“Hush,” she quiets me. “She came into your life and shook it a little. Sixteen years, and I’ve never seen you welcome a woman into your cottage like that. This girl had you eating out of her palm. She made you happy, and you let her go!”
“She had to leave,” I say, fighting back the emotions that threaten to surface. “I couldn’t let her stay.”
And isn’t that the truth? No matter how much I wanted to keep her here, I couldn’t ask her to abandon her dreams and waste her life on some remote island. Every night after we made love, she’d lie in bed and talk about all the places she wanted to visit. All those sea creatures she wanted to see. She’s twenty-four, for Christ’s sake. It would be unfair to tie her to a thirty-six-year-old man whose whole world is this island—mere rock and sea.
So I let her go.
It fucking hurt more than any physical injury ever has, and I bore through it and let her go. Sabaak hasn’t been himselfsince she left—barely touches his food, keeps going to the door and looking out like he’s waiting for something that isn’t coming. I know the feeling. Is it any wonder I’ve been an insufferable asshole for a week? It seems that not even Acca can stand me, and I don’t blame her.
“Did you ask her if she wanted to stay?”
I turn away and glare at the door, watching it for a moment. When I turn back at Acca, I see the pity in her eyes. “In the future, when all the romance has died down, she’ll resent me for tying her to one place.”
“So instead, you go back to rotting alone in that cottage, and she moves on with another man. Maybe he’ll be good, and he will treat her like she deserves. She’ll have his children, and they’ll have their happily ever after,” she muses, scanning items from my cart without looking at me. “Or maybe, she’ll meet an asshole who will treat her terribly and force her to give up her dreams, and then she’ll be miserable her entire life—”
“Enough. You win,” I tell her, dragging a hand through my hair and grabbing a fistful. The thought of another man anywhere near Sylvie—good or otherwise—burns through every reasonable argument I’ve made to myself this week. “I was going to that senate meeting anyway. I hired a private charter to pick me up in an hour. I was going to just watch the meeting and support her.” Then I would have done the selfless thing and left her.
“And now?”
I grab the package from the cart then wave it at the old woman. “I’m going to Anchorage to bring her back. Take care of my dog.”
***
“I’ll drive,” I tell the driver as I nod for the keys. The man doesn’t argue. He simply tosses them at me and climbs into the passenger seat. Hell, I could have just hired a car withouta driver, but I didn’t want to worry about the logistics of parking at a government building.
I check my watch as the sedan pulls away from the airstrip, tires crunching on the gravel before the road smooths out under us. The car they sent me, a sleek black machine, purrs beneath me as I step on the gas, careful not to cross the speed limit.I can’t be late!
The landscape blurs into a streak of green and brown as I pick up speed, the wind whispering through the slightly open window. I glance at my watch again, cursing under my breath when I realize the meeting starts in less than thirty minutes.
Goddammit. I should have left earlier. Instead, I spent the entire morning trying to talk myself out of it.
I wanted to come—to see her—so desperately that I almost didn’t. It’s not healthy. These feelings I have for her are not healthy, and I would be a fool to chase them.
But I can’t help myself.
I want her.
No, it goes beyond just wanting. I need her. To see her. Smell her. Touch her. Fucking hell, I’ve been going crazy for seven fucking days trying and failing to erase her from my heart and her touch from my skin. But I can’t. And now, I’m off to convince her that I made a terrible fucking mistake in letting her go.
As I approach the state capitol building, the landscape begins to unfold into tall buildings, their glass facade reflecting the sunlight. Traffic thickens, forcing me to slow down, but I’m not about to be stuck here all fucking morning. I weave through the congestion, earning my own share of blown horns and middle fingers, but I don’t stop. I arrive at my destination with ten minutes to spare, pulling up to the curb in front of the building. I kill the engine, then toss the keys to the man who’s been sitting quietly next to me the entire ride.
“I’ll call you when I need to leave,” I tell him as I fling open the car door and, without a backward glance, take quick steps up the building. Getting through security eats another five minutes, and by the time I’m cleared, my heart is pounding, anxiety chewing at me.
I need to see her before the meeting. She has to know that I’m here to support her. To win her back!
I attract curious stares as I walk down the long hallway. I imagine I stick out like a sore thumb in my jeans, plaid shirt, and hiking boots when everyone is rocking a suit and tie. I don’t bother looking around, not when my sole focus is on the waiting room I was directed to. The one that holds the woman who seems to have taken possession of my heart. I find the room easily, pushing the door open and… there she is.
The room is huge with sunlight streaming through the tall windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air and casting long shadows across the polished mahogany tables. She’s seated behind one, hands running restlessly through her hair as she studies something on her laptop.
She doesn’t immediately notice me, too focused on whatever it is she’s reading, which gives me a chance to take her in. She looks exactly as she did the day she left—same frecklesscattered across her nose and cheeks, same strawberry-blond hair that’s escaped whatever she tried to do with it. There’s something in the set of her shoulders that tells me she’s nervous, running on too little sleep, pushing through on will alone. She’s the most capable person I’ve ever watched work, and right now she looks like she’s trying to hold herself together with both hands.
I should have been here sooner.
Someone knocks on the door behind me, and that snaps her head up, eyes going wide when she spots me. “Wyatt?” There’s a question in her eyes and something else that gives me hope that perhaps I’m not too late. That I can still win her back.
“Miss Anderson?” A man walks in from behind me. “They are ready for you.”
She jumps up from her seat. “Right now?”
