“Then tell me why you don’t need me.”
“Pike. Don’t.”
“You’re just fooling yourself, you know?” he says. “Don’t forget, you’re nothing but a lie to him.”
But I don’t need Pike to tell me what I already know.
“Stop.”
But he doesn’t. He just keeps talking, saying, “So when he says that he loves you, he doesn’t really mean it. He’s only in love with this fictional character you’ve created, Nina.”
“Pike, I’m serious,” I yell, losing my temper. “Cut the shit!”
“You and I both know that if he truly knew you, he wouldn’t be saying those words.”
“Fuck you!”
“No! Fuck you!” he shouts in hate. “We had a fucking plan here. And here you are, falling for the goddamn con!”
His words stab me, throwing the truth I want to deny in my face. Wishing that his words were nothing but lies, but they’re not, and it pisses me off, so I shout back at him, “I’m not like you! I have cracks, and I can’t always shut off my feelings like you do, settling for the life you were given. Don’t forget I was given this life too!”
He flinches when I sling my words at him, and I’m taken aback by the softer tone of his voice when he responds, “So that’s what you really think? That I don’t feel? That I don’t mourn the loss of the life I should’ve had? That I don’t wonder about or miss the parents I never knew?” He takes a slow step towards me, his jaw flexing, hardening his voice as he continues, “You had a dad that you knew. You had it all. I never had a goddamn thing. But that’s why people like you and me fight, because it gives us something to live for when we have nothing left. I thought we shared that.”
The look on his face and the pain in his voice cut me deeply. I love Pike. I always have, and to see him hurt, because of me, isn’t an easy thing to witness.
I move closer to him, telling him, “We do share that.”
He cups my cheeks in his hands, assuring me, “We can do this. You and I can do this together. Don’t let go of that because some guy makes you feel something. The real question you need to be asking yourself is: what does Elizabeth make him feel?”
He’s right. Declan says he loves me, but what he loves isn’t real. Not completely anyway. I allow him to see the real emotions in me, but he thinks I’m Nina, the girl from Kansas. If he knew Elizabeth, there’s no way he would feel the same way about me. There’s no denying how I feel about him, but Pike is right, I don’t truly have the confirmation of how he feels about me—the real me.
I can’t speak as I stand here and soak in his words, but he soon breaks the silence, pleading softly, “Don’t leave me alone in this.”
I wrap my arms around his waist, wanting to comfort him. Pike rarely exposes himself like this to me, so when he does, it’s hard for me to deal with. Pike is my rock. My backbone when I feel weak. We stand here and hold each other when I tell him, “I’ll never leave you, Pike.”
“When I tell you that I love you, I mean it. I love you—Elizabeth,” he says. “That’s something you will never have to question.”
And I believe him, but Pike has always loved me in a way I don’t share. His love has always bordered on an intimate level, whereas I love him like a brother. But when you grow up like we have, in a world where there is no black and white, it’s hard to clearly distinguish the grey, and right and wrong no longer exist. I’ve never questioned him about his feelings towards me, he makes it clear, and I’ve never corrected his assumption of my feelings. But the feelings I know he wants from me aren’t for him; they’re for a man who believes I’m real, only I’m not. I’m nothing more than his poison paradise.
THE MOMENT I see Declan, all of Pike’s words from earlier disappear. I watch Declan as he fixes my cup of tea in the galley of his boat, and after he adds a tiny splash of milk, he turns to hand me the mug.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” he says as he leads me down into his stateroom. I crawl up onto his bed, folding my legs in front of me and cradling the hot mug, and when he sprawls out, resting his back against the headboard, he reaches out, saying, “Give me your hand.”
I offer him one of my hands and he turns it over, dragging a finger over my wrist. “These,” he whispers, referring to the faint white lines that mar the inside of my wrist. They’re barely even visible anymore, so I’m a little surprised that he’s noticed them. Not even Bennett has.
Declan brings my wrist to his lips and presses them against the tiny reminders of being tied up and locked away as a child. The touch is soft, a sweetness that melts me. “Tell me how you got these?” he asks, and I want to tell him. For some reason, I want him to know the ugliness in me. Instead, I avoid because I don’t want to lie to him if I don’t have to.
I slowly shake my head, letting him know that I don’t want to tell him, so instead he asks, “Did it hurt to get them?”
I don’t answer right away as I look into his eyes, eyes that show his concern for me, his love and his caring nature that he’s made me privy to.
“Yes,” I eventually respond, and he kisses the scars again.
“Can I talk to you about something?”
“What’s that?” I question before taking a sip of my hot tea.
“I want you to leave Bennett,” he states matter-of-factly.
“Declan, I told you, I can’t.”
“I have an estate in Scotland,” he reveals, “in the countryside of Edinburgh. Come with me. We can disappear.”
“He’ll find me.”
“I’ll hire security to watch his moves. We’ll know if he purchases a plane ticket. We’ll know everything he does. I won’t let him get close to you.”
The lengths this man is willing to go to for me are tempting. Bennett might try to find me, but he’d never hurt me like I’ve led Declan to believe. I immediately start thinking about what it would be like to run away with him. To leave everything behind and start a new life with Declan, far from my past. He’d never need to know because there’d be nothing to threaten the truth from revealing itself. But then I think of Pike. I can’t disappear on him. He’s my family. It’s a nice fantasy, but it isn’t reality.
“I can’t just vanish,” I tell him.
He takes my mug and sets it on the bedside table before taking both my hands in his. “Why not?”
“Because . . .” I shake my head, feigning my overwhelming reaction to his offer. “I mean, you’re asking me to leave behind everything I know. To walk away and never look back.”
“What is there that you’d want to look back for?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
“We could have a life,” he says softly.
“But . . . what about your job?”
“I own the hotel; I don’t run it. This was simply a home base for me while it was under construction. Soon, if the deal goes through, I’ll be working on the London property.”
I hesitate, dropping my head with a defeated sigh. “I don’t know.”
“You love me, right?”
Lifting my eyes to meet his, I nod, answering, “Completely.”
“Look, I know what I’m asking of you. And get that you’re scared, but I know what I want, and that’s a life with you. I’ll do whatever it takes to get that.” He moves his hands to my hips and pulls me onto his, my legs straddled on either side of him as he looks up at me. “I never thought I could love anyone the way I love you, but it’s painful, knowing I can’t keep you safe when you aren’t with me. It makes me feel like a piece of worthless shit when I send you home to that bastard.”
“You’re not worthless,” I tell him as I run my hands through his hair. “But what you’re asking is a lot for me.”
“I know.”
“I want what you want, but it all comes with a price.”
“I’ll do anything to have you. I’ll risk it all.”
His words should make me happy, but instead, they hurt. I could easily lie to him right now, tell him that Bennett rapes me or some other fucked up shit, and I know Declan would lose his temper and kill the son of a bitch right now, but I don’t. I don’t want to lose him even though I know I will. It’s inevitable, but I feel like I’m a little child, clinging to what makes me happy, desperate not to lose it.