face me—that she’ll look at me and tell me she doesn’t regret it. But she doesn’t.
I put the car in reverse and back out of the driveway before I begin the ten-minute drive to Lana and Christian’s. Those ten minutes are silent. Tortuous. Her eyes never leave from wherever they are staring out the window, and not once does she turn her head. Every so often I look over, assessing her expressions to findsomething.
But Natalia has officially shut down. She’s gone for the rest of the night, and my chances of getting her to come back to me now are slim.
I press slowly down on the brake, pulling up behind her car and parking. I sigh and turn off the car. Natalia is still silent beside me, her body angled away from mine and her eyes still stuck out the window. Unmoving. Unnerving.
Sighing, I rub my face. “Natalia?—”
“I’m fine,” she rasps and quickly unbuckles her seat belt. The metal clacks against the door as it slips back up and the door opens wide as Natalia mutters, “See you whenever.”
“Nat, just wait—Damn it.” She doesn’t listen—never does—and gets out of my car. She practically tip-toes to her car, even barefoot, holding her thick, bright pink pumps in her hand as she crosses over to the driver’s side.
My fingers fumble with my buckle, the strap holding me back and suffocating me each time I try to lean forward. By the time I get the buckle undone, she’s opening her car door. Heart racing, I hop out the car, leaving the door wide open, and run to her.
I grab the driver’s side door and hold it open. “Sweetheart, wait. Please.”
“Please don’t do that,” she rasps, her back to me and her head low. “Don’t do that to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, even though I have no idea what I’m doing. “Natalia, can you talk to me?”
“It was sex, Rowan,” she croaks, her voice cracking. “Please.”
Maybe she feels she really needs this to be just sex, but I really need this to be more. “What if?—”
“You can’t finish that sentence.” Her exhale is a shudder. “Don’tfinish that sentence.”
“Fine,” I whisper, my ribs feeling too tight around my organs. “But will you at least turn around and look at me.”
“No.” Natalia sniffs. “Thank you for driving me back.”
“Natalia, please talk to me, sweetheart, you’re breaking my heart,” I rasp, my own voice breaking now too.
“My own too,” she whispers, and I know it was meant only for her, but hearing it is like a stab between my fourth and fifth ribs.
“Nat…” I breathe and take a step. “Don’t push me away after what happened, please. It happened and I don’t regret it.”
“Not yet,” Natalia says and swings a leg to sit in the black leather seat. “Goodnight, Rowan.”
My only option left is to step back from the car and let her speed off, down the road. And I’m left here, alone, dying to chase her again. Until the ends of the earth.
CHAPTER 11
Natalia
I’m mumbling all the curse words I know in Korean as I punch my fists in the pounds of dough in front of me.
The images from last week continue to play in my mind, and so does the sound of his voice with every filthy word he said to me.
