Knowing Alex had attacked Fin had aged him. It was diabolically wrong. He didn’t feel right in his body. His skin was too tight, and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He’d wanted to pull that tent down on everyone’s heads and rip into Alex. But all his bravado was too little and too late. Fin had saved herself because she was smart and quick, capable and ready. And lucky. Jesus fucking Christ. She should not have needed to be any of those things in that moment. He’d let himself get distracted; he’d let her walk away from him.
And on top of all of that, he’d been as self-serving and arrogant as the marks he professed to hate. Fin no longer needed any of what he’d brought her into; not the events and parties, not the unsavory people, or their dirty money. And certainly, not the risk. He could finance D4D from his own pocket now.
He stumbled on a runner of grass atop the sand dune and went to one knee. He could hardly see straight for the effort of remaining calm.
He got up and brushed the leg of his trousers down, then took his shoes and socks and suit coat off and left them at the edge of the dune with her sandals and purse. Fin was almost at the shoreline, a glittering silhouette against the thick darkness.
He shouldn’t have kissed her like he wanted to keep her. Shouldn’t have let their arrangement drift into more if he wasn’t prepared to love her right. It’s not like he was unaware it was happening. It’s not like she was blind to it, either. He wanted to eat his own heart for the mixed signals he kept sending and the damage he’d allowed to happen to her.
He caught up with her as a wave flowed over her toes. She jumped back.
“Cold?” He bent to roll his trousers up. The dizziness he felt wasn’t anything to do with a rush of blood to his head. He felt like shit and was lost for eloquence. There was no easy way to talk about any of this. He wanted to wrap Fin in his arms and make ridiculous promises about her safety, her life, but he hadn’t earned that right and empty sentiment wasn’t what she needed.
They stood at the shore and let the waves lap at their legs, the sand suck at their feet, bury their heels, toes, ankles, and wedge them in place. Not being able to touch her and understanding why she didn’t want that was like having his fingernails ripped out, his hands made numb and clumsy.
“I’m stuck,” she said after an agonizing silence.
He was stuck, too, between truth and fiction, lies and duty, between what his heart wanted and what was possible to have. Between Fin and a future that wasn’t turning him into the very thing he despised.
“Can I help?” He held his hand out, naked hope she’d take it, if only for balance while she pulled free of the sand.
She put her hand in his but didn’t otherwise move and just that contact, light, tentative, eased the tightness in his chest.
They stood there, the sand burying their feet, slick and cold, the sea bringing foam and salt fragrance and everything unsaid swirling between them.
She squeezed his fingers. “I’m not supposed to feel like forgiving you. I’m not supposed to be angry with you in the first place. You didn’t make Alex a predator. It’s like I’ve been tipped upside down and shaken, and all of my emotions are tumbling about. I can’t tell what’s going to come out. I’m jealous of Paris for hitting on you and furious about Alex, and mad with you and confused about what your kisses mean and wanting more of them. I’m hating you for how unruffled you always are, and suspicious you’re not calm at all. That you’re only holding onto your temper because you’re afraid of what might happen if you let go.”
He gripped her hand firmly. Fear had kicked him so far off his orbit he was struggling to regain his balance.
“Mostly, I’m confused because on top of all that, I badly want to go to bed with you, but sleeping with you would be a fatal mistake because I think you’re about to end things with me.”
Keeping distance between them was supposed to ensure Fin didn’t become collateral damage, but she was getting hurt anyway, and he was letting it happen. He might as well have been eating the beach for how dry his mouth was.
Another set of waves hit the shore and swept up over their feet, another layer of sand deposited. The sea was a dark maw but for swaths of reflected light arcing out from the half-moon and the row of mansion homes behind them. So much glamorous darkness, so little clarity. That’s what his life would feel like without Fin.
“I think you’re stuck, too.” She threaded their fingers together, but her eyes were on the ho
rizon. “You want to be with me, but you won’t let it happen.”
“It would change us.” His regular sad, tired excuse, from a time when he’d thought he was in control.
“It’s sex. We both want it. I don’t understand why it’s complicated. People were fucking behind potted palms up there.”
“It wouldn’t just be sex with you.”
“What if I promise not to fall in love with you?”
He cleared his throat; it was choked up with lies and deceit and a life he couldn’t lightly drag her into. And a single brilliant truth. “I couldn’t promise not to fall in love with you.”
Because he was already there.
She grunted in annoyance. “I see why you’re stuck then, because falling in love with me would be a tragic waste of your time.”
“Ah, Finley.” He’d gotten it wrong in choosing her, in thinking he could remain aloof and unaffected, pull all the strings and cut them when necessary. The strings were tied around his heart and knotted so tight he could barely breathe.
“I can’t feel my toes any longer, and I can’t work out how to make you take a chance on me.”
She was the best of what he needed for the game and the worst because of how he’d come to need her for himself. “You only have to look at me and smile.”