I just wasn’t convinced that he was facing the truth himself, which was most of the problem.
I dropped my hands to my sides. “But see, after you say that there’s nothing between us, you contradict it with actions that suggest exactly the opposite. You showed up uninvited at my apartment tonight when I didn’t answer a few texts! That’s not the behavior of someone who thinks this is just sex. It’s confusing and not fair, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or believe anymore.”
We were face-to-face, both of us frustrated, and so far the conversation hadn’t gotten us anywhere at all.
With his eyes never leaving mine, Donovan sat on the arm of my sofa and seemed to let everything I’d said so far sit or settle or stir. The charge between us was a thick wall, and there was room to stand between his legs. I wanted to go there and lean against him. Wanted to smell him and touch him and fall into him like I had so many times before.
But I stayed where I was, my feet planted in the firm realization that it wouldn’t be enough anymore.
After what felt like forever, he asked the most important question of the night. “Sabrina, what is it you want?”
I closed my eyes briefly. It felt like déjà vu, but of course it wasn’t. He’d actually asked me that question before and then the answer had been so easy. I hadn’t known that the need and desire I had for him could take root inside me, could sprout into something bigger.
So I’d been honest when I’d told him then that I wanted him to touch me. And I was honest now. “I want what we already have.”
His shoulders relaxed visibly, and he reached out, grabbed my hand, and pulled me unexpectedly in between his legs. “Then I don’t understand what we’re arguing about.” He slipped a hand inside my robe and found my bare breast. Rubbing my nipple between his thumb and finger, he said, “Now is there anything else that you need to say?”
I gasped, arching with the pleasure. Another couple seconds of this and I was a goner. I had to fight to stay focused. “Yes. I want you to acknowledge that what we have is more than what you say it is.”
His hand dropped immediately, and he mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath.
He stared at me for several long seconds. “Acknowledge that it’s what exactly? We have a committed sexual relationship. Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s a start.” Hope began to bud in my chest. He was listening, at least. He was talking. He was trying.
“And what else?”
I swallowed. “The ability to let it grow into more.”
“No,” he said adamantly. He pushed me away so he could stand and pace toward the fireplace and back. “Absolutely not. It can’t grow.”
I could feel the pain of his words between each of my ribs. How could he say that? It had already grown so much.
I tightened the belt of my robe around my waist and pretended that my eyes weren’t pricking. “I don’t believe that.”
He put a fist on his hip and stepped toward me. “You mean love? Is that what you’re asking for?” He said the word love like it was a disease or a piece of garbage to be held as far away as possible.
“If that’s where it goes,” I said meekly.
He scoffed. “This is not going there.”
I took a slow shuddering breath in, hoping he didn’t see how much his words hurt. Years of buried fears and insecurities came easily to the surface. A lifetime of not being enough.
If that’s what it was, he was going to have to tell me to my face.
“Why?” My throat sounded tight. “Just say it. Because I’m not good enough? Because I’m not the right girl? Because you could never love someone like me? Just say it. I need to hear it.”
His hand fell to his side, his posture softening. “Because I can’t love anyone, Sabrina.” His voice was softer, too. “I can’t fall in love.”
“You can’t?” I challenged with a trembling lip. “Or you won’t?”
“Both.” His intensity began to escalate again. “I can’t. I won’t. I don’t. I live my life so that it’s an impossibility. So that there is no chance that someone will get that close, and I’m not changing that for anyone. Not even for you.” He pointed an aggressive finger in my direction. “Especially not for you.”
It was another series of stings. This time, instead of just making me want to cry, it made me want to sting back. If he wasn’t going to blame this on me, I was going to blame it on her. “Because of Amanda?”
He shook his head, vehemently. “We’re not talking about Amanda.”
I’d honored his wishes regarding his dead fiancée for the most part and asked very little about her.
But those were his rules. Under his rules, I was automatically set up to lose. If I wanted a chance to win, I was going to have to challenge them.
Refusing to back down, I took a step in his direction. “You loved her, and you lost her so you won’t love anyone else now. Is that it?”
“I said we aren’t talking about Amanda.” He walked away, circling my sofa, seemingly going nowhere except to escape.
I followed right on his heels. “Are you just so afraid that if you love you might get hurt again? Is that what it is? It is, isn’t it?”
“Stop, Sabrina,” he warned. He wouldn’t turn around. Wouldn’t look at me.
I pressed on. “We lose people sometimes, Donovan. We can’t stop living when we do. Just because she died—”
He spun around suddenly to face me. “She’s dead because of me!”
His words echoed through my apartment, sounding ominous yet somehow hollow without context. How could he possibly say that Amanda was dead because of him?
I quickly went through what I knew about her death. She’d died in an accident the year before I’d met him. Another driver hadn’t checked his blind spot when he’d moved to her lane, forcing her into oncoming traffic.
That’s what Weston had told me. He hadn’t said Donovan had been involved at all. Which meant Donovan was just trying to scare me. And succeeding. But he hadn’t said anything I could truly grasp onto. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Amanda’s car accident happened because of me, Sabrina,” he said, struggling for his usual control and failing. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Were you driving with her? Were you on the road too?”
“No. It’s not like that.” He ran his hand along the back of his neck. “When I fall in love, I become so consumed, so preoccupied with the person I’m in love with that I do things I shouldn’t. I get involved. I intervene.”
“I don’t understand.” But I wanted to. The way he talked about being consumed—I wanted to be the one he talked about like that.
“I was so obsessed with her that I hired a private detective to follow her. I needed to know where she was—always. She found out, and we fought. She told me she’d call off the wedding if I didn’t stop. But I couldn’t stop. For no other reason except that I was addicted to her. I was addicted to knowing everything about her.”
His eyes were wide and alight, like he was rabid. Like he was alive.