She’d told me what she needed from me. I just had to figure out if I could give it to her. What did I want? I knew I liked her and wanted something more. What I didn’t know was whether or not I was capable of more.
One thing was for sure—I knew I wasn’t going after her before I knew whether or not I could give her what she needed. She deserved better than that.
I sighed and sank into the bath so the water covered my head.
Eventually I surfaced and pulled in a deep breath.
“Joshua?” Someone was calling my name. “Joshua?”
Who was in my flat? What the actual fuck?
I leapt out of the bath, pulled a towel around my waist, and snatched open the door.
Andrew was standing on the other side of it.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I grabbed another towel off the pile and rubbed it over my head.
“I came to talk.” He sounded calm, like it was perfectly natural to be accosting someone in their own bathroom. “Put some clothes on and meet me in the living room.”
“How did you get in here?” He didn’t answer, just pulled my bedroom door closed behind him.
Did he have bad news? Was he okay?
I pulled on a t-shirt and some jeans as quickly as possible and raced into the living room. “What’s going on?”
He was sitting on my sofa, flicking through a copy of Conde Nast Traveler. It didn’t look like he was the bearer of bad news. He closed the magazine and tossed it onto my coffee table, then nodded at the sofa opposite. “Take a seat.”
“Andrew, this is my flat. I’ll sit if I want to,” I replied as I sat down.
“I’m here on behalf of the group,” he said on a sigh.
“What group?”
He tilted his head and gave me an are-you-really-that-stupid look.
“Is this an intervention?” I asked.
“Call it what you like, but I don’t have much time, so let’s cut to the chase.”
“Why change the habit of a lifetime?”
“It’s about Hartford.”
My stomach whooshed to my knees. What had happened?
“We heard from Autumn or Hollie—I can’t remember which, but one of the Americans—that you two had a disagreement. What’s happened?”
He’d come here to tell me about circulating gossip? I’d been enjoying my bath. Sort of. “What’s it got to do with you?” I asked, bristling at the interrogation.
“So, let’s summarize. Last time we talked about this, you’d realized you really liked this woman but didn’t think she’d take you seriously because you’ve never been in a committed relationship. So with help from the group, you decided you were going to prove to her that you could offer her more than just sex.”
Wow. No one could ever accuse Andrew of beating around the bush. “Thanks for the recap.”
“Well, did you convince her?”
Good God, this man was matter-of-fact. “Negative.” I sighed, my defensiveness deflating. He was here because he was my mate. Not my enemy. He was trying to help. I sat back in the chair. “We had sex. But not just sex. You know?”
“You connected,” Andrew said. “So, why am I here?”
“Who the bloody hell knows? I was minding my own business in the bath. Which reminds me, how did you get in here?”
He rolled his eyes as if it was the inanest question he’d ever heard. “I need a drink. And so do you.”
He went over to the bar, pulled some whiskey from the shelf, and came back holding two glasses.
“From what I hear from the Americans, you and Hartford still aren’t together. I’m here to find out why. It’s not like you to fail when you set your mind to something.”
I groaned, threw back the whiskey then reached to retrieve the bottle. The tawny, smokey pour soured in my stomach. I hated the idea that what Hartford and I had over the last few months was just gone.
I didn’t know how to answer the question. “She told me she didn’t want to lose herself in me. From what I can piece together, she’s concerned that her feelings are deeper than mine.”
“Are they?”
I tipped my head back on the sofa and tried to swallow down the spikey uncertainty stuck in my throat. “She’s scared of caring more. And I want to show her there’s nothing to be frightened of . . . but can I make that guarantee? I want to be able to reassure her. I want to be able to tell her that I’ll never leave. But I can’t. And neither can she.”
Andrew tapped his index finger on the arm of the chair. “You’re scared.”
“She’s important,” I said. “Like, really important. I want her to be happy before I want her to be with me. Especially when . . . I have no idea how to have a relationship. I was a kid when I was with Diana. This is real life now, and I’m bound to make a complete hash of it. Do I really want to put Hartford through that? Of course I’m scared of hurting her.”