She touched her palm to his cheek, her fingers sensually caressing the short beard covering his jaw. "Kyle," she whispered so reverently it made him ache deep inside. "I still can't believe that storefront is all mine."
"Did you tell your father?" It was a question he had to ask, and the storefront certainly wasn't something she'd be able to hide from her father for long.
She bit her bottom lip, the shine from her gaze dimming with uncertainty. "Not yet. I'm figuring out how to tell him so he doesn't have another stroke," she muttered, glancing away.
He wasn't sure if she was being facetious or not, but when it boiled right down to the heart of the matter, the fact that she was delaying her own happiness to accommodate her father just didn't bode well for them as a couple. At some point, she had to stand up to her father, for herself. For them.
With his stomach in knots, he grabbed her hands and pulled them away so she was no longer touching him, because he couldn't think straight otherwise. "Ella . . . we need to talk."
She swallowed hard, as if knowing where this conversation was headed, though she didn't say a word. But the wariness in her gaze, mixed in with a dose of fear, spoke for itself.
"I can't keep doing this, Ella. We can't keep doing this," he said, getting right to the point.
"This?" she asked, her voice strained, even as she hedged with her reply to avoid the inevitable.
"Being a secret from everyone, and especially from your father. Only seeing you a few hours every weekend here in your bedroom." That familiar frustration rose up again, and he pushed his fingers through his hair, forcing himself to keep calm. "I've spent three months accepting whatever you were willing to give to this thing between us . . . but it's not enough."
Her fingers fluttered anxiously up to her throat, her eyes big and filled with dismay. "It has to be enough for now."
"For now?" he repeated, his tone rising incredulously as he jammed his hands on his hips. "And when does that end, Ella? When does for now become something more than me crawling through your window for a quick fuck?" His words were crude, but he was starting to feel desperate, like the best thing that had ever happened to him was slipping through his fingers for the second time in his life. "When will I be able to take you out on a date like normal couples do? When can we start building toward some kind of future together?"
"What if we can't have a future together?" she demanded, her voice suddenly thick with tears. "Are you forgetting that I live here in Woodmont, and you live in the city, which I hate? But that's where your job is. That's where your life is and has been for the past ten years. And this is where my life will always be."
Despite his anger at the situation, he understood her concerns. "We'll figure it out, but we can't even do that because our relationship hasn't extended outside of the fucking bedroom."
"That's because there isn't anything to figure out," she nearly yelled at him.
"I love you, Ella." The words came tumbling out, and it nearly gutted him when he saw the pain in her eyes, when he didn't hear the same response from her lips even though he knew she had to feel the same. "For ten long years, I've felt so empty inside, waiting to feel something again for another woman, and it never happened and you want to know why? Because you are the one, Ella. You will always be the one. Doesn't that count for something? Anything?"
"I don't know," she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, her voice conflicted and confused. "I don't know."
"I want you in my life." He couldn't be more open and honest and straight-forward about that.
"This is my life," she said, waving a hand in the air around her to indicate where she was and who she was with and where she would stay.
"No, this is the life you think you need to lead," he said more firmly. "Out of a sense of obligation to your father. Because your sister isn't around to help and you feel like it's all on you to shoulder everything at the expense of your own happiness. What about you, Ella? What about what you want? What about your life and your future? When does any of that matter?"
She never had the opportunity to answer, because the rattling of the doorknob, then a loud knock on the door made them both freeze in place at the sudden interruption.
"Ella?" her father said from the other side, his voice gruff. "Who's in your room with you and why is your door jammed shut?"