It was laughable. They weren’t suited to it. Neither of them wanted it.
Her heart burned in her chest. If she didn’t want love, then why did the thought of having it with Gage make her ache like it did? Why did her heart feel like it was going to shatter? Why did her life, her perfect life that she had worked so hard for, suddenly feel empty?
Lily’s bed felt empty. She only wished her heart could feel as empty. But it was full. Full of pain, love, need.
She rolled out of her bed and walked out onto her balcony. She could hear the waves crashing on the shore, smell the sea as the crisp wind blew over the surface of the water and carried it to her.
This was what she had worked so hard for. This view. Her home. A home that was hers alone, a life that was hers alone. One that wasn’t controlled by her mother.
A tear slid down her cheek. She didn’t feel free anymore. She’d imagined, for so long, that she was. Had believed that because she’d left, because she’d quit caring whether or not she was enough for her mother, that she had left it behind her.
But she hadn’t. She had carried it with her. It had motivated her, made her successful in her professional life as she’d moved further and further away from her painful childhood, and made more of herself than her mother would have thought her capable of.
It had made her successful in some ways, but she had allowed it to stunt her in so many other ways. She was still letting it stop her.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She wanted Gage. She didn’t know if he wanted her, not in the same way she wanted him. She didn’t know if he could ever love her.
Her own mother hadn’t loved her half as much as she’d loved the various men that had paraded through her life.
It galled her to find out that the thing that had kept her from a relationship, from love, was the fear that she wasn’t good enough. She hid it by focusing on things she excelled at, and she simply ignored everything else, so that she didn’t have to face it.
She wasn’t going to do it anymore. She felt as if she was back on the edge of the cliff again, the ocean at the bottom, a swirling sea of uncertainty beneath her. She could turn and run, as she had done before, or she could face it head-on. She’d managed to do that with business, to face down opponents in the media, without breaking a sweat.
It was her personal life, her feelings, that she’d been afraid to face.
She took a deep breath, trying to lighten some of the weight that had settled in her chest. She didn’t know what Gage would say if she told him she loved him. He would probably turn and run the other way. But she knew that she had to tell him. She wasn’t going to live in fear anymore, not with the fear that she was unlovable, not with the fear of what might happen if she gave herself over to a relationship.
Gage had asked her once if she trusted him, and she’d said yes. But she’d lied. She hadn’t trusted him. If she had, she would never have felt the need to run before he had the chance to end the relationship.
Because that was what it came down to. She was running. She’d been running since she was seventeen.
She wasn’t running anymore.
Gage was at his desk at five that morning. He couldn’t sleep. Not without Lily in his bed. Without her in his arms.
And she had left him. Women never left him. He was always the one to end a relationship. But not this one. Lily had left him.
He wanted her back, but if he had her, he had no idea what he would do. What he could do. Frustration roared through him. He wanted something he could never have, wanted to give Lily things he wasn’t certain he knew how to give. Wanted her to feel those things in return when he knew she simply didn’t.
It was not the first time it had happened to him. His parents had not wanted him, they hadn’t wanted him even with all of his achievements. Why should Lily want him? He’d let her walk away because he’d always believed, deep inside of himself, that he was not a man who someone could love. And so he had set out to become a man who didn’t need love. And when Lily had left, he’d told himself it was for the best.
But there was a war being waged inside of him. A war that pitted what he’d always believed about himself against his heart’s newfound desire. No matter the outcome, it made him want to take a risk, to dive headlong into all of the things that Lily made him feel. Things he hadn’t imagined were possible for him to feel.
He had always been the man who took care of things. When Maddy had needed him, he was there. Always. There had never been a situation in his life that he hadn’t believed he could find the solution to. But there was nothing he could do now.
He wasn’t the kind of man who admitted to needing. To needing help. To needing someone else. But he needed her, and there was nothing in his own power that could bring her to him, that could make her want him the way he wanted her.