‘I’m leaving because it’s best for both of us. Things are getting complicated, and the best way forward now is to draw a line before they complicate further.’
‘I thought we were through with drawing lines?’
‘Not this one. We got carried away by chemistry again last night; that wasn’t meant to happen and I will not risk being driven by lust again.’
Her arms squeezed the sketchbook even tighter as her face leeched of colour and Joe knew she was thinking of her parents’ disastrous lust-driven relationship. Which was good—that was what he wanted: for Imogen to be on the same page as he was, in agreement that this had to stop here.
‘You want a relationship that isn’t based on lust. You
want a man who ticks all your boxes and I don’t tick any. So it’s way better to cut your losses right here and now and go and find him.’ His hand fisted in his pockets; the thought of Imogen with another man made him want to hit something—preferably the man. ‘It’s best for you.’
Just like that her shell-shocked face changed, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing as her mouth smacked open in outrage. Eyes narrowed, she stepped forward.
‘And what gives you the right to make that decision for me?’ Imogen asked. ‘I know what’s best for me—not you. All my life people have known what’s best for me. My mother, Steve, and now you. And you’ve known me all of a few weeks.’
The sarcastic cut of her voice slashed at him and flamed his own emotions to anger. ‘You said it yourself, Imogen. That it should only be one night.’
‘Then something changed,’ she flashed back, before exhaling a sigh. ‘Last night did happen and I refuse to regret it. Or at least I didn’t regret it until now. You know what, Joe? You don’t really respect me. Because if you did you would have asked me what I think, how I feel, what I want, what I think is best for me. I accept that you need to go, but it’s because it’s best for you. Don’t kid yourself or try to kid me you’re doing it for me.’
He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Imogen was right. Yet … ‘Imogen, I do truly believe this is best for you, but if I’d asked you before I booked that flight what would you have said?’
For a second her gaze dipped away from him, and then she jutted her chin out and met his eyes. ‘I’d have suggested we stay here until tomorrow, as planned. I draw, you surf, we have another night. Tomorrow we go home and go our separate ways.’
It sounded so reasonable, so tempting, so…. terrifying.
‘And what if that slid into one more night? One more week …?’
‘Would that be so bad?’
Her voice was small and tight, and Joe hated himself even as he knew what his answer had to be. Everything was sliding out of control, complications abounded, and he needed to get both himself and Imogen out of the line of fire.
‘Yes, it would. You’re looking for a man who wants a relationship, a white picket fence, a family. I’m not that man. I do not tick the boxes.’
‘How do you know you couldn’t?’
The very thought made his head reel with images of his parents, presenting their perfect married image to the world, supposedly living out their happy-ever-after behind the picket fence. They’d had it all—love, a family, a successful business.
Yet the whole time it had been nothing but a façade.
Joe remembered piecing together the reality of his father’s affairs—so many of them with employees and clients. Remembered finding the paperwork showing that his mother was filing for divorce. The family company had been a hotbed of scandal and corruption: funds embezzled, nothing as it was supposed to be, business relationships and personal relationships all a quagmire to be waded through.
The realisation had dawned that everything he’d grown up with had been an illusion. And then it had turned out everything he’d believed he and Leila had was nothing more than another mirage. His whole life had been askew and off-kilter, viewed through the wrong perspective.
He would never put himself in that position again. This thing—whatever it was with Imogen—was meant to fit his rules; Imogen had agreed, goddammit.
‘There is no way I can ever tick your boxes. It is not going to happen. Not now, not ever. I do not want complications in my life. You do not want a relationship based on lust.’
‘Is that all you think we have?’
‘Yes.’
‘You really believe that, Joe?
‘I—’
‘And do you really believe that having a family and growing old together is just one big complication? Are you really such a coward that you’ll always run away from any chance of getting close?’
‘Yes, yes and yes again.’ Better a coward, than a fool, enmeshed in an emotional quagmire it would be nigh on impossible to break free from.