The Best Next Thing

Why couldn’t he just be selfish for once? Tell her she had to return with him? Be a controlling dick? Why couldn’t he make this easy for her?

In that moment she hated him a little. Hated him intensely for making her love him so much.

Her body curled into a paroxysm of agony as she struggled with this impossible decision. Only it shouldn’t be impossible. It should be easy…

She had once been forced to choose a man over her family. But that hadn’t been a real choice.

This was…and it killed her that it was so hard.

His phone buzzed, providing a welcome diversion to the intensity of the moment, and Charity glanced over to where he had affixed the device to the dashboard. A picture of Stormy floated onto the screen, and Charity hiccoughed, her sobs lessening. She stared at the picture fixedly, gratefully. It was the answer she had been searching for.

This wasn’t just about her and Miles.

“I have to go back to Riversend with you,” she managed to say between lessening sobs.

He did nothing to hide the naked relief in his eyes. But because he was such a good guy, he still warily asked, “Are you sure?”

“I have to say goodbye to George and Amos, and my f-friends…” New friends, people she had only recently allowed into her heart and life. The thought of bidding them farewell was surprisingly hard. But it was the right thing to do. Leaving without so much as a goodbye would be unforgivable. “I have to say g-goodbye to St-St…Stormy.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said. Strength and conviction in her voice. “I have to say goodbye to you, Miles. A proper goodbye. My family? Life here? It’s my future. But I’m not quite done with this bit of my past yet.”

Even though she said she wasn’t done with it, it still hurt like hell to already be referred to as part of her past. But still, he’d take it. And be damned grateful for it. Because for a dreadful, heartbreaking, devastating moment there, he had been so certain that this was it for them.

Goodbye.

But it wasn’t. Not yet.

It was a reprieve. A stay of execution. All the more painful because he knew that it was temporary…the last gasp of a dying relationship.

He stared into her tear-drenched face. Her nose was red, her cheeks blotchy, eyes red and swollen…and yet she had never been more beautiful.

This was the beginning of the end for them. And Miles was going to make damned sure their journey to that end followed an iridescent rainbow path toward a glorious technicolor sunset.

“Why do I have to look at these?” Miles glared at the tablet Charity had placed on the table in front of him. He had recoiled from it like it was a venomous snake.

“You need to find my replacement.”

She had compiled a list of résumés that she felt were suitable and wanted to start arranging interviews. He acted cagey whenever she mentioned his return to London, and in the three days since they had returned from Gracie’s party, he hadn’t mentioned a possible departure date yet.

Not that she was pushing him for one. She was dreading it as much as he appeared to be. But she had to arrange for the closure of the house. Had to organize her transportation back to the Cape. Pack. All of that would be much easier to plan if she had some dates to work with.

“You’re irreplaceable.”

The words were gruff and practically barked at her. But Charity’s heart still turned to mush and puddled into her stomach, leaving her feeling warm and fuzzy and a little queasy. Because he kept saying things like that, and she wanted to scream at him to just stop.

It wasn’t making the situation any easier.

“Miles,” she began tentatively. “We’re living in a bubble right now. And it’s wonderful in here. Everything feels so right between us. But none of this is real. A few months from now, you’ll be remembering this in fond confusion and wondering why it all felt so intense.”

He shook his head and swept the tablet aside in an irritated motion. She encased his hand in both of hers and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“You know it’s true.”

“This is real to me, Charity. Excruciatingly fucking real.”

She swallowed trying to ease the ache that had lodged in her throat.

She was beginning to think she should have chosen to stay with her family when he had given her the option to do so. She could have returned later to say her goodbyes and sort out her belongings.

Because this protracted farewell with Miles wasn’t a sweet, romantic interlude filled with warm, wonderful moments.

It was raw and brutally intense.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested. Pushing to her feet, she tugged at his hand, and he reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled up. “The fresh air will do us both some good.”