“But that’s who I am, Haven. You don’t want the real me. The real me disgusts you. I think you might be more right than I wanted to admit that you only want me if I can be your—what was the example you used? Frankenstein’s monster?”
“Pygmalion,” she said.
He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You only want me if you can trot me out in public and I fit in just perfectly and the time is right and nothing is out of place.”
It hit home, and yet she heard, under the all-too-accurate words, his terror. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Don’t make this about me. Don’t fucking make this about me and my fear. I’m not the only one who let all that public sex happen. You wanted to get caught. You’ve got all this stuff inside you that you keep hidden. You want people to know you but you won’t let anyone in, and if someone gets close enough to figure out who you really are, then you—”
She watched, saw the moment the anger drained out of his face to be replaced with the hurt she’d seen in the ballroom.
“Then you push him away.”
She wanted to deny it, but there was too much in her head, too much in her heart. It had hurt him when he thought she was going to lie about their relationship in there, and she didn’t know how to undo her failure to claim him. How could she make it right? How could she take back pushing him away so she could make him believe she meant it?
She had lied by omission because when push had come to shove, that’s what her instinct told her to do. She had denied him by failing to claim him when it really mattered. This was exactly what she’d told Elisa she feared.
What the hell did she really want?
Mark held a hand up, and she saw an empty cab coming up the street.
He stepped to the curb and opened the door. “I don’t know what you’re scared of, but— Look, I want to be with you, but not like this. Not until you’re ready, until you know what you want.”
And he stepped back and held the door wide for her.
“Mark,” she began. But she didn’t know what she wanted or how to say it. She didn’t know how to not be scared and just tell him all the things she felt.
“Go,” he said.
“I—”
“Go, or I will.”
“Lady,” said the cab driver. “Get in the goddamned cab already. I don’t have all night.”
“Mark,” she tried again, but he was already gone, his shoulders hunched as he headed up the street away from her.
13
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Eating Cheetos,” Haven said, shoving another big handful into her mouth.
Elisa tilted her head to one side.
“What?” Haven demanded.
“I’ve never seen you eat Cheetos like that.”
“I’ve never had my career and my sex life implode simultaneously in public before.”