Chapter Twenty-One

Nina

As soon as we leave the room, Brayden and I go our separate directions. I'd originally planned to attend all his meetings and seminars with him, which I'd been looking forward to. But under the circumstances, we thought it best that he go alone, and I'd be free to do what I want.

What I want is to curl up in a tight ball and cry.

Instead, I leave the casino and start walking. I haven't had breakfast yet, and I should be starving. But the morning left me feeling raw and shallow; a feeling that can only be compared to what it felt like losing my Nanna. Which is ridiculous, because that was losing someone who had been my sky since the day I was born.

I've known Brayden all of a couple of months, and I never had him. But losing him is like watching the stars go out, one by one, knowing they're never coming back.

My mind drifts to that wish list I created all those years ago. Was it him? Did I really conjure him up? Or did I know him before I'd met him?

"Stop being so stupid," I mutter to myself. It was just a list. A game. An idea created from a fictional story, and I believed it like a fucking child. Now, look where it got me—alone, which feels like forever, all because of some idiotic list.

I end up at the ocean, stopping at a café on the way for a cup of coffee and a croissant. I'm still not hungry, but no man is going to make me starve. So I eat the bread that feels like sawdust in my mouth, washing it down with a tasteless latte, watching the waves roll in through blurry eyes as my heart breaks all over the sand.

My whole life has led me here, and I shouldn't have been surprised. My mom taught me I was nothing more than my body, and that wasn't even good enough. Every pound I gained increased the contempt with which she looked at me. When boys started noticing, she called me a whore.

When I was raped, she acted like it was my fault.

This family is one big lie, and I'm just a part of it. Jordy and I had just made peace, and I go and take the one thing that's sacred to her. Even now, I'm trying to excuse what happened. She pretty much told me they're having issues. He confessed he doesn't love her. But he's still with her, and that's what makes this so wrong. Even if he broke up with her, I couldn't be with him.

Because then every lie my family has believed about me would be true, and their reasons for hating me will be justified.

So, I'll live this new lie—that I'm not in love with Brayden Winters, and I don't wish his ring were on my finger or his children in my future.

I stay at the beach for a few hours, even though the autumn chill keeps me from soaking up the sun rays. Even though my coffee has grown cold and a few seagulls are fighting over my breakfast scraps, I stay long enough that when I hear footsteps behind me, I know it's him.

"How did you find me?" I ask when Brayden sits down beside me.

"I smelled your perfume on the wind and followed it here," he says, placing a wrapped-up sandwich in my hands.

"You can't say things like that to me." I turn to him, hating how even now, I am so utterly attracted to him. His blue eyes consume me, and I want to crawl into his arms and soak up his body heat while inhaling his rich smell.

"I know. I'm sorry." He looks out at the ocean, and I keep the sandwich unopened in my lap. By the smell, I can tell it's barbecue. It reminds me that I actually do love food, especially barbecue. But who can eat at a time like this? "What are you doing out here?" he asks, his eyes remaining on the waves.

"Avoiding people," I say. He gives a light laugh, then nods in agreement. "And seeking answers."

"Did you find any?"

I shake my head no. "Just confirmation that once again, my destiny is to lose."

He turns to me, his hand finding my leg. I want to pull away, to tell him that doesn't belong to him. But who am I kidding? He owns every part of me.

"That's not—"

"True? Yes it is, Brayden. It's the only way I can explain how I could fall for an impossible man, knowing damn well I'm going to get burned in the end."

"You fell for me?"

For just a moment, amidst all these impossibilities, I let his question open me to hope—that he will make me a promise he won't back out of. That he'll choose me, consequences be damned, because we were meant to be with each other .

I nod. Our eyes connect, and I can feel the electricity in my every pore, feel it coursing red hot through my veins. I search him, pleading silently for him to say the words, and we could run away together. Maybe stay in Texas and escape all our issues, or go back to Sunset Bay and face the truth—because the connection between us is stronger than a Texas tornado or a California wildfire.

"I can't be with you," he finally says, and I look back to the ocean. He turns my head to him again. "But I'm not ready to let you go, and I know that's so fucking selfish of me. I have no right to even ask something like this of you. But I'm asking anyways."

"Asking something completely unfair," I say, my eyes brimming with tears. And fuck if I don't lean into his hand when his thumb brushes the tears across my cheek.

"Completely unfair," he agrees. "And if you say no, I'll respect your wishes and never ask it again."

I close my eyes, bracing myself for the disappointment, even though there's only one answer bursting inside me.

"Stay with me this weekend," he says, "not as my employee, and not as my friend. Stay with me as my lover. Let me make up for all the things I'll never be able to give you in this lifetime. Let me try to give them to you now, while we have time. We could even go away, leave all of this behind so we don't miss a single moment."

"But the conference," I say.

"Fuck the conference."

I shake my head. "You've been planning for this all year long. You use this for your business."

"By next year, there might not even be a business," he says, his eyes flashing as he pounds the sand.

"Because of her," I mutter. He doesn't respond. I want to ask him why. If he leaves, he's giving up his family's legacy—all for a woman I know he doesn't love. It's all so fucked up, the way he's trading one promise for another. It's infuriating how fucking blind he is, and it makes me question whether this is really a man I'd give up my morals for when I can't make sense of his logic.

But when I look back at him, I see the man I met so many months ago. The one who is bent on saving everyone around him, even while he's the one drowning. The one who, just this once, is asking for something he can hold on to. Something I want to give to him because I need this anchor too. Even if I'm the one who will lose in the end.

"Stay with me," he whispers, his voice shaking with hope.

"I will."

His mouth crashes on mine, and I breathe him in, my hands combing through his hair as he lays me back on the sand.

"Fuck, I wish I could take you right here," he growls against my mouth, and I laugh, pushing against him.

"I'm fairly certain there are laws against that," I say. " I also think we're breaking enough rules as it is."

Fuck the rules. Fuck the consequences. Fuck every way I'm going to die when this is over. Because right now, Brayden is all I need. And if I can't have him forever, I will take him for now.