CHAPTER 24
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, and she reached across the bed, coming fully awake when her hand found only cool sheets. She sat, rubbing her eyes, and found Sterling, fully dressed, sitting in the chair across from the bed, head bent and resting his elbows on his knees. Her stomach dropped.
“Everything okay?” He raised his head. Everything was most certainly not okay. His eyes had the look of a haunted man. “Sterling?” She scrambled out of bed, not caring she was stark naked. “What is it? Did something happen?”
She reached for him, but he shrugged her away. “You need to go,” he said woodenly.
Her blood ran cold. “Wait. What? What do you mean?”
“God help me, Em. I love being with you,” he rasped.
Oh, God. OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod. Nooooo. She recognized that tone of voice. But it didn’t make sense. Not after what they’d shared the night before. She was falling in love with him. She’d talked about her parents. She never talked about her parents with anyone. Not even her brothers. “I don’t understand.” But the sick feeling in her stomach said she understood all too well what was coming.
He looked at her, eyes dull. Face pulled tight. “You were right about there being no guarantees. I was up all night thinking about it. Watching you sleep. I was a monster last night.”
“You were angry and hurting.” She’d seen far worse in her own home. Last night had been an uncharacteristic outburst of grief. Nothing more.
“You don’t know that,” he said harshly. “I don’t know that. What if the next time I throw something at you? Or worse?”
Panic swirled up through her body, making everything pass in slow motion. “I know you. That’s not who you are. You’re not a violent person. Neither are your parents. I’ve never seen you start a fight. Or intimidate or disrespect anyone. You’ve never been anything but a gentleman.”
He lifted his head back. “Ha.”
“You’re grieving, Sterling. Grief takes time. But it’s not a reason to walk away from love.”
His eyes bored into her, icy and wild. “Is that what you think this is?”
Her breath caught in her chest. Last night? She’d have said yes. The second she’d awakened? Same. But now? She was packing up the private Emma and hiding her behind a wall, too scared to say what she wanted for fear of what he might say. “I think it could be,” she said slowly.
“This isn’t love,” he said harshly. “It’s chemistry. It’s fucking.”
His words sliced to her core. Right through her defensive walls to the very heart of her. “I know why you’re doing this,” she articulated when she could find her voice again. “I know why you’re pushing me away. And you don’t need to.”
“You don’t know what I need,” he growled.
A flame sparked to life in her chest. “What you need,” she snapped back, “is a slap upside the head.”
He glared at her. “Is that so?”
“Yes. It is. And I want a legitimate reason from you as to why you’re telling me to leave.” She wasn’t going to let him run away from this. Not after last night.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly looking exhausted. “We’ve been over this. I don’t know how else to spell it out.”
“Well you better try real hard, mister.” Anger fisted in her chest. Clearing her head, sharpening her tongue.
“Fine.” He stood and tossed her sweater on the bed. “Get dressed.”
She stood, too. “No. If you’re going to send me away. Then you’re going to see what you’re giving up on.” She’d use every weapon at her disposal this morning.
“I’m not giving up on anything. There was never anything to give up on.”
She arched a brow. “Is that so? Nothing?”
He tossed her pants on the bed, eyes raking over her. Her hopes rose. There was a flicker of heat there. Of longing. “Nothing.”
“Liar.” Her throat tightened as her mind reeled. Why was he doing this? This didn’t make sense. “I want one good reason from you why I should walk out of here.”
“Fine,” he bit out, squeezing his hips. “I’m not going to break you or anyone else the way Johnny broke Mace.”
“That’s a load of crap, Sterling. How do you know sending me away right now won’t break me?”
His head whipped up, eyes boring into her. At least that got his attention. “You don’t love me.” His voice was clipped. Dry. Hopeless.
Her heart slammed into her throat, and she stood on the edge of a chasm. Terrified to jump, yet knowing it was the only way across the gulf between them. “What if I did?” she whispered thickly.
He let out a harsh sigh. “Then I’d tell you you’re barking up the wrong tree, because I can never be the man you deserve.”
She shut her eyes, willing the tears back into her skull. “What if you’re the man I want?”
“I’d tell you you’re a fool,” he rasped, raking a hand over his head and regarding her with terrible eyes. “Because.” He shuddered and gulped. “Because I don’t want you.”
Emma stopped breathing. In a flash as searing and rapid as a lightning bolt tearing through a tree, his words cleaved her heart in two. Only the thunder was the roar of her blood in her ears. “You don’t mean that,” she said, putting as much iron into her words as she could muster. “Look me in the eye and tell me again that you don’t want me, that everything between us was all an act.”
She swallowed when he looked at her, the unbending steel in his eyes, and she knew he’d do it. He’d tell her. This was Sterling the warrior. Sterling the soldier with a mission to complete. And his mission was to purge her from his life. She swallowed down the sob that threatened to shred her voice.
His words were succinct. As sharp as glass. “I. Don’t. Want. You.”
Only through sheer will, was she able to keep her spine ramrod straight and not collapse in a heap. “I feel sorry for you Sterling. I really do. That you have chosen loneliness and despair over the possibility of love.” She sniffed, gathering her anger around her like a cloak. “Because, in the end, that’s all we have. What’s most important is our ability to give and receive love. It’s the only thing that separates us from the animals, and it’s the only glimpse we get of heaven.” She glowered at him, drawing on every last bit of strength she had. “You’re not half the man I thought you were.” She swept from the room, keeping her head high, snagging the blanket from the couch and wrapping it around her like a toga as she marched through the office and to her car, offering a silent plea to the universe to spare her the humiliation of running into anyone.