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He grabbed onto the logic of that, because it made sense. “Si. When we are both ready, we’ll end it.”
“But that’s my point, Leandro.” Her voice throbbed with emotion. “If I don’t end it now, I don’t think I’ll ever want to. Every time I see you, you become more and more a part of me. My heart wants this to be real. Like the crazy, fairy tale forever kind of real I dreamed about as a girl. But my head knows that doesn’t exist, my head knows I can’t risk it. And my head knows it’s not really what you want, anyway.”
“Don’t do that,” he murmured, shaking his head in frustration. “Don’t make this about what I want.”
Silence throbbed. “What do you want?”
“To keep seeing you,” he replied, as though it were something they’d been discussing for five hours not five minutes. “As we agreed.”
“But not forever?”
There it was. The gauntlet. If he took it up and told her he was willing to try for the fairy tale, then what?
His heart sped up at the very idea, but she was right. His head had to come into play too. This wasn’t just about them. She was a mom. Harper was a part of this picture. Could Leandro really make promises to Skye knowing what the cost would be if he were to break them?
“Is this because I introduced you as a ‘friend’ to Andie and Max?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Hearing that, I was offended. I didn’t expect to meet your family, but at the same time, when I did meet them, I thought you might admit what I was to you. And then I realized that you had. That to you, I’m little more than a friend with benefits. It hurt.”
“You know where my life is at,” he said haltingly. “I want you in it, but if you’re asking me for a marriage proposal?—,”
She made a guttural noise of surprise. “I’m not. I’m not asking you for that. I’m not asking you for anything.”
His gut rolled. Frustration was bursting through him. “You’re overthinking this. We’re good together. Why not just enjoy that?”
He knew the answer though. Because of her bastard ex. Skye wasn’t prepared to go day by day and see where her life took her. She had to protect herself and her daughter. Even from him?
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said thickly. “You are important to me.”
“I’m somewhat important to you when you’re here,” she admitted grudgingly. “But you have a whole other life on the other side of the Atlantic. You’ll forget me soon enough.”
“Stop attributing feelings to me. I live in Italy but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about you when I’m here.”
She made a soft groaning noise. “My point is that we always knew this would end. We said that, right from the beginning. It’s just…I need it to end now. I can’t keep seeing you and pretending that you don’t mean as much to me as you do. I need to stop seeing you and start forgetting you. I need to move on with my life. My life—that I’ve worked so hard to create.”
“What life?” He growled. “You are living with your parents, working a job that is well and truly beneath your potential, hiding yourself away from the world, avoiding any kind of relationship because you are scared of letting yourself live.”
She gasped. “Is that what you think of me?”
He stared at the motorway, his gut twisting painfully. No. It wasn’t what he thought of her. Not really. He felt all those things, to some extent, but only because he saw how amazing she was, and what potential she had.
When he didn’t say anything, Skye continued, “I am scared…I’m scared of letting myself down again, like I did with Jay. How I went from being independent and on course in my life to someone I didn’t even recognize, all because I thought I was in love. Everything about you, and how I feel about you, scares me, Leandro.”
“I’m not him. I would never do that to you.”
“No, you’re a thousand times better than him and when I’m with you, I feel—I want?—,”
“The fairy tale,” he responded.
Silence crackled down the phone line.
“I want an impossible future,” she admitted. “And how much I want it is why I have to end this, and now. I should never have let it start up. I should have run a thousand miles from you that first night.”
His head hurt. He stared straight ahead, wondering at the burning sensation at the back of his throat.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Silence.
