Merina's stomach flipped. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the pain in his words.
"I vowed never to set foot in this house again. Every room reminded me of Gwyneth. I made plans to build a life with her and she…" A muscle in his jaw flickered and Merina's heart sank. He'd planned a life with Gwyneth. Here. In this house. "I was willing to risk my future, the company I am now running, to pander to love."
Merina had fallen in love with him. Completely, no take-backs. What a shitty time to have that revelation.
It hurt to hear he loved Gwyneth, but it hurt more to hear him slot love into the category of "inconvenient." Reese equated love with being weak. Who needed love now that he had his precious company?
"That future existed only in my imagination," Reese continued, his voice eerily calm.
"What about your new future? You have a chance at something here…We have a chance to build on what we've started."
"No, Merina." Those two words were so final. "Seeing my photo splashed on television was more than inconvenient and embarrassing. It was a reminder of a very important decision I made. The reason I dated random women and broke it off after one date for the last five years was because I never want to feel like that again. That's why our arrangement is and always was going to be temporary."
It was a low blow. One she felt in her heart. Because she was the moron who went ahead and fell for him while they were under "contract."
"Women are temporary. Gwyneth was temporary. Those one-night stands? Each one as forgettable as the last." He took a step away from her as if illustrating his point.
"Reese—"
"And so are we."
Her face went cold. A part of her saw what he was doing and hated him for it. But a larger part loved him and hated to see how much he was hurting. That part of her spoke next.
"Goddammit, Reese, don't do this." She wanted to touch him and if she thought he'd allow it, she would have. As close as she thought they had become, she now saw she didn't know his heart at all. "You can't tell me out of all the times we slept together, you never once wondered if we might work out. You can't tell me you never thought 'what if?' You can't…because I was there, Reese. I was…"
She had to stop talking when a lump seized her throat. And that lump came because her husband's face hadn't changed. His brows didn't bow in sympathy and he didn't come a single step closer to her. His navy eyes were dark and emotionless.
Which meant she was wrong.
He'd never considered them working out. He'd never asked "what if?" She loved him and yet he couldn't see them as more than an arrangement.
She was another in a long line. Soon to be forgotten.
"I'm getting a shower." His face was studiously flat. "I'll sleep in the guest bedroom so you don't have to worry about me bothering you."
He went inside and she watched him go. Everything had escalated so quickly. Or maybe it hadn't. Maybe this had been building since the night she laid eyes on Gwyneth at Alex's retirement party. That should have been her clue that Reese couldn't handle a relationship. She'd patted herself on the back for handling his ex like a pro, and he hadn't handled it at all.
Every part of her wanted to run after him now and finish this fight, but instead she rooted her feet to the ground and let him go.
She'd risked too much tonight. If he didn't know how she felt after that tirade, then he was a bigger idiot than she was. He may be protecting himself, but she needed to protect herself as well.
She'd been taken advantage of once before and as a result had become stronger. She could deal with this. Even though her stupid heart had the worst taste in men, she would survive this. She'd come out stronger.
Eventually.
* * *
Nothing was working.
Reese dropped his pen and leaned back in his chair, face to his hands. The massive headache behind his eyes had cropped up before lunch, and nothing he'd done to stave it off had helped. Not the ten minutes he laid down on his couch and tried to rest his eyes, not the painkillers he swallowed, and not trying to ignore it by getting back to work.
In the week that had passed since the fight with Merina, work hadn't been the same. The exhilaration of CEO he'd felt initially had dulled. Now he just felt busy.
He pulled a hand down his face. God. He felt like shit for the things he'd said to her. The way he'd walked away. She stood there on his back patio her vulnerability on display when she asked him to give "them" a shot. Them as in him and Merina. The "we" he'd recognized when she'd dropped off the frame wasn't in his imagination.
But it wasn't the right thing to do. In a rare moment of word vomit, he'd told her the truth. He was broken. Merina should be with someone who suited her, and while they were compatible as hell in bed, out of it…they weren't.
She was passion and vibrance and truth, and he was fear and cages and avoidance. At least when it came to relationships. She needed someone to bloom with—to thrive.
He wasn't that guy.
He'd slept in the guest bedroom every night since the argument and while he didn't care what the house staff thought about having to make up two different beds in the morning, he did care that Merina hadn't chased him down. A big part of him expected her to demand he talk about things. When she didn't, he figured she'd given up, thereby giving him what he asked for. Saving herself and leaving him to himself.
Only today, right now, that wasn't what he fucking wanted. She gave him space and he, for a change, wanted none. The night they'd argued, the next night, and every night after, Merina's bedroom door remained closed. She remained behind it.
This morning, outside her bedroom door he hesitated, hand poised to knock, but in the end walked away. The things he'd told her weren't nice, but they were true. If they were always meant to be temporary, he may as well let her begin disconnecting now. He'd told her so much truth, he was sick from it. He and Merina had grown closer than he'd anticipated. If he let himself think for a second "what if"…well. He wouldn't go there with her.
He couldn't.
He blew out a breath now, his head still aching. No woman made him feel the way Merina Van Heusen did.