The lead grew heavier. “You saw my nightmare?”
She nodded.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing.” She held his eyes. “I didn’t ask you and you didn’t say.”
He finally took a breath. “Thank you.”
Kit shook her head. “Don’t thank me. I pushed you into this.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she rocked slightly on her feet. “You can’t go on like this, not for three more weeks or however long it takes.”
“We’ve had this argument.” He grabbed her wrist. “I can do it.” He couldn’t have her give up on him.
“I know you can.” Tugging at her wrist, she tried to extricate it, but when he refused to let go, she stopped attempting to pull away. “I want you to move in with me.”
He stared at her. “What?” Having his own space, his own bolt-hole, had always been critical.
“You’ve slept over before,” she pointed out. “You might’ve been blind drunk the last time, but the other times you were sober.”
He’d snuck out and run for hours each of those nights, fallen asleep out of exhaustion. It had only been for a fitful few hours, but he had slept. “Why do you want me to move in with you?” He had to know what she expected, because there were things he simply couldn’t give her.
She touched his bruised cheek, her fingers featherlight. “You asked me to be with you.”
His entire world trembled.
He knew he should call back that request. It was beyond selfish. But his throat, it wouldn’t work.
“If we’re going to make a relationship work in any way,” she said, “we have to figure this out.”
“I’m almost twenty-eight years old, Kit. If I could figure it out, I would have by now.” He turned into the tender warmth of her hand.
“I bet you’ve always tried to do it alone, haven’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We do it together this time.”
Noah wanted to say she was wrong, that it wouldn’t work, but he hadn’t ever tried to figure this out with someone else. Even with Fox, they’d only discussed it that one time when he’d been a scared seven-year-old boy. Never again.
And there lay the crux of it. “How can you fix something if you don’t even know why it’s broken?” Because he wouldn’t tell her. The idea of Kit knowing? It savaged him.
“I know something really bad happened to you,” she whispered. “Bad enough that one of the toughest men I know is still haunted by it.”
He flinched. “I’m not tough.” If he had been, he would’ve gotten over this long ago.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Her wrist still in his hand, she said, “Will you come home with me?”
“Yes,” he said, a desolate nothingness inside him.
This would fail. When it did, so would all the hope inside him that one day he might be normal, might have the right to love Kit.
Chapter 26
Late afternoon the next day, Kit smiled and flirted with the cameras as she and Noah drove through the gates of her home in Noah’s convertible. He’d be returning to his place later to grab clothes and other things, but given the situation with Abe and Sarah—and since this media circus was inevitable—they’d decided to handle it together.
The funny thing, Kit thought as Noah laughed at something one of the photographers had yelled out, was that she no longer cared about either the movie or the cosmetics deal. Her career was important to her, but the most important thing in her life was in the driver’s seat, and he was badly, badly hurt inside. Kit didn’t think she was a magician, didn’t believe she could heal him, but she could love him.
Maybe it would help a little.
Maybe it might even be enough to stop him from continuing on the self-destructive path he’d been walking to this point.
“Kathleen! Give us a smile!”