She summoned all her courage. ‘I don’t think it is.’
He regarded her solemnly but then his gaze slid from hers and he actually fidgeted.
Warily she watched him. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Someone at the dinner last night must have tipped off the press. I’ve seen an article they want to publish. They’ve done their digging.’
‘About me.’
He nodded curtly. ‘I’ve managed to delay its release. You can get safely away from here before it lands.’
She braced against her instinctive shudder. She could handle this. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She squared her shoulders. ‘I’ve been through it before. There’s actually nothing worse than what I’ve already been through.’
His jaw tensed. ‘You don’t understand. You can’t handle what they’re going to throw at you, Elsie. Whatever online hate you had before, it’ll be nothing on this.’
‘You’re underestimating me. You, the one person I thought actually gave me a chance, now think I’m not up to it?’
‘I don’t want you to be hurt,’ he said grimly.
‘It’s not any media that will hurt me, Felipe. Real hurt is far more personal than that.’
He stiffened. ‘This isn’t real,’ he said. ‘This will never be real, Elsie.’
He was shutting them down before they had the chance to really explore it.
‘Not if you remain so completely closed to the possibility that it could be more,’ she argued. ‘You’d decided that from the start. I’m just your convenient distraction, a final fling in the countdown to the all-important coronation.’
‘Is that so awful? Is it so wrong to have something fun for myself?’ he asked. ‘You’re the one who just said I needed that. And you said yes. You agreed it could only be this one night.’
‘So I did. Now I’m just telling you the rest of the truth. You don’t want me to be hurt? You don’t want to hurt anyone? Too bad. Life doesn’t work like that. We all hurt people. Especially those we care about. Making mistakes is part of being human.’
‘So you finally agree this has been a mistake?’
‘Never. I will never regret this.’
‘Even though I used you.’
She reeled at the sudden flex. ‘Don’t cheapen what’s happened between us.’
‘Sex, Elsie. What’s happened is a lot of sex.’
‘No.’She would not let him reframe this that way.
‘It’s been less than a day,’ he said shortly. ‘Let me assure you, whatever you think you feel, it’s not real.’
‘Are you denying what I have to say? What I feel? Won’t you listen?’
‘Elsie—’
‘You trusted me and believed in me only last night when I told you about my father. You took me at face value months ago, took my word then. But not in this?’ She frowned at him. Why—what was so different? Her heart ached. ‘Wow, so the one thing you can’t believe isn’t the worst of me, it’s that I could want more from you?’ She stared at him as the truth dawned. ‘You don’t want to be loved.’
He bristled. ‘I have too much else to do to be responsible for keeping you happy.’
She breathed out at the hit—keeping her happy? ‘You don’t have to keep me happy. That’s not what letting yourself love me—love anyone—would mean.’
Did he equate all love with duty? As a burden of care and responsibility?
Because he’d spent his life trying to keep people happy. His grandfather. His mother. Now Amalia. He’d carried the burden of other people who had torments, illnesses, griefs of their own. And he didn’t want to shoulder any more—because he didn’t believe he was enough for any of them. For anyone.