Page 42 of Come A Little Closer

“Look, Tallulah. You know me. I won’t try to force it out of you if you’re not ready to tell me, but please don’t think it’s because you can’t talk to me. You absolutely can. What’s more is that I want you to.”

She finally glanced up at me. “Why? None of it is your problem.”

“I’ve already told you that I like you, and I really do,” I said. “I don’t care that you have barely any life skills, but I happen to know that you’ve got a lot more than you seem to think.”

I pulled in a deep breath, holding her gaze steadily. “While I’m not sure what you think it is that I want that you can’t offer me, I can assure you that’s not the case. I’m here. I’m right here, and I want to know you. That’s all.”

For a moment, it looked like she was about to break down completely. A tremble passed through her and she bit back a sob, her eyes closing. She pulled in a deep breath. My heart ached and I let go of her hands to wrap my arms around her, enveloping her in a hug and just holding her tight.

I was about to tell her that it was okay and that she didn’t need to tell me when she started in a soft voice. “Carter wasn’t just my boyfriend, Niall. He was my husband.”

It took everything in me to remain calm, but somehow, I managed, and she finally lifted her head away from my shoulder to look at me before she continued. “We got married young. I was twenty-one.”

I flinched, but I didn’t further betray any of the horrible emotions streaking through me. Tallulah took my hands again, still leaning into me, but her voice was getting stronger now. “When I told you I grew up sheltered, I didn’t mention just how very, very sheltered I was. I didn’t get any say in what I wore, what I ate, what I watched or listened to, and those Anne Rice books I love so much? I had to sneak them into my house.”

My heart started jackhammering in my chest, but I simply nodded instead of jumping up and swinging my fists into the walls like I wanted to. Tallulah exhaled slowly. “My parents were extremely strict, so I didn’t date at all until I met Carter. His family went to our church and my parents got to know him and his parents that way. I was a junior in college by then, and while my parents didn’t like me socializing or even being on campus for anything other than my classes, they did let me see him eventually.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Did they force you to marry him?”

“Kind of.” She shrugged. “They strongly encouraged it, and even though I didn’t really like him, I went with it because I thought the marriage would give me an out from my life at home. As it turns out, it just got me into something worse.”

My eyes slammed shut. Fears far worse than I’d imagined were being confirmed in this conversation, and honestly, I had no idea how to take it. I was seeing red, wanting nothing more than to get up and throw my considerable resources and power into pulverizing all these people who had hurt her. But I just sat there.

She sighed. “After being married to him for three years, I finally left, but he saddled me with an insane amount of debt during our divorce. It was an attempt to stop me from going through with it, but I just wanted out.”

If my heart started beating any harder, I was going to pass out and she wasn’t even done yet. “Carter was even more controlling than my parents. He tried to prevent me from graduating college and then, when he failed at that, he forbade me from working. He knew I had no way to pay off all that debt, but I couldn’t stay. I didn’t even argue about it. I just took it on and I’ve spent the last two years trying to learn how to be on my own.”

Red spots danced across my field of vision, almost consuming it entirely by the time she fell silent, but I listened anyway. How could anyone take a woman like this—someone so bright, so creative, and so loving—and stick her into a box that dulled her light?

She choked back a sob and released my hands, giving me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Niall. I’ll leave now, but I hope you understand why we can’t be together.”

I grabbed her and crushed her to my chest, holding her tight and burying my face in her hair. “I don’t want you to leave. God, why would you even think that?”

As she pulled her head away from mine, I snaked a hand up her back and tilted my head, kissing her hard and hoping that she would finally understand that I wanted her here. In my house. In my life. In my company and hopefully, also in my bed.

That last part could wait, but the point was that this woman seemed to think that her past experiences made her less desirable or less deserving. She couldn’t have been more wrong. I was so much more attracted to her now that I knew how strong she really was, and I wanted to give her even more than I had before because she deserved the entire fucking world.

Anything and everything she wanted.

On a silver platter.

I guess it’s a damn good thing I’ve got so many of those lying around here.

19

TALLULAH

Tasting my salty tears on his lips was the only thing that let me know this was real. I really had just told him everything and yet he was still kissing me.

Kissing me like the ship was going down.

All the times he’d kissed me before, he’d done so hard and passionately, but this time, there seemed to be even more to it. It was like he was determined to wipe every last doubt from my mind and to prove that he still wanted me—no matter what.

I kissed him back just as fervently, but I couldn’t deny that I was confused. Everything I’d just told him should’ve put him off, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

He knew now that I was not only penniless, but that I was going to be that way for a long time. While I was finally in a position to service some of that debt in a real way, I still wasn’t going to have it paid off for years.

Meanwhile, he was richer than a Rockefeller, and if I was him, I’d have been questioning if I was only with him for the money. Outside of that, there was also the fact that I was broken. To be fair, I’d been fighting hard for two years to put myself back together and I was feeling good about myself.