Inn Love

Olivia closes her eyes. “I’ll stay one more night…but I don’t see what will change in that time.” She looks up at me with pain in her gaze. “Trying to leave you behind is the most painful thing I’ve ever tried to do. If tomorrow I still need to go…you need to let me leave. For my sake, please…try to let me go.”

I don’t ever want to. I can’t think of a single reason on earth to leave Olivia behind. But I’ll do whatever she asks of me. I have to respect her wishes.

But she’s given me twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours to give her a reason to stay, to show her that she doesn’t need to keep running. I place a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“I’ll give you some time to think,” I say gently. It feels nearly impossible to tear myself away from her, but I force myself to leave the room. I’m still in shock from finding her ready to leave. As I close the door, I lean against it, trying to catch my breath. What the hell just happened?

My mother walks along the landing, raising a knowing eyebrow at me as she passes. It’s like she predicted that something would go wrong all along. But she’s wrong. This isn’t over. Not until I’ve found a solution to this.

I’m going to make Olivia mine again, no matter what it takes.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Olivia

I shouldn’t have let Elijah convince me to stay here. I know I should leave right now for the sake of us both. I don’t want things to get even messier than they already are…

But Elijah was so damn convincing. And the thought of him just being close makes me feel safer, even though he’s almost like a beacon, calling my stalker here. If a single photo of us gets out, I know that my safety here will end.

Which is why I should go. I should walk away before things get worse. But as much as I tell my feet to move, tell my heart to stop ruling my head, I can’t do it. I don’t want to go.

This is the first place that has ever felt anything close to home. This is the only place I’ve ever been where I feel as though I belong. And it’s all thanks to Elijah. He’s treated me so much better than anyone ever has before.

I know he cares about me. I know he doesn’t have ulterior motives. All he wants in the world is to make sure that I’m okay, to make sure I’m safe.

And yet here I am, throwing it back in his face. I tell him that I don’t want his help, that I want to leave even after everything he’s done for me. He must think I’m so ungrateful.

But it’s my gratefulness that makes me so keen to go away. After everything he’s done for me, I don’t want to bring trouble to his doorstep. He’s been through so much already after losing his brother. I don’t want to be the reason that something else bad happens.

What if my stalker harms his Mom? What if my stalker finds some way to hurt him physically? Elijah is almost unstoppable, so full of masculine energy and strength, but if a gun is pulled on him, even he couldn’t take the blow.

The thought of seeing Elijah hurt almost floors me. I can’t do this. I have to go, I have to….

But I stay exactly where I am.

I guess I’m not strong enough to leave him behind. He’s my weakness. After all this time on my own, the one man who cares about me is the one person I can’t let go of. I’ve been hurt so many times before that I should be used to pain, but the pain of tearing myself from him is like nothing else I’ve ever felt before.

And I don’t think I can survive it.

I sit on my bed, trying to control my breathing. I have two options now. I can slip out of here without saying goodbye. I can leave like I originally planned, hopefully, unnoticed or I can spend the rest of my life in misery without Elijah and never recover from his loss.

Or I can try and be honest with him. I can tell him exactly why I have to go. I can tell him what’s been bothering me since this morning. Maybe he’ll be able to see a way out of this that I can’t. Maybe he will have a solution to our problem so we can actually be together…

It’s a risk. If I tell him what’s going on, I know he’ll want to hunt my stalker to the ends of the earth. I know he’ll want to use his body like a bulletproof vest, protecting me from all harm and standing between the stalker who has haunted me for so long and me. He won’t even care about luring the stalker here. He’ll want to deal with him in person.