Burn(135)

            “Please, Ash. I can’t do this right now,” she begged. Her eyes were filled with tears and more slipped rapidly down her cheeks. “Just let me go. I’m too upset to form a coherent argument and the last thing I want is to say things I’ll regret.”

            He closed the short distance between them, pulling her against his chest. He tilted her chin up with his fingers and stared down into her eyes.

            “I love you, Josie. That’s a fact. No manipulation. No hidden agenda. I. Love. You. Period.”

            She closed her eyes and turned her face to the side. He cupped her cheek and thumbed away one of the silver trails.

            “Just tell me why?” she whispered. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you tell me? Why hide it from me?”

            He sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe I thought you’d react just like you have and I didn’t want that. I loved the paintings, Josie. It pisses me off that because you found out I bought them you think you have no talent and that no one wants your work. That’s bullshit.”

            She tugged herself away from him and presented her back, her shoulders shaking.

            “I’m too upset to have this conversation with you, Ash. Please, just let it go.”

            “I’m not fucking letting it go when you just told me you moved your shit out of our apartment. You honestly expect me to just say okay, have a nice life? Fuck that. The only nice life I want to have is with you.”

            She curled her arms around her waist, hugging herself. “I’m going back to my apartment. My stuff has already been moved. I can’t stay. I promised the movers I’d meet them there.”

            Panic clawed at his throat. Helplessness gripped him. She was actually walking away. Over those goddamn paintings. He knew it was more than that. He understood why she was pissed. He’d never looked beyond the fact that he’d bought them to see how it would make her feel once she discovered it was all a lie. He got that. But how the fuck was he supposed to make it up to her, to make her realize how much she had to offer, if she was sleeping in another bed in another part of the city?

            She started toward the door, him staring after her, utterly paralyzed, his heart in his stomach.

            “Josie, stop. Please.”

            At the “please” she stopped but didn’t turn around.

            “Look at me, please,” he said softly.

            Slowly she turned, her eyes awash with fresh tears. He cursed softly because he never wanted to be the reason for those tears.

            “Swear to me you’ll think about it. And us,” he said in a choked voice. “I’ll give you tonight, baby. But if you think I’m going to give up and let you walk away then you don’t know me very well.”

            She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll think about it, Ash. That’s all I can promise. I have a lot to sort out in my head. You pulled the rug out from under me. I have to figure out what I’m going to do from here. I knew when I entered this relationship with you that you promised to take care of me, to protect me, to provide for me. And I was okay with that because I didn’t need you to. Can you possibly understand the difference? I didn’t have to be with you. I wanted to be. If I’d had no other choice, no place to live, no money, then how could you ever be certain I wasn’t with you for your money? I never want that between us. It’s important to me to be independent and able to provide for myself even if that’s not what I end up doing. But I want that choice. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know that I have value. That I can support myself and make my own choices.”

            He closed his eyes because so much of what she said made sense. It’s how he’d feel in her situation too. And he’d looked right past that. Never considered how it would make her feel for him to buy the paintings and hide that from her. He fucked up. And now he could lose her because of that fuck-up.