My stomach drops. “I’ll uh… I’ll walk you out.”
“It was nice to meet you, Royce,” Maeve says, returning from the kitchen.
“Likewise. Take care of her for me, yeah?”
“Of course.” Mae winks.
He takes my hand as we walk out of the diner, squeezing it tightly in his. My heart is beating out of my chest. This is the part I’ve been dreading, I’m not ready for him to go.
We come to a stop and he turns to me, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear as he peers down at me. “Thank you, Lorna. For everything.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad your car broke down. I’m glad the garage was closed and that you had nowhere to stay.” I swallow thickly, my nails digging into my palm to stop from crying. “I’m glad I met you.”
He pulls me against him and I wind my arms around his back as he clutches me tight. He drops a kiss to the top of my head. “Me too. This has been… the best Christmas. The best one I’ve had in a long time, and it’s all because of you.”
The words ‘I love you’are on the very tip of my tongue as he pulls away, letting his eyes linger on me for a second longer before heading to his car. He grips the handle but hesitates before opening the door. Instead, he turns back to look at me, his eyes heavy and his face saddened.
His grip on the handle loosens and before I can register what’s happening, he’s striding towards me, closing the space between us before taking my face in his hands and crashing his lips to mine.
I grip his wrists for stability as he kisses me deeply. It’s a kiss of desperation and finality and I pour every single thing I have into it, telling him silently how much I love him as our lips fuse together, our tongues dancing while we cling to each other.
I don’t care that we’re kissing in the middle of the street for anyone to see. Iwantthem to see. I want everyone to see how much he means to me and how much him leaving is killing me.
When he breaks the kiss, we both come away breathless as he presses his forehead to mine, staring down into my eyes.
He swipes at a stray tear that broke free somewhere along the line, a tear I was unable to prevent from escaping.
“Goodbye, Lorna,” he whispers, and I’m sure I caught his voice cracking a little towards the end. He dusts his lips over mine once more before walking away, the loss of his body against mine is instant and my body screams for me to reach out to him.
I watch him climb into the car and start the engine, throwing it into gear and pulling away. I stand there on the curb outside my diner and watch as the man I’ve fallen madly in love with drives away. Every second he gets further away, the more my heart shatters. All I want him to do is spin the car around and come back to me, take me in his arms, profess his love and promise to never leave.
But as the car turns the corner and disappears, pain stabs at my chest like someone took a dagger to my heart.
He’s gone.
A sob bubbles up and I close my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my cry.
Maeve crashes through the door and wraps me in her arms and I bury my face against her chest and let the barrage of tears I’ve been holding back burst free.
9
One Week Later
Ishould have turned around.
I should have turned that damn car around gone back to her. Watching her standing on the sidewalk in my rear-view mirror, only to slowly disappear damn near broke me, and every mile I ate up the more I ached to be with her.
The drive home was long and quiet. A minute felt more like an hour and every mile felt like a thousand. Every song that came on the radio seemed to remind me of her, twisting the knife in even more, so eventually, I turned it off completely and focused on getting home.
All week I haven’t been able to focus on anything. Every time I try to distract myself with work, I lose all motivation and find myself spending the entire day daydreaming like an idiot. With my eyes staring dead ahead, my surroundings faded into a blur, as the only thing I see is her.
Take this morning for instance, sat in a board meeting discussing a possible investment deal, possibly one of the most important deals of my life, and I spent half of it zoning out. Physically, I was there in that board room, but my mind was elsewhere and I’m pretty confident that every person in that room noticed.
In my mind I was back inHaven, lying in bed next to Lorna, our bodies entwined with each other’s as we talk about nothing in particular, but in that moment, it’s everything.
It’sperfect.
In that moment, I’m home.
