“We shouldn’t,” he says in a deep voice, which reverberates inside my body like a pinball. I lean in more to finish what we started. But, all of a sudden, I come back to my senses and register what he just said.
He denied me a kiss after I begged.
He stopped the train wreck our work relationship could become if we were to go further.
He saved me from huge embarrassment.
I open my eyes to see pain across his face. “You’re too dangerous for me,” he adds. He backs away some more but leaves his hands on me.
It’s now as frozen as my heart.
Dangerous. I hate this word as much as I cherish it. King used to say that what people define as dangerous depends on their level of expertise and knowledge. It’s my turn to take some distance and protect myself. I stand abruptly, and leave the chair to roll away.
Guilt taking over at the thought of King being the only man I ever loved and slept with.
“Tessa, I don’t mean…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, and I’m okay with it.
I don’t want him to. I don’t need him to acknowledge the danger I can be in my life. I’ve felt what he could be to me deep inside.
I know he can destroy every memory of my late fiancé, like a tornado uprooting dead trees.
Shaken by the roller coaster, I just went through; I make my way to the door. Once standing in front of the door, something pushes me to check on him, to send him a last glance over my shoulder.
In a handful of minutes, he’s become the shadow of the man about to kiss me. Resting his elbows on his knees and his head falling between his shoulders, he seems broken to the point of no repair.
A sensation I know too well.
A void I’ve been trying to fill for a long time.
A despair I felt into my bones many times. He has neither the strength or the desire to move on, and it’s the reason why I can’t blame him because neither do I.
King was my everything and always will be.
I can’t make room in my heart for anyone else.
“You’re dangerous for me too, Oliver. I’ll be in the car waiting for you,” I say for him to know it’s nothing about him but everything about us and what we went through. I open the door and leave him to his demons while I run away from mine.
Chapter Nine
OLIVER
It has been a few days of small talk and a little awkwardness between Tessa and I. We both put our walls back up after I almost kissed her, and we’ve barely looked at one another.
Her eyes make me want to get lost in her, so I avoid looking at her as often as I can.
I don’t know what came over me.
I wanted her to stop being right.
I wanted her to stop moving her lips.
I wanted to stop the dirty images of her mouth doing all sorts of things to me from popping in my brain.
On impulse, I wanted to make her mine.
But when she leaned in and puckered her lips, I knew she would break every fence I ever built around my heart and I couldn’t go through with it.
There are people with whom you know it will always be more than a kiss or a one-night stand.
Something in the air tells you the next step you take with that person will change your life.
A connection you can feel after just a look, a touch, sometimes a breath.
I felt it the moment I met Elaine and I can sense it with Tessa.
The only difference is, I can’t let Tessa in. And from what I saw, she can’t let me in either.
And it’s okay.
Maybe we’ll never be.
Not every possibility needs to have a happy ending, like every love story doesn’t either.
So, we drive in silence, and don’t talk about what didn’t happen or what might have. And except for ten minutes twice a day, we don’t spend time together.
The first day she brought me to the office, she waited around for me to need her.
She was miserable, wanting to move, and became restless at some point.
I understand the need to keep busy not to wonder why life has treated you in such a way.
I’m the same.
I get a little crazy myself, checking on things and imagining a life that couldn’t be when I have too much time on my hands. Not that it has happened much since Aito was born.
Instead of Tessa waiting around for me and getting impatient during the long hours it can take me to find the smallest details in the life of someone who has lived a secret for a few decades, I now text her when I need her.
Which isn’t much. Which I believe was a good solution.
But whatever I do, she’s on my mind, and I can’t dislodge her from it.
She’s like the pest you can’t extricate from under your porch because they’ve decided to make it their home. Anything I try, I can’t get rid of her.
But even with all the awkwardness and the battle I fight against the desire I feel toward her, it has been easy to drive with her every day.
There is something almost comforting in being able to sit with someone in silence and not have to pretend to be who you are expected to.
I feel at peace not to have to fake that my late fiancée isn’t the first thing on my mind when I wake up. I don’t have to ignore the dreadful fear I have to be caught in still believing she’s alive for a few seconds before reality kicks in. I don’t have to hide the hope I have when I make myself believe she’s on a trip,
