no matter how self-righteous he felt about it, there he was following after Maya like he wasn’t in control of his own feet. Like he was a puppet on a string and she’d yanked him close so he could fall into line behind her.
His worst nightmare, basically. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
She made it across the lobby, then pushed out through the doors into the dark December night.
And Charlie was right there, following behind her like he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight.
What the hell was happening to him?
Outside, the village was brightly lit and deserted this time of year. Anyone who wanted to experience the holidays in coastal Italian splendor was tucked up inside somewhere, enjoying the more sedate pace in the area’s otherwise well-trafficked tourist areas. It was as if he and Maya were the only people left in the world—not an image that helped him get a hold of himself.
He didn’t know how to feel the things that moved around inside him. He would much rather feel her instead.
“Is this what you do every time you’re pissed off about something?” He fired the words at her, his voice louder than the sound her heels made against the stones of the ancient square, and all of it echoing back at him in case he’d missed the part where he was being a dick. “At some point you’re going to have to stop running away from the things you don’t like, Maya. Don’t you think?”
She whirled on him then, and he didn’t realize until he saw the sheer, undiluted fury on her face that he’d expected her to be crying. Upset, anyway. Not like she wanted to rip him apart with her own two hands.
“I’m not running away from anything. And I told you I don’t want to repeat this conversation.”
“Babe. I don’t know what you think is happening here, but we haven’t had this conversation before.”
She made that scornful noise that wasn’t a laugh again, and Charlie liked it even less out here where there were no witnesses but the manic Christmas lights. And he couldn’t pretend she wasn’t doing it at him.
“You might not have had this conversation, but I have. Let me jump right over the gaslighting and get to the good stuff.”
“Gaslighting?”
But she ignored that. “I’m not going to stand here and take responsibility for your deceitful behavior. That’s on you. You knew what I thought, you chose to let me keep thinking it and the only thing I can assume is that you took some sick pleasure in imagining I thought you might lose a job you didn’t even have.”
This time when she laughed it was a hard, brittle sound that seemed to crack through the cold air. Or maybe that was just his rib cage, shattering into pieces. To spite him.
“The difference between you and me, Charlie, is that I haven’t lied to you about anything. I’m a wide-open book. Canceled wedding. Cheating fiancé. Best friend who it turns out probably wasn’t much of a friend at all. And this trip to Italy that was supposed to be my honeymoon. I’m not hiding anything from you.” Maya shook her head, her cloud of curls dancing slightly with the movement. “You can’t say the same.”
“We’ve fucked a few times,” he gritted out. “What makes you think you deserve to know my life story?”
And he couldn’t have said why the disappointed look she aimed at him then made that shattering sensation in his chest that much worse.
“It’s not about what I deserve. It’s about what you choose to tell someone in the course of getting to know them, even a little.” She lifted a perfectly rounded shoulder, then dropped it again, and Charlie felt it like a punch. “I don’t understand how people can have as much sex as we have and share absolutely no intimate details about themselves, so really, I should thank you. You’ve taught me something.”
He felt like he was ripping wide-open, and he panicked. There was no other word for it. If he could have shoved the pieces of himself back into place, he would have. But he didn’t have the slightest idea where to start—or any idea how she’d done this to him in the first place—so he scowled at her instead.
And he didn’t know how his hands made it to her shoulders. Not to punish her. To touch her, because he had to touch her. He thought he might die if he didn’t touch her, and that was one more thing he didn’t want or understand or need.
But touching her just made it worse, because he wasn’t inside her.
“I don’t share the details of my life with anyone.” The words sounded like they came from far away. He was only dimly aware he’d said them. “That’s not personal, Maya. That’s who I am.”
“There’s a difference between reticence and lying. Guess which side you fall on.”
“I never actually told you a lie.”
“What’s funny is that I understand why that’s the hill you want to die on.” She shifted then, tipping her face into his. He wanted to grip her harder, drag her closer—but he didn’t. There was too much knowledge in her dark gaze. “Keep ranting on about a technicality and you won’t have to have the discussion about why. Because why is the scary part. Why might actually force you to be intimate with someone for five seconds of your adult life. And of course we can’t have that.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“You’re right. I don’t. And whose fault is that?”
He didn’t understand why all those shattered pieces of him seemed to rattle around inside him, slicing him into shreds. And he definitely didn’t understand why he was just...standing here. Letting this happen.
Why he’d chased her out here to keep letting her get under his skin.
She wasn’t wrong. He had no interest in that why.
But here he was, opening up his mouth and talking anyway. When he used to pride himself on his ability to say as little as possible.
“I already told you more than most people know,” he said, the words torn from a place inside him he hadn’t known was there. “My mother met Daniel St. George in a bar in Houston during the brief window of time she wasn’t propping up bars out in the dirt, which is where she raised me. One night, that was all it took, and here I am. Not that the rich asshole stuck around to help or, you know, say hello. All these years later, I had fancy lawyers up in my face, offering me a hotel in Italy and the means to run it. Are you satisfied now? You already had most of that information. Are we going to pretend that you’re actually upset that I’m not a broke loser moonlighting as a janitor?”
Her lips twisted into something that bore no resemblance at all to her beautiful smile, which landed on him like one more gut punch.
“Right. Now I’m mercenary as well as stupid and overstepping.”
He made a sound that could only be described as a growl. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
Maya didn’t growl. But the look on her face made him feel as if she had.
“News flash, Charlie. I don’t know what I want from you, either. I don’t know
