I already packed my shit. I got the confirmation text from Lauren that the earliest flight with a seat available is at five in the morning, so I’m stuck here for a few more hours.
I feel like shit.
I didn’t say goodbye to Axel, Courtney, or Emme, but more importantly, I didn’t say goodbye to the one person who matters most to me. It’s not my right to say goodbye to her, though. She’s marrying another man, and I didn’t even get my chance.
I call room service and order a bottle of Macallan. It’s the only single malt whisky on the menu, and I ignore the price tag—it’ll be well worth it.
I set my alarm for three in the morning before my bottle arrives so I don’t miss my flight. I’m not far from the airport, and I already anticipate I’ll still be wasted. Maybe that’ll help with the flying anxiety, too.
I stand in just my boxer briefs by my floor-to-ceiling windows and gaze out over my view, seeing mostly blackness since I have a water-view suite. There are ships and boats with lights, obviously, and I see more lights across the bay up on Coronado Island, but the vast majority of my view is blackness, which is perfect to match my mood.
Fucking San Diego. I never should’ve come here. I was better off wondering than dealing with this shitty feeling.
A knock raps at my door, and I’m thankful for the whisky that’s about to burn its way down my throat and into my chest. I can only hope it’ll numb the pain there. This whisky is all I’ve got—it’s basically the only light in the blackness right now.
I pull on a pair of jeans and walk over to open the door.
It’s not room service with my bottle of whisky.
“Sylvie,” I whisper.
“Hey,” she says with an awkward little wave and a nervous smile. Her eyes dart down to my abdomen and widen a bit before traveling back up to my face. The nervous smile has faded, and there’s all sorts of lust there now.
This is wrong. She shouldn’t be here, and she definitely shouldn’t be looking at my body like that when she’s wearing the ring of another man on her hand. The light catches the new diamond on her finger, and it sparkles right in my eyes. Seeing her here, up close, wearing that fucker’s ring…it’s all too much for me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what?” I lean forward, one shoulder resting on the doorframe.
She sighs and looks defeated as she averts her gaze to the ground. “About everything.”
The room service attendant stops behind her. “Sir, your whisky.”
I open the door a little wider and step through, allowing it to rest on my heel as I sign the slip to claim my saving grace. Sylvie steps to the side as I talk to the man. I give him a generous tip, thinking at least one person here deserves a good night.
I take the bottle and step back into my room as the room service attendant walks away.
“Can I come in?” she asks.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My eyes fall to her hand again, and she follows my gaze.
“It’s not what you think.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s not an engagement ring?”
“No, it is, but I…I just need to talk to you. Please let me in.” I can’t tell anymore if she’s talking about entering the room or entering my heart. Both should be off limits to her, but I don’t know that either is.
I draw in a deep breath. I unscrew the cap to my whisky and tip the bottle to my lips, allowing myself one shot. The liquor leaves a burn in its wake that actually does help numb a bit of the pain in my chest.
I push the door open a little wider and turn around. If she decides to walk through it, I can’t guarantee I’ll remain the gentleman I’ve been since she knocked on my door.
She follows me through and the door clicks shut behind her.
I help myself to another shot and then hold out the bottle to her. She contemplates for a second, and then she sets her purse on a little table by the door and walks toward me. She takes the bottle and tips it to those pillow lips, and my dick strains painfully against the confines of my jeans.
Jesus.
Any other woman at any other time would already be naked and I’d be slamming my dick into her. The really ironic thing is that this is the one woman I really want—the one woman I really need.
But I can’t have her, as I’m reminded when the diamond glints in the light as she lowers the bottle and holds it out for me to take.
I want to yell at her to take off that fucking ring.
“Talk,” I say bluntly.
She looks hurt, but she can’t possibly know how hard it is to have her here in my room after what I was forced to witness tonight.
I walk over to the window and resume my gaze out over my view.
“Can you look at me?”
I sigh and turn around.
“And can you put on a shirt?” She motions to my abdomen. “Those are really distracting.”
I want to laugh, but I can’t muster it up. I grab a white t-shirt from my bag and slide it over my head.
“Thanks. I liked it better before, but now I can concentrate.”
I raise my brows. “Would your fiancé approve of you talking to another man about his abdomen?”
She shrugs. “Probably not.”
We’re both quiet, and then she suddenly blurts out, “I don’t want to marry him.”
“Then why’d you say yes?”
“I didn’t. It all happened so fast.”
“I saw you nod your head. I watched the whole shit show unfold in front of me.”
“I don’t know what happened. Everyone was watching—everyone, including my parents who love him and look at him as the ultimate security for their only child. I don’t want the type of security he gives me. I don’t want him. I swear to God, I never said yes. It was like one second he was down on his knee and then I saw you across the room and I wanted it to be you.” Every ounce of pain is in her voice as she speaks. “God, I wanted it to be you.”
The ache of her words jackhammers into my chest.
“And then he asked and it was right when I made my decision that it was you I wanted and I nodded to myself that I knew what I needed to do, but he thought I was saying yes and—”
“Wait.” I hold up my hand to halt her rambling. “You wanted it to be me?”
She sticks her chin out defiantly but doesn’t respond.
“You wanted what to be me?”
Her cheeks flush with color, and she looks lovelier than ever. She’s opening herself up for me. She’s vulnerable and defenseless before me as she hands herself over to me.
She doesn’t answer.
“Sylvie, you wanted what to be me?” I repeat my question.
She looks away from me. “It sounds ridiculous to even say it out loud.”
“You wanted me down on my knee asking for your hand?”
She reaches for the bottle of Macallan and takes another shot. “Yeah, so?”
“So it’s a little soon, don’t you think?”
“I absolutely think it’s a little soon. I think it’s a lot soon. I don’t know why I said it.”
“Because it’s what’s in your heart.”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Don’t maybe me. Don’t bullshit me. I deserve your truth. Why are you here?”
She throws her hands up in the air. “I don’t know! I thought you wanted me but then I thought you only kept coming after me because I was some big challenge. I can’t just be a challenge for you. I can’t uproot everything in my life because you want to score the girl after you score the company. I thought about saying yes to him, but I can’t marry someone just because someone else hurt me.”
She’s yelling at me by the time she finishes, and I respond in a calm, controlled voice—after another searing taste of whisky, of course.
“How, exactly, did I hurt you?”
“Your sister-in-law and that other girl—your cousin? Whatever. Those two girls were talking about you, and they made it sound like you’d have sex with anything that breathes. It made me feel like whatever was starting up between us was cheap. I should’ve known. I was warned. I’ve heard about your reputation and, God, I’m so mad at you, but you were flirting and calling me cupcake, and now I wonder if you’ve just been pressing my buttons to get into my pants.”
“I’ve actually only seen you wear pants once since I met you.”
“I hate you.”
I shrug. “I believe you. Maybe you mean to get into your panties.”
“I’ve also only worn those once since you met me.”
My dick is so fucking hard I think it might slice right through the fabric of my jeans. “Fuck, Sylvie. You come here and say shit like that to me while you’re wearing another man’s ring?”
She glances at her hand and then back up at me.
“I don’t want to be with him.”
“Who do you want to be with?”
“You, Carson. I want to be with you.”
“Then take off his fucking ring.”
She does. She takes it off and sets it on the dresser, and it has the same effect on me as if she took off all her clothes and was standing naked before me.
We stare across the small space at each other, and then she closes the gap with a sprint across the room. She throws herself into me, linking her arms around my neck. I huff out a puff of air as I drop the bottle of whisky to the floor and wrap my arms around her then bury my face into the satin skin between her neck and her shoulder.
I’ve never felt the rush of emotions that course through me. It’s a tingle in my stomach, a quiver in my chest, a bolt of lightning down my spine. It’s all the blood in my body rushing straight to my dick. It’s a racing heart, a mouth that waters for her, fingers that itch to feel her bare skin beneath them.
It’s everything and it’s overwhelming and as much as it feels like the rightest thing in the world, it’s wrong.
She trembles in my arms and I know she’s crying. Fuck it all, but for the second time tonight, I feel that strange heat behind my own eyes. I push it off with a deep breath. I hold her, wishing things were different, wishing this wasn’t so goddamn hard.
But it is.
Love is pain—that’s the lesson here. Love is aches and decisions and anxiety. It’s heartbreak and doing the right thing when all you want to do is the wrong thing. It embeds itself in our very souls and tears us to shreds.
But, from my experience with it so far, it’s also one hundred percent worth all of it.