“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“What am I…?” He paused, running his hands up the sides of his nose. He inhaled a deep breath, made a fist, jammed a rigid finger into his chest. “You’re asking me why I’m here? I’m doing the same thing I did in L.A., Missouri, New Orleans. I’m goddamn looking for you.”
Lola wished for something to steady herself on—a gate, a fence, even a tall boulder. She checked over her shoulder—nothing but white-rock ledge. She pulled her shoulders up as she looked back at him. “I never asked you to do that.”
“You turned my life upside down.” He scrubbed his whiskered chin and shoved a hand in his hair, ruining it. It was too long and not as perfect as she’d thought. “More than once. Did you think I’d lie down and take that? You didn’t think I’d fight back?” He’d said fight angrily, with a hard “F” and clipped “T”.
Lola’s heart beat a mile a minute, the tips of her fingers and toes tingling. “I don’t want to fight with you, Beau,” she said calmly. “I don’t want to play. I just want the bullshit to end.”
“It’s over,” Beau said. “Believe me. This game ended a long time ago.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I think I’ll ask the fucking questions, thank you.” He took a step forward, and Lola instinctively moved back a little. “What happened to you that night?”
“I did what I had to do.” She leveled her eyes on him. “What you made me do. You really thought I could love you after what you did to me?”
“Don’t pretend you’re innocent here, Lola.” His nostrils flared. “Or do you go by Melody now?”
She kept her arms straight at her sides, caught off guard to hear her real name from his mouth. She hadn’t thought he would remember that detail from the VIP room. “Is that how you found me?”
“That and a lot of money.”
Her jaw tingled, saliva pooling in her mouth. She didn’t know what answer she’d expected or hoped for with him. “Of course. Money.”
“At first, yes,” he continued. “But it only got me so far. After that, I had to figure it out on my own.” He squinted, holding his arms out, nodding. “I’m a little late, but I made it. Not bad considering you left me with nothing to go on.”
His words were bitter like his tone. He grabbed the knot of his tie and loosened it, leaving it crooked. There wasn’t even a sliver of relief or happiness in his eyes.
Lola swallowed. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing.” He took another step.
“I can’t go through this again,” she pleaded, shaking her head hard. “I’ve made peace with the pain.”
“I haven’t.”
Lola glanced around without turning her head from him. There were only two exits from this situation—forward or backward.
“What was it all about?” he asked. “I want the truth, so help me God. Don’t bullshit me.”
Lola opened her mouth, but nothing came. How could she explain what it’d been like to finally give in to her love for him after fighting it so hard, only to have him break her big, happy heart in half? And then—to have to pretend to worship him for weeks as she nursed her wounds in private? That was bullshit.
“That night,” Lola started.
He jerked his head to the side. “Which one?
“In your hotel room, when we were planning how to leave Johnny. I’d never—it was the most—” Lola wiped her palms on the seat of her jeans. “You didn’t ask. You just took. All of it. All of me.”
“But you came back. You gave me another chance, and I did my best to make up for—”
“I loved you,” she said, the word dropping like an axe between them.
They stood there a moment, two actors on an open stage, leaves rustling, voices distant, temperature dropping. A train horn echoed through the canyon.
“You don’t anymore?” he asked.
Lola looked down at the ground. What did it say about her that she still loved him after everything he’d put her through? Through all the lies, the spite, the games—her heart ached for him when he was right in front of her the same way it had when he was half a country away.
She looked up, keeping strength in her face, even though her body had begun to tremble. “My love hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still in the garbage where you left it.”
“I knew I was making a mistake that night. Even while I was doing it. But I’d gotten in too deep to pull myself out. Was it not enough punishment that I had to live with that? Knowing I loved you, but I could never truly make up for how badly I’d hurt you?”
“Knowing is one thing. You deserved—deserve to live the depth of your mistake.”
“For how long?”
“That’s for you to decide.” She shrugged, limp and unconvincing. “It isn’t something your assistant can add to your calendar. My forgiveness doesn’t matter—you need your own.”
“Where do you get off telling me what I need? Patronizing me? You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
She shuffled back the last few inches, glancing behind her again. “Yes, I—”
“You don’t know. You didn’t care to,” Beau continued, another step. “And I still have nothing. I don’t know where you went from Cat Shoppe. How you got there. Why. If you laid beside me in my own bed, plotting against me.”
Her throat thickened. She didn’t respond. It didn’t look as though he expected her to. He was in front of her now, and she was cornered. She dug her heels into the sand. If she screamed, would anyone hear? Would it even matter? Nobody was close enough to get to her in time. All she’d done was even the score. But maybe Beau didn’t see it that way. Maybe to him, she had a debt that was too great to pay.
He reached up. “Even with all that—”
“Stop.” Her heart hammered. She squeezed her eyes shut. Everything on her body was rigid except for her arms, curved gently over her stomach. “I’m p—”
“I forgive you,” he said. “I forgive myself. And I surrender.”
Her body shook, her breath stuttering out of her mouth, wispy little butterflies. She balled a hand at her chin over her mouth, surprised to find it wet. She hadn’t realized she’d been crying.
When she opened her eyes, his arms were spread as if to say it was all he had. She couldn’t see anything but him and his hawk-like wingspan.
“I don’t know if that’s what you wanted, Lola, but you win.”
Her chest deflated, relief and regret seeping through her. Surrender, forgiveness, victory. What was even left to win? What kind of prize was this to have fought so hard for? She shook her head. “That’s not why I left.”
“Then why?” He dropped his arms at his sides, his expression earnest, his thick eyebrows heavy in a different way than they just had been. “To escape? Or to get me to see?”
She shifted on her feet. “To see what?”
“I was stupid for you. You and I went deeper than anything, and I fought back out of fear. But I’m done making that mistake. My weapons are at my feet.”
She waited, but he didn’t continue. He hadn’t moved back even an inch.
“That’s it?” she asked. “That’s your apology?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. But I don’t regret it. We wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”
“Here?” Her hands still trembled. She closed them into two fists. “This is a good place to you?”
“It’s where I should’ve been from the start. It was hell not knowing where you were. It opened my eyes, though, Lola. And like I said, now I finally see.”
Lola tried to shut the words out. She believed him—tormenting him with her absence was the purpose of her plan. But his surrender wasn’t, and it felt better than it should to hear he wasn’t finished with her yet. “We both set out to destroy each other,” she said. “How do I know that isn’t what you’re doing now?”
“Trust. Neither of us is good at it, but we each need it now. You know I love
you—it’s not a question of that. It’s a question of if you’ll let me. I do…love you.”
She paused. It didn’t shock her, but as his words registered, she realized that no matter how strongly she knew it in her gut, she’d thought she’d never hear him tell her he loved her. And that she’d somehow be okay with that. “I know you do. I always knew. You were the one who didn’t.”
“I do now. I get it. Put an end to this, Lola. I’ve repented. I’ve suffered. For you.”
“How do I know? I wasn’t there. I didn’t see any of it.”
“You chose not to. At least I looked you in the eye when I hurt you.”
Her cheeks flushed. She wanted to be the only one who was justifiably angry, but he was right—and it embarrassed her. “So what? That makes it better?”
“There’s no ‘better’ in this situation. We learn from our mistakes and move forward. I’m here to bring you home. To get the light back in my life.”
The sun disappeared behind the rocky horizon. Lola had goose bumps everywhere and sweat along her hairline. These were things she thought she’d never hear. She jutted her palms between them. “Can you just step back? This is making me nervous.”
He took her by the arm, his hand warm through her jacket, and pulled her closer to him.
Lola shrugged him off. “Not just the cliff.”
He took some steps away without turning his back to her. In their relationship, she’d always been the one out on a ledge, expected to trust him blindly. To get into a stranger’s limo, to uproot her life based on two nights.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Lola said, off the overhang now. “A lot of time alone. I came here for answers because…you said you got them here.”
“Did you get them?”
She stuck a hand in her pocket, picked at some lint. “No.”
“I never said I got answers, Lola. I said I came here looking for them. I don’t like it here. It’s so fucking bottomless, it just makes me feel like I have no control at all. But what I did get here was perspective. And I’m glad those answers never came, because it taught me a valuable lesson. Only one person makes things happen in my life.”
“You.”
He nodded. “So that’s why I’m here. To do what it takes to fix this.”
She lifted her chin. “I got some answers, Beau, just not here. This is my life, and I decide. You don’t get to come here and tell me my trip is over and we’re back together.”
“I understand, but—”
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m not going to make the same mistakes I did with Johnny.”
Beau reeled back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not coming back to L.A. because you say it’s time. I’ll do it when I decide it’s right for me.”
He worked his jaw side to side a moment. “I’ve told you repeatedly, I’m not Johnny. Your happiness is my priority, and from now on, that’s what drives my decisions. I’m here to take you home because I believe it’s in your best interest.”
“Why is it always what you say?” she asked, her voice rising. “When do I get to decide?”
He showed her his palms. “We’re a team. You never have to be anything other than you when you’re with me. You said it yourself that first night—I didn’t choose you because I was looking for someone to roll over and take it.”
Beau had always wanted Lola as she was—as long as it was on his terms. She shook her head, still uncomfortably close to the ledge. “It’s not enough.”
There was struggle in his face, his eyes, when he said, “It was once.”
She nodded, remembering. “I want you to know—to me, you are enough...”
“I’m talking about all this.” She gestured around them. “You can’t just ask me to forgive you because you realize the mistakes you’ve made.”
Beau inclined his head a little, squinting at her. “So what’re you saying? This is just done?”
“Why’d you come here?”
“I couldn’t walk away without knowing I’d tried.”
“You tried, I’ll give you that. But this is where it ends,” she repeated his words back to him.
He shook his head. “I was talking about the torment, the pain, the games. All of that ends now.” He gestured between them. “Not this.”
Lola looked at Beau. He was trying, but she needed more. She needed all of him the way she’d been prepared to give him all of herself. He had to be exhausted by his love for her, because their child deserved that from both of them.
“This. Us,” Lola said. “This is where we end.”
“Don’t.” He shook his head. “You can’t tell me you drove all that time and never thought of me. Never wished to be back in my arms, to be loved by me. That you—”
“You have no idea—”
“That you don’t still love me—”
“Of course I do,” Lola cried. Late nights clutching her pillow, wishing it was him. Driving for hours trying to think of anything but him. It wasn’t fair that even when she hurt him, she hurt herself. She never got a break from the pain, and he had the nerve to come here and accuse her of otherwise. “You don’t think this has been torture for me too? I fucking loved you with everything. You could’ve burned every last dollar—I wouldn’t have cared. I loved the way you loved me, something nobody ever gave me. Fuck you,” she said, reluctant tears flooding her eyes, “for thinking you suffered more than me.”
“I broke your heart—fine. Mine broke every day I woke up and thought, ‘Today I’ll find her. Today I’ll bring her home.’ Now I have you—and you’re going to tell me no?”
“You deserved everything you got.”
“I did. I accept that. But don’t keep punishing me.”
“You don’t even know what lies ahead,” Lola said and resisted touching her stomach again. If there was an ounce of love in him for her, she could tear his heart out every day once he found out she was pregnant. But she’d be tearing her own heart out too and now, she actually needed it to raise this baby.
“I don’t deserve this anymore,” he said.
“You deserve it,” she snapped. She breathed hard, curling her hands in and out of fists. She’d been holding the reins for weeks, and she didn’t know how to loosen her grip. “You deserve all of it. For being a monster.”
“I’ve learned my lesson. And I’m grateful for that, because now I know I can make you happy. You’re more than enough, Lola—the money doesn’t mean shit if you aren’t by my side. I want to try to be enough for you.”
“No. You had your chance, and you blew it. We’re finished, and there isn’t anything you can say to change my mind.”
Slowly, he inclined his head forward. “You’re serious about this?”
“I will not make the same mistakes again.”
They stared at each other, him looking on the verge of speaking until he closed his mouth. “I don’t know how else to get you to see—I thought…I thought—”
“You thought what? You’d never have to pay for treating people like this?”
He looked away from her, his eyes eventually drifting down to the ground. He blinked, his hand twitched. His eyebrows lowered. And she watched his every move, not knowing what she was hoping for, just that he wasn’t giving it to her. He turned around.
“Where are you going?” Lola asked.
He stopped, looked back. “I don’t know. I’m standing here, prepared to do whatever you ask, but you’re asking me to do nothing.”
“No,” she said sharply. She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You don’t get to walk away. I do.”
His eyebrows knit as he faced her again. “What?”
“Do you know how it feels to lay it all on the line only to have the person you love tear you apart?”
He nodded. “I do now.”
“No, you don’t. You said you loved me—but I was about to give you everything I had. You waited until I was at my most vulnerable to rip my heart out. I want to do the same to yo
u, and then I get to walk away. Do you understand?”
“No. I—”
“I want to gut you of your dignity.”
His face went smooth, his body still. Dignity, pride, ego, his and hers—that was how they’d gotten here. Neither of them wanted to give up those things. “I don’t know what else to say.” Beau’s jaw clenched as he swallowed. “I love you. I want to make a life with you. That’s my everything.”
“Stand on the cliff,” she said. “You stand there for once.”
He glanced behind her. “What?”
She looked back at that enormous hole in the earth and pointed at the crag. “You need to know how it feels to be cornered for once. To have no control.”
He put his hands in his pockets and walked toward her without hesitating. She held her breath as they passed each other and only let it go once they’d switched spots. He walked over to the ledge and looked down, but only for a brief second. He turned his back to it. “I never thought I could love anyone the way I love you.”
“Did you hear that in a movie?” Lola asked.
He narrowed his eyes on her, rolling his lips inward. “It’s true, Lola.”
“It’s not good enough.”
“I don’t understand. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to give me what I gave you. Every last thing you have. And when you’re emptied out, and your heart is in the dirt? I’m going to walk away, Beau. I’m going to leave you standing here in your own mess. You will never see me again. So, come on. If you love me like you say, you’ll give me the closure I deserve.”
He stared at her, something miserable in his green eyes. It was almost enough to get her to call this off, but this was what she needed. Because nobody could hurt Beau’s pride worse than himself. If he could go to that place for her, knowing it wouldn’t win him anything in the end, then maybe Lola could trust in what he was trying to tell her.
She held her breath, waiting. He made no move to speak, just blinked a few times. For a minute, she thought he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give himself up to save them.
Explicitly Yours Series Page 57