Page 47 of The Gilded Lady
He nodded and managed to hold onto what she’d said. “Why shouldn’t he find us?”
She stared at him as if he should know the answer to that question, before a tremulous smile made her lower her head. “I don’t want to put you in danger,” she teased. “I haven’t talked to him yet. And I know you’ll think I’m a contradiction, but I don’t want people to know…to talk.”
He gave her a single nod, unable to do more. This was his chance to make things go back to how they had been before. She would be safe from any future threats that followed him around…and he would be safe from loving her. If he made herchange her mind now, then he wouldn’t have to worry that she would change it later.
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her to cover her breasts. “Are you certain you’re okay?”
“Fine.” His voice came out sharper than he’d intended it to, and she looked up at him a little stunned. “Why don’t we make it easy? I’ll trade with Able and take my old room back.”
“No, you misunderstand. I don’t want that.” Her voice came from behind him as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his pants. The heat of her hand nearly scalded him when she placed it on his bare shoulder. It was like a siren’s call, luring him back to where he knew only pain awaited. He rose to his feet and stepped away from the bed as he worked the buttons.
“Zane, please…I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll talk to Able tomorrow, I promise.”
“But that won’t solve the problem of people talking, will it?” He grabbed his shirt and shrugged into it without looking at her. She was silent on the bed. Despite his intention, he couldn’t leave without seeing her expression and knowing how she felt.
Her brow was furrowed in pain when he met her gaze. “Can’t we talk about this? You even agreed that the future was uncertain. I’d rather there not be talk among the staff until we know if there is even something to talk about.”
He couldn’t handle that look on her face knowing he had put it there. He was horrible. Here he was deriding her over this when he’d already been fighting his own demons and losing, unable to face his own fears to have a future with her. Leaving his shirt open, he sat back down on the bed. Only a few inches separated them, but it might as well have been miles. She made no move to touch him.
He owed her something, so he said, “I never told you about Christine.”
She shook her head, silently urging him on. So he told her, and it felt good to open up to her. He told her about how he’d fallen hard. About how Christine had led him to believe that she felt the same. He still thought that she’d been honest about that, but it hadn’t been enough. When her brother found out about them and beat him to within an inch of his life for daring to lay a hand on her, it hadn’t mattered.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to meet Glory’s gaze head on. It wasn’t fair of him not to explain to her. He’d never been a coward a day in his life, but here he was…afraid of her and what she did to him. “That’s why I don’t know about the future, our future. The way she hurt me…I don’t know if I’m able to open myself up to that again.”
As he spoke, her eyes welled up with tears, but they didn’t fall. “She’s why you’ve been pulling away from me. I felt it yesterday at the Jameson home and again today. It’s because of her?”
“Cas and Hunter swear that she never really loved me if she could do such a thing, but they don’t know. I saw her. I held her. I know the way she looked at me. It was love and it was real. But it didn’t matter.”
She took in a wavering breath, and the sound of it pierced his soul. “I would never allow anyone to hurt you…you must know that?”
He raised a hand but stopped short of touching her knee, instead he let it fall back to the bed. He didn’t have that right anymore. “I know that you wouldn’t. I don’t mean that you’d harm me in that way.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with his inability to say what he meant. “I’m saying that love is fleeting. We embrace it when it’s convenient and discard it when it’s not.”
“So you don’t even want to try?”
He shook his head. “It’s not only that.” The tinge of that nightmare was still with him, clouding his mind. One dangerousman was after her already, he couldn’t put her at risk by bringing his own demons to her door. “There are men who would hurt you to get to me.”
Her chin dropped down, but she didn’t say anything. After a moment, she pulled the sheet around her even tighter. He wanted to pull her against him and damn the inevitable pain, but he couldn’t.
Finally, she said, “Thank you for telling me.”
He hated that it had to be this way, but deep down he knew that it was for the best. Better to get out now while they were both capable of walking away. He rose, hating himself as he left.
Glory never went back to sleep. She lay there listening to the sounds of Zane in the parlor. He seemed restless, walking over to the window to stand there for a few minutes only to pace back to the front door. This went on for over an hour, until gray morning light filtered in through her window.
She wanted to cry. She had cried but only for a little while, not nearly long enough to quench the burning pain he’d left in her chest. The tears had dried up, leaving her with an emptiness that she didn’t know how to handle. She shouldn’t feel this bereft. They’d never agreed to any sort of future. In fact, he’d made it very clear before they’d even started that a future wasn’t something they could even consider.
Her brain knew that, but her heart did not. Her heart wanted him.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the pillow over her head when she heard her front door open. Able’s deep voice was muffled through the wall and the down of her pillow. She let out the breath she’d been holding when her door shut and Able’s heavier tread took him to her sofa. Zane was gone.
For some reason, that brought on a fresh wave of tears. She gritted her teeth in an attempt to hold them back, but a fewescaped to run down her face. She hated what had happened to Zane. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t know what it felt like to give your heart to someone only to have them turn on you, but she did know a little about how he felt. Her own family had given her to Justin. Didn’t Zane see how alike they were? Didn’t he realize that if anyone could understand him that it was her?
It wouldn’t matter if he did know those things. She knew it as soon as the questions had floated through her mind. He didn’t really think that she was like Christine, so he didn’t care if Glory would be able to understand. He thought that love wasn’t binding, and she didn’t know how they were going to overcome that.
He thought that when things got rough, she’d leave and go looking for greener pastures. Isn’t that exactly what he had just done to her? He’d been fine to flirt and tease, but the moment things had gone deeper…he’d fled. If he didn’t think love would last, then he wouldn’t be around long. Even if she could convince him to stay now, something would drive him away later.
She’d been right about them from the beginning. He was the wind, and she was rooted firmly in the ground. Shame on her for forgetting that.
