Agony.
“Laire?” he whispered, taking a step nearer to her, his hands reaching up to cradle her cheeks without his permission as his eyes owned hers, searching them for answers: What is it, darlin’? Why’re you so sad?
She took a step back just before his hands made contact, shaking her head, reaching up with her gloved fingers to swipe the tears from her cheeks. He dropped his hands, letting them fall uselessly, listlessly, to his sides.
“I . . . I have to go,” she cried, lurching away from the railing and hurrying toward the door.
“Wait!” he called, turning to follow. “Laire! It’s been six years. Please! Just fuckin’ wait!”
But the door had already closed behind her.
She was gone.
Again.
Chapter 20
Laire raced down the stairs, stumbling over her feet in an effort to get as far away from him as quickly as possible. Tears streamed down her face, and her heart—oh, God, my heart—throbbed with longing, with memories, with love, with hate, with disappointment and loneliness and the sheer horror of running into him without any preparation.
One moment, she’d been fighting against the memory of stargazing with him at Utopia Manor, and the next, he was standing across from her, staring at her, saying her name, holding her elbow, helping her breathe.
“Oh, God,” she sobbed, reaching for the door to her room, only to discover she’d somehow locked it from the inside before leaving. “No!”
She resisted the urge to rattle the knob out of sheer frustration, knowing it might wake up Ava Grace. Out of options, overwrought, and exhausted, she turned her back to the door and slipped slowly down to the floor. As silent sobs racked her shoulders, she compressed her body, pulling her knees up to her chest and leaning her forehead down on them, so her tears could flow freely.
Erik.
Erik Rexford.
My Erik.
The Governor’s Son.
Here.
Here with me.
Here with . . . Ava Grace.
She shook her head against the sheer insanity of it, reaching up to run her fingers into her hair until they met at the back of head, lacing together.
We should leave.
We should get in the car and go.
We could find another place. We could—
Except there were no other hotels near Hatteras with a working generator. Where would she go? All the up to Nags Head or Kitty Hawk? Were the roads even passable yet?
“Fuck,” she muttered, blinking against the watery burn in her eyes and sitting up. She could hear footfalls coming down the stairs, and she prayed it wasn’t Erik.
She should have known her prayers would fall on deaf ears.
Four doors down, at the entrance of the hallway that led to the main staircase, Erik Rexford suddenly appeared, looking first to the right, then to the left. His eyes landed easily on her crumpled form, crouched outside her hotel room door at the end of the hall.
“Please go,” she murmured, half to him, half to herself, staring up at him through blurry eyes as he walked slowly toward her.
When he reached her, he glanced at the room across the hall from hers. The door read “SUPPLIES,” and he leaned against it, slowly letting himself sink to the floor until he was sitting across from her, long legs spread out between them.
His eyes searched her face for a long moment before he raised them to the number on her hotel room door: 208.
She didn’t acknowledge this, just averted her eyes, staring at the worn denim on her knee, picking at it with her finger.
“Wait,” he said. “Is this your room—208?”
His voice held a slight urgency, and she looked up at him, nodding once.
His lips parted and he blinked at her.
“I’m right upstairs from you. You have a . . . Are you here with a kid?”
Every muscle in her body clenched in reaction to these words, and it took every ounce of her strength not to show it outwardly. She nodded. “Yes.”
“Ava Grace,” he murmured.
She flinched. “Yes. How do you know that?”
“I met her at breakfast.” His face still looked stunned, and his eyes searched hers for answers. “She’s yours? Your . . . daughter?”
And yours.
She heard the words in her head but quickly silenced them. She had no interest or desire in sharing her beautiful, trusting, amazing daughter with the man sitting in front of her; with the Governor’s Son.
“Yes.”
“You named her Ava Grace,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes welling with tears as she looked up at him because she knew that he was thinking about the little girl at the Elizabethan Gardens, and it made her desperately sad and stupidly happy at the same time.