Chapter 18

18

NIALL

R eal happiness wasn’t an emotion I was terribly familiar with. Contentedness was more my speed, but I’d woken up this morning genuinely happy.

Having Tallulah in my arms when I’d opened my eyes had filled me with warmth and a strange appreciation for the new day we’d entered together. I’d been looking forward to spending it with her, but as I stood across the kitchen from her now, seeing moisture shimming in her eyes, my heart sank.

“What’s wrong? I promise I washed my hands.”

She blinked like a deer in headlights. “Nothing’s wrong. You just shouldn’t be cooking me breakfast.”

“Why not?” I asked, confused. “I’m starving and I figured you might be too.”

“Yes, but…” She trailed off, her gaze drifting to the windows behind me as she shook her head.

I let out a long exhale through my nose, swiping my tongue across my lips as I wondered why she looked like she was about to cry. “I know we’re taking things slow, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eat together, right? It’ll be weird if you just watch me eat all these.”

She shook her head miserably as she started wringing her hands. “You just shouldn’t have gone through all this trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.” I frowned and rounded the kitchen island, not reaching for her, but my gaze was intent on her face as I tried figuring out what the hell was going on. “Are you all right? Did something happen that I should know about? Maybe I should be able to piece it together, but right now, I have no idea what’s gone wrong.”

“Nothing has gone wrong.” She finally lifted her eyes to mine, fat tears welling on her lids as she stared back at me. “I just shouldn’t be here. We can’t be together, Niall. You’re way out of my league. I have nothing to offer you. I’m just a girl with barely any life skills. I?—”

“Is it me?” I asked, interrupting her rambling because it wasn’t making any sense. “I’m really not getting exactly what’s going on.”

“It’s not you.”

“Good,” I said, finding at least a small measure of relief in that. “I really like you. I’m not looking for you to offer me anything. I’m not even sure what you’re talking about, but I do know that I’d like nothing more than to take you upstairs and finish what we started last night. Then I’d like to sit down and eat way too many pancakes. Then we can spend the rest of the day watching those scary movies you like so much.”

She blinked hard, her features scrunching up a little bit. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said easily, pointedly running my gaze over her in the shirt I’d had on at the party last night.

As unbelievably fucking sexy as she looked in it though, I really did still believe that it was better for us to take things slow. It’d nearly killed me to put on the brakes last night when I’d literally had the condom in my hand, but it’d felt like the interruption of my phone ringing had happened for a reason.

A belief that had been reinforced this morning when I’d woken up to an apologetic text from someone claiming to have accidentally dialed the wrong number.

That kind of shit just didn’t happen often these days, but more especially not at the exact moment it’d happened last night. Sign accepted, I’d vowed to stick to the decision we’d made about easing our way into things.

“Why don’t you take me upstairs to finish what we started, then?” she asked softly.

As I stared back into those hazel eyes, I wondered how honest I could be right now without scaring her off. The truth was that I was starting to get the feeling that something had either happened to her in the past, or that she was hiding something serious from me.

After last weekend, I’d concluded that the darkness in her was about her past, but I still didn’t know what it was, and until I did, I just felt like I’d ruin things if I slept with her. Last night, she’d been all for it and so had I, and yet, I’d sensed some hesitation in her when I’d pulled her panties aside.

She hadn’t been completely comfortable with me regardless of how much she’d wanted it. I had a few kinks sexually. Stuff I found hot, but uncertainty and discomfort weren’t part of them. I wouldn’t cross that line until everything felt just right.

That was the answer to her question, but I didn’t voice it, countering with a question of my own instead. “Why do you think we can’t be together?”

She sucked in a breath, looking like she was gathering her thoughts. It took her a minute before she shrugged. “It’s just one of those things.”

I frowned, sweeping my gaze across her beautiful face and noticing how conflicted she seemed this morning. As I thought it over, her words from earlier drifted back across my mind. I just shouldn’t be here. You’re way out of my league. I have nothing to offer you. I’m just a girl with barely any life skills.

As I wondered where that had come from, it suddenly hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Things started clicking into place one after another, the puzzle pieces falling together rapidly after weeks of not making any sense individually.

Tallulah was careful with money. As far as I knew, she hadn’t spent a dime of what I paid her, which was generous. Yet, she hadn’t even gone shopping for a dress for the party, and while I’d jumped to the conclusion about her not having had time to do so, she’d already come right out and said it’d been unnecessary to spend money when Sayra had had that dress lying around.

It wasn’t just that either. The last time I’d been to her house, she’d still only had the groceries I’d bought when she’d started and I’d noticed she hadn’t bought any knickknacks to make the place feel like hers either.

No new cushions, rugs, photo frames, candles, or anything else that would’ve injected her own style into the guest house. She also never asked me for anything and she was still Ubering despite me practically giving her a car.

She took meticulous care of the guest house and she’d been working like a dog on the preparations for the Hallow’s Eve Festival. In addition to all that, she’d taken on last night’s party as well and as soon as she’d had the opportunity, had asked whether she’d still have a job by Christmas.

Individually, there were hundreds of possibilities to explain all those things rationally. All together, however, they made me feel like something was off.

Something, I realized with rage speeding through me, that likely had to do with the ex she’d mentioned once. “What did he do to you?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, eyes locking on mine as I edged closer to her. “Who?”

“Carter,” I spat. “Your ex-boyfriend. I know he did something to you and seeing as how that something now seems to be affecting the way you’re thinking about a possible future with me, I’d like to know what it was.”

“Niall…” She trailed off, more tears filling her eyes as she shook her head. “I can’t.”

I dragged in a deep breath, curling and uncurling my fingers at my sides in an attempt to work out some of the rage and aggravation rolling through me. If I was right, any display of aggression on my part, even if it wasn’t aimed at her, would only make things worse.

Sitting down on one of the stools at the island, I reached for her slowly, giving her plenty of time to move out of my reach. When she didn’t, I gently wrapped my fingers around hers and tugged her to me, forcing myself to be patient instead of demanding answers.

She came to stand between my spread knees, but not pressed up against me. Running her thumbs along my palms, she glanced at our joined hands for a long moment.

“Look, Tallulah. You know me. I won’t try to force it out of you if you’re not ready to tell me, but please don’t think it’s because you can’t talk to me. You absolutely can . What’s more is that I want you to.”

She finally glanced up at me. “Why? None of it is your problem.”

“I’ve already told you that I like you, and I really do,” I said. “I don’t care that you have barely any life skills, but I happen to know that you’ve got a lot more than you seem to think.”

I pulled in a deep breath, holding her gaze steadily. “While I’m not sure what you think it is that I want that you can’t offer me, I can assure you that’s not the case. I’m here. I’m right here, and I want to know you. That’s all.”

For a moment, it looked like she was about to break down completely. A tremble passed through her and she bit back a sob, her eyes closing. She pulled in a deep breath. My heart ached and I let go of her hands to wrap my arms around her, enveloping her in a hug and just holding her tight.

I was about to tell her that it was okay and that she didn’t need to tell me when she started in a soft voice. “Carter wasn’t just my boyfriend, Niall. He was my husband.”

It took everything in me to remain calm, but somehow, I managed, and she finally lifted her head away from my shoulder to look at me before she continued. “We got married young. I was twenty-one.”

I flinched, but I didn’t further betray any of the horrible emotions streaking through me. Tallulah took my hands again, still leaning into me, but her voice was getting stronger now. “When I told you I grew up sheltered, I didn’t mention just how very, very sheltered I was. I didn’t get any say in what I wore, what I ate, what I watched or listened to, and those Anne Rice books I love so much? I had to sneak them into my house.”

My heart started jackhammering in my chest, but I simply nodded instead of jumping up and swinging my fists into the walls like I wanted to. Tallulah exhaled slowly. “My parents were extremely strict, so I didn’t date at all until I met Carter. His family went to our church and my parents got to know him and his parents that way. I was a junior in college by then, and while my parents didn’t like me socializing or even being on campus for anything other than my classes, they did let me see him eventually.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Did they force you to marry him?”

“Kind of.” She shrugged. “They strongly encouraged it, and even though I didn’t really like him, I went with it because I thought the marriage would give me an out from my life at home. As it turns out, it just got me into something worse.”

My eyes slammed shut. Fears far worse than I’d imagined were being confirmed in this conversation, and honestly, I had no idea how to take it. I was seeing red, wanting nothing more than to get up and throw my considerable resources and power into pulverizing all these people who had hurt her. But I just sat there.

She sighed. “After being married to him for three years, I finally left, but he saddled me with an insane amount of debt during our divorce. It was an attempt to stop me from going through with it, but I just wanted out.”

If my heart started beating any harder, I was going to pass out and she wasn’t even done yet. “Carter was even more controlling than my parents. He tried to prevent me from graduating college and then, when he failed at that, he forbade me from working. He knew I had no way to pay off all that debt, but I couldn’t stay. I didn’t even argue about it. I just took it on and I’ve spent the last two years trying to learn how to be on my own.”

Red spots danced across my field of vision, almost consuming it entirely by the time she fell silent, but I listened anyway. How could anyone take a woman like this—someone so bright, so creative, and so loving—and stick her into a box that dulled her light?

She choked back a sob and released my hands, giving me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Niall. I’ll leave now, but I hope you understand why we can’t be together.”

I grabbed her and crushed her to my chest, holding her tight and burying my face in her hair. “I don’t want you to leave. God, why would you even think that?”

As she pulled her head away from mine, I snaked a hand up her back and tilted my head, kissing her hard and hoping that she would finally understand that I wanted her here. In my house. In my life. In my company and hopefully, also in my bed.

That last part could wait, but the point was that this woman seemed to think that her past experiences made her less desirable or less deserving. She couldn’t have been more wrong. I was so much more attracted to her now that I knew how strong she really was, and I wanted to give her even more than I had before because she deserved the entire fucking world.

Anything and everything she wanted.

On a silver platter.

I guess it’s a damn good thing I’ve got so many of those lying around here.