‘What do you think?’
‘This is still beautiful.’
He grinned and her heart kicked against the walls of her chest. She brushed her fingers across the picture of the barrel of flowers standing by the front door. ‘You have such a talent for this. Don’t you miss it when you’re off adventuring?’
Very slowly he reached across and closed the lid of his laptop. ‘That’s a “truth or dare” question, Audra. And the answer is yes.’
Her heart stuttered. So did her breath.
‘I’ve been fighting it. Not wanting to acknowledge it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I want to be more than a boring, driven businessman.’
‘That’s not boring!’ She pointed to his computer. ‘That...it shows what an artist you are.’
Hooded eyes met hers. ‘I lead this exciting life—living the dream. It should be enough.’
But she could see that it wasn’t. ‘Dreams can change,’ she whispered.
He stared down at his hands. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think over the last fortnight...and our discussions have made me realise a few things.’
Her mouth went dry. In a part of her that she refused to acknowledge, she wanted him to tell her that he loved her and wanted to build a life and family with her. ‘Like?’ she whispered.
‘Like how much the way I live my life has to do with my parents.’
‘In what way?’ She held her breath and waited to see if he would answer.
He shrugged, but she sensed the emotion beneath the casual gesture. ‘I hated not having a home base when I was growing up. I hated the way we were constantly on the move. I hated that I didn’t have any friends my own age. But when my parents died...’ He dragged a hand down his face. ‘I’d have done anything to have them back. But at the same time—’ the breath he drew in was ragged ‘—I didn’t want to give up the life Uncle Ned had created for me. I liked that life a hundred times better.’
Her heart squeezed at the darkness swirling in his eyes—the remembered grief and pain, the confusion and strange sense of relief. She understood how all those things could bewilder and baffle a person, making it impossible to see things clearly.
‘And that made me feel guilty. So I’ve tried to mould my life on a balance between the kind of life they lived and the kind of life Ned lived. I wanted to make them all proud. Similar to the way you wanted to make your mother proud, I guess. I thought I could have the best of both worlds and be happy.’
‘But you’re not happy.’
He wanted it to be enough. She could see that. But the simple fact was it wasn’t. And him wishing otherwise wouldn’t change that fact.
She swallowed. ‘Have you ever loved a song so much that you played it over and over and over, but eventually you play it too much and you wreck it somehow? And then you don’t want to listen to it any more, and when you do unexpectedly hear it somewhere it doesn’t give you the same thrill it once did?’
Hooded eyes lifted. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘Well, maybe that’s what you’ve done with all of your adrenaline-junkie sports. Maybe you’re all adrenalined out and now you need to find a new song that sings to your soul.’
He stared at her, scepticism alive in his eyes. ‘This is more than that. This is the entire way I live my life. Walking away from it feels as if I’m criticising the choices my parents made.’
‘I don’t see it as a criticism. You’re just...just forging your own path.’
He shrugged, but the darkness in his eyes belied the casual gesture. ‘The thing is I can no longer hide from the fact that racing down a black ski run no longer gives me the thrill it once did, or that performing endless laps in a sports car is anything other than monotonous, and that trekking to base camp at Everest is just damned cold and uncomfortable.’
But she could see it left him feeling like a bad person—an ingrate.
He speared her with a glance. ‘I can’t hassle and lecture you about living your dreams and then hide from it when it applies to my own life. That’d make me a hypocrite on top of everything else.’
Her heart burned. She wanted to help him the way he’d helped her—give him the same clarity. ‘How old was your father when he died?’
‘Thirty-five.’
‘So only a couple of years older than you are now?’ She gave what she hoped was an expressive shrug. ‘Who knows what he might’ve chosen to do if he’d lived longer?’
‘Give up extreme sports, my father?’ Finn snorted. ‘You can’t be serious.’