Taking Him (Lies We Tell)(35)

She was silent a moment longer. Then her lashes rose again. “Would it be so very bad if I was in love with you?”

His heart lurched. “Yes. Christ, you know it would be.”

“Why? What’s so wrong with it?”

A sensation of suffocation crept up on him. She was everywhere, around him, holding him. The scent of her flowers and musk and peace. And he couldn’t breathe. “Because I would never know if sex between us was your own choice or whether you did it because you loved me.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Do you even understand what love is?”

Yeah, he did. Love was shame. Guilt. The dirty feeling of wanting something you knew was bad for you, was wrong. Love was longing and sick desire. And helplessness. Vulnerability. And pain. Love took away your choice and left you with nothing in its place.

“Of course I fucking do.”

“What? You mean Liz? Because that wasn’t love, Hunter. That was a lie.”

A lie. It couldn’t be a lie. It had to be true. Love was his last defense. If he hadn’t been in love with Liz, then he had no excuse for carrying on with her when part of him had wanted to run screaming in the other direction. No excuse at all.

“It wasn’t a lie.” His hands were on her hips, shoving her off him.

Ellie slid down onto the bed, her cheeks pale now, her hair a molten copper veil over her white skin, her expression one of shock. “Hunter…”

“It’s true! I was in love with her.” He couldn’t seem to shut himself up. “Why else did I continue on with it? There was no other reason. I was in love with her. I wanted to be with her. I even went to my father to tell him I wanted to be with her. But he threw me out because he thought I was a liar.”

Ellie sat there staring at him. She’d gone extremely pale. A small tear trickled down her cheek, but she made no effort to brush it away. “You’ll never love me, will you?” Her voice, small and thin, cut like glass. “No, of course you won’t. You don’t even know what it means.”

The fishhook inside him twisted again, the barbs pushing into his heart. Sinking right down into his soul. It hurt, it hurt so much because he hated to see her upset. And yet it made him so desperately angry, an anger that fizzed and burned in his veins with no direction, nowhere to go. She was right in one way. He could never love her. He could never love anyone. Not after Liz.

“Ellie,” he said desperately. “You can’t be in love with me. You can’t.”

She turned, getting off the bed. Picking up the T-shirt on the floor. “Bit late for that now, don’t you think?” Straightening, she pulled the T-shirt on.

“Where are you going?”

“Away.” She pulled her hair out from underneath the neckline of the T-shirt, letting it fall over her shoulder. “I can’t be here with you anymore.”

The spines on the fishhook sank deeper into his heart, hurting. After suffocating earlier, he now couldn’t bear for her to go. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do.” She lifted a hand, brushed futilely at the tears rolling down her face. “I love you, Hunter. I love you so much. And for years I’ve been happy just to have whatever you threw in my direction. Shit, any smile. Any touch. Any bloody attention at all.”

“Ellie—”

“No. Let me finish.” She blinked. “And you know why? Because I thought, I really believed, that if I did that, one day you’d see the light. That you’d fall in love with me as deeply as I’ve fallen in love with you. But you won’t, will you?”

His throat had closed and he couldn’t speak. But maybe that was for the best anyway since he couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. Christ, she loved him. She fucking loved him.

You knew she did. You knew it all along, you prick.

For a minute she looked at him with such hope it was as if he contained all the light in the universe.

Then she took a ragged breath. “Okay. I get it. I was right.”

“You don’t have to go,” he said thickly, forcing himself to speak. “You can stay. Stay till you have to leave for Tokyo. We can—”

“No.” Such finality in her voice. “No. Not going to.” Ellie wiped away her tears and underneath them was that strength that had always been at the heart of her. That determination that had broken him at the end. “Not going to accept crumbs from you anymore, Chase. Never again. Because I’m worth more than that. I’m worth a hell of a lot more. If you want me, you take all of me. Forever. I’m not going to accept anything less.”

She didn’t wait for him to reply. She turned and walked out of his bedroom.





“Hey? How are you doing this morning?”

Ellie cracked open an eye to see Kara looming over her. She closed the eye determinedly. “I’m sleeping, what does it look like?”

“Babe, it’s eight in the morning and I have to be at work in half an hour. You wanted me to wake you up before I left.”

Had she? Then she must have been insane. Because what she really wanted to do was sleep. Sleep for the next century. Sleep away all the agony in her heart, so that when she woke up, she wouldn’t remember any of it.

“Well, I don’t want to,” Ellie said, pulling the couch cushion over her face.

There was a silence, then Kara asked gently, “Are you going to talk about what happened last night, Ell?”

It was kind of the last thing she wanted to do. But her throat ached. Her heart ached. Everything ached. Then again, Kara hadn’t said a word when Ellie had knocked on her door after leaving Hunter’s place the night before. Just let her come in and wordlessly shoved a shot glass full of vodka at her. After getting her drunk Kara had then let her pass out on the couch and now Ellie supposed she owed her friend some kind of explanation.

“I talked to Hunter last night,” she said, her voice muffled by the cushion. “I told him I loved him.” No reason to tell Kara about Liz. About the abuse that had screwed him up so badly love wasn’t anything he’d recognise even if he did feel it. But she was pretty sure he wouldn’t feel it. She’d known as soon as he’d shoved her off his lap. As soon as she’d recognised the necessity of the last lie he’d been clinging to. That he’d loved Liz.

He’d needed that lie to make it all okay. To protect himself. And he would keep on protecting himself no matter what she said. No matter what she did. He didn’t trust her enough. And she could keep on battering herself against the walls of his denial, breaking herself down to help him. Giving everything of herself to him. All on the narrowest of hope that one day he might feel for her what she felt for him.

But that would never happen. Because if he thought what he felt for Liz was love, then there was no hope at all.

“Oh babe.” Kara’s murmur said it all. “And I take it he didn’t feel the same?”

“No,” Ellie replied, keeping the cushion over her face, closing her eyes against the tears.

“Shit, Ell. I’m so sorry. What did he say? Did he even say anything?”

Slowly Ellie let the cushion fall away, blinking in the light. “Yeah, he asked me to stay until I left for Tokyo.”

Kara’s eyes widened. “He didn’t!”

“He did.” And that’s when she’d finally found her rage. A terrible blistering anger that had stemmed from dashed hopes. From years of fighting for attention and love from people who would never, ever give her what she wanted. Her mother. Vin. Hunter. People who’d never given her anything and yet expected everything from her. Expected she’d give it because she always did. Giving away little pieces of herself until she had nothing left.

Well, she was done with it. She was over it. She had more pride than that.

Fuck, she was worth more than that.

“And you didn’t cave?”

Ellie looked her in the eye. “No. You told me I shouldn’t sell myself short, right? So I didn’t. I told him I was worth more than a few crumbs here and there. And then I walked out.” Her throat closed, more tears threatening. No, shit, she wasn’t going to cry. Wasn’t going to cry over Hunter bloody Chase again.

In a day or two she’d be on her way to Tokyo and a new job. A new life. And hopefully she’d find a man there who would love her, accept her, in the way she craved. Give her what she wanted on her terms for a change.

Yeah, that’s what she’d do.

“You are gold-plated, Ellie Fox,” Kara said approvingly. “Hold out for what you want. Damn straight, girl.”

But Ellie didn’t feel gold-plated. She felt fragile and sick and heartbroken. Holding out for what you wanted was great in theory but the reality sucked.

“Thanks for being there, Kara.” She tried to give her friend a smile. “I appreciate it.”

Kara patted her on the arm. “Anytime, babe. And you can stay here as long as you want.”

“It won’t put you out?”

A strange expression crossed the other woman’s face. “No. Not in the slightest.”

Ellie frowned a little. “You okay?”

“Sure. Hey, I gotta get to work.”

As Kara turned, Ellie noticed she’d dyed her hair again, long streaks of purple staining the bright gold.