“Lily, whatever it is, you can tell me,” he said, his voice tight.
“I can’t do this anymore, Gage.”
Her words hit him with the impact of a brick. His stomach contracted and his chest squeezed tight. Pain ripped through him before it was washed away by a tide of anger that washed it away.
“You can’t do what?” he asked, his voice soft, because he knew he was on the edge, and unless he kept himself under careful control, he might lose it completely.
“This. This relationship. Whatever it is we have. We agreed to a fling, and this—” she gestured around his home “—staying at each other’s houses and going on dates and you buying my clothes, that’s not a fling.”
“Yes, Lily, this is a fling. It certainly isn’t anything more.” The pain in his chest compelled him to lash out, made him want to shatter that composed look on his face, find a break in the calm, smooth voice.
It was an incredible crash, thinking that he’d found a way to hold on to her forever, and finding out she was slipping away from him. He had nothing to hold her to him, nothing to make her want to stay.
He swallowed hard, trying to block out the incredible pain that was lashing at his heart, making him feel raw, wounded. This was why he didn’t simply give emotion, didn’t do caring. He had loved his parents, and it had meant nothing to them. And then, even with all of his achievements, he hadn’t been enough.
He wasn’t enough for Lily, either.
She looked up at him and for a moment, he was certain he saw pain in her eyes, until she masked it again with the blank expression she’d been wearing when he walked into the room.
“Then why prolong it?” she asked, standing. “I’ll get a cab.”
“Why? You have to be at work soon. I can drive you,” he ground out.
She looked away from him. “I don’t know …”
“It’s just a fling, Lily,” he bit out. “And we always knew that it would end. And we agreed you would continue to work for me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Of course. My job is important to me. Another reason why I don’t think it’s smart to prolong this. I don’t want it affecting our work.”
Something about the way she said that made his stomach burn. Her job was important. What had passed between them wasn’t.
He couldn’t even believe that only moments before he’d been imagining having a baby with her. Had even thought they could make it work. But she was no different than his parents, and when it came right down to it, neither was he. He might have thought, for a brief moment, that he could be someone else, that he could have another life than the one he was meant to have. But it was not possible.
“I’ll get ready,” he said and turned away, headed back into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. He pounded his fist hard against the wall, hoping that it might loosen some of the pain that had settled in his chest.
He shook the lingering sting from his hand and went to his closet. His chest still hurt. He wanted to back out and take her in his arms and tell her they weren’t finished. He wanted to take her back to bed and pleasure her until neither of them could think. Until she didn’t want to leave him.
But there was no point. This was always the way it was going to end. It was what he wanted. What he had to want. He didn’t do permanent. He didn’t want to be tied down for the rest of his life, to have to put himself, his job, second. He’d been there, he’d done that.
But he didn’t feel a sense of freedom at the thought of ending his affair with Lily. He only felt like there was a hole inside of him. And he had no idea how he would fill it without her.
Lily sat in the chair across from Gage’s desk, pen in hand, taking notes. She was gripping the pen too tightly and her hand hurt. But everything in her body hurt. To be with Gage—without being with him—was almost pure torture.
But she had agreed to it. She had agreed to the fling in the first place, and then she had instigated its demise.
But she had done it for all the right reasons. Gage had said, unequivocally, that their relationship was nothing more than a casual affair. And she had fallen in love with him.
She just needed some time away from him. Not that she was going to get any real time away from him. Not when she had to see him every day. But she wasn’t about to self-destruct her career just because she’d made the stupid mistake of sleeping with her boss. And falling in love with him.
She didn’t even want to be in love, so the fact that she was absolutely heartbroken over him was even worse. But what would they do in a relationship? Get married? Have a family?