“Everything I did made her crazy. Or perhaps I should say, everything I didn’t do. Whenever I was offered a new project, she’d sink into misery until I began to dread telling her I was going away. If I’d told her I was going to Antarctica, she would have taken it as a sign I didn’t love her and needed to travel to the nethermost reaches of the earth in order to escape.”
“That doesn’t sound like love to me. When you’re in love with someone you should be their biggest fan. You celebrate each little success, and feel proud of everything they achieve. You encourage them and cheer them on.”
“We’ve already established that you have high expectations.”
“I don’t think so. Not if you’re truly partners.”
“You believe in the ‘two halves making a whole’ approach.”
“That isn’t what I think. I think both parties are already whole.” She pondered and tried to explain. “I believe love is a journey, it’s an adventure you take together.”
“Adventure?”
“Of course. I want someone I can support and encourage and who will support and encourage me back. I need someone who understands that there are going to be times when I stare into space and suddenly whip out a sketchbook or a camera. That there are going to be times when the journey is hard and we have to pick each other up. I want someone I can laugh with, and talk with in the middle of the night. I want to admire and respect them. Most of all I want someone who gets me. I can’t take the journey of a lifetime with someone who doesn’t get me.”
The only sound was the lonely call of a bird somewhere in the forest.
She stood there, frozen into stillness, realizing that the only person she wanted to make that journey with was him. She thought about how he’d been there for her every step of the way over the past few weeks. About the way they’d laughed and talked about everything. The way he was happy to be still and enjoy the outdoors while she took endless photos, and how he never complained about the way she looked or told her to hurry up.
Because she hadn’t been trying to impress him or please him, never once had she tried to be anything other than herself. And that, she thought, was true intimacy. Revealing yourself fully, living life honestly with someone, was intimacy.
She’d stayed with Richard hoping she’d fall in love with him, even sometimes wondering if she was, but she knew now that falling in love wasn’t about how much time you spent with someone but how being with them made you feel.
And being with Alec made her feel good.
He touched her face with his hand, his expression quizzical. “What’s wrong?”
It was typical of him that he’d noticed the shift in her mood and typical that he would ask.
There was so much she wanted to say to him, and she couldn’t say any of it.
She’d promised him, hadn’t she, right back at the beginning that she wouldn’t fall in love.
That this wouldn’t happen.
Her heart felt too full for her chest. So full it was almost too much to bear.
This was it. This was how it felt.
Now she knew.
And she also knew there was nothing she could do about it.
“Nothing is wrong.” She forced the words through dry lips, knowing that he’d be horrified if he could read her mind. “We should go back.”
ALEC SPRAWLED IN the chair in his office.
His laptop gazed back at him accusingly, the document untouched.
What the hell was he doing?
He should never have brought Skylar here. He’d been careful to avoid any romantic entanglements and keep his relationships simple, and yet somehow this “simple” relationship had turned into something different.
There was nothing simple about it.
Instead of working, he found himself thinking about her all the time.
Like now.