She felt as though the rod had slammed into her own chest. “Why not?” She tried to make her voice strong, but failed entirely.
He rounded on her. “Because I can’t leave. How do you think I’ll feel when I can’t go with you to celebrate your opening in Paris or London or wherever? What about traveling to find new inspiration for your art? You’d have to go alone while I’d be back here in Sanctuary, pretending I wasn’t missing you and worrying about you every second of the day.” He paced back and forth in front of her. “You’ll be growing and absorbing new things and I’ll be stagnating here. One day you’ll come home and wonder what the hell you’re doing with this ignorant, unsophisticated hick.”
“That won’t happen,” she whispered.
“The hell it won’t.” He dropped back into his chair.
“Maybe you’re not giving your brother enough credit.”
“What my brother has can’t be fixed. You don’t understand what it’s like to live with an incurable disease.”
How wrong he was about that.
“As long as Eric is here, I am my brother’s keeper.”
“Have you asked Jimmy what he thinks?”
“He got drunk when he thought I might take a job in Washington. That’s all the answer I need.”
“Are you sure that’s why he did it? Maybe he felt guilty about you not taking the job because of him.”
Anger flared in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She braced herself. “I know what it’s like to have people assume I need to be protected without asking me. Your brother went through a very tough period, and you came home to help him with it. You’re still seeing him as he was then. It might be time for both of you to look at it from a different perspective.”
Couldn’t Paul see how similar he was to Carlos? No, because she was still withholding an important element of her life from him.
“I’m not your uncle, if that’s what you’re thinking.” It was uncanny how he’d read her mind. “My situation is entirely different.”
She wrestled with herself, trying to summon the courage to tell him about her epilepsy. Every time she began to form the words, her throat closed up. Paul already thought she needed protecting from herself. How much worse would it be if he knew there was a reason for Carlos’s constant concern?
“Will you talk to your brother? If not for your sake, then for mine?” She attempted an appeal to his chivalrous side.
He looked away. “I spoke to his AA sponsor. He painted a pretty bleak picture.” He brought his gaze back to hers and his tone softened. “You need to be realistic about this.”
Panic hit her as she realized he was determined to sacrifice both of them for his brother. She stood up. “Look at Darkside. Everyone gave up on him except Sharon. She knew he just needed someone to believe in him. Maybe your brother needs you to believe in him.”
His face hardened to stone. “Are you accusing me of encouraging my brother to drink?”
“Of course not.” She put her hands out as though to push his question away. She was making a huge mess of this. “I just want to find a way for us to be together.”
“Sometimes life doesn’t give you a way,” Paul said.
“It doesn’t matter that I love you?” She offered her heart once more, hoping he wouldn’t rip it out of her chest.
He dropped his hand into his lap. “You don’t know that.”
“If you’re going to reject me, at least don’t patronize me.” She tried to whip up some anger to give herself the strength to survive the rest of the conversation. “I’m very clear on my feelings for you.”
“I’m not rejecting you.” She thought she heard a rasp of pain in his voice.
“What do you call it?”
“Self-preservation.”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap.” She couldn’t believe he was back to trying to convince her he was protecting himself, not her. “Just take me back to the inn. I’m too ticked off to talk to you any more tonight.”
The look he gave her killed her rant. It was filled with longing and regret, pain and resignation, and she could swear something that looked like it might be what she hoped for. Then he said, “Sweetheart, we won’t ever talk about this again.”
Julia hovered inside the front door of the inn until the Corvette growled away. The ride home had been silent and excruciating as she kept her gaze away from the one place she wanted to look: Paul’s face. She’d told him to stay in the car and, infuriatingly, he’d done as she asked.