For a blip, that mattered.
And then it didn’t.
Not when she recalled another word he’d uttered. It echoed in her mind. The bank? The “family business” was a bank? Good God, what had she inadvertently walked into? People with that much money had power. Lots of it.
He had power. She had Stella. Fear gripped her. Harder this time. She couldn’t trust him. Nolan and his family, their wealth...could they take Stella from her? At least part-time? Break up her family? The Mahoneys had seemed to expect to get whatever they’d wanted, even when it came to disrupting Liz’s family time. They hadn’t seemed to have any sensitivity to her needs at all.
And they’d gotten exactly what they’d wanted, including her parents. Any time they’d asked.
Oh, God, she couldn’t lose Stella, too.
“I appreciate you telling me the truth,” she said, knowing that if she didn’t end this soon, Carmela might get concerned and come back. Knowing, too, that she might not be thinking rationally. She needed time. And to be alone so she could think, when he wasn’t distracting her. “I mean that. So...we have our closure. And now, I really do have things to do. I wish you the best, Nolan. I really do. And...thank you for...a two-week memory.” She opened the door just enough to slip inside, locking it behind her.
She waited another fifteen minutes, long after she’d peeked out her bedroom window and seen Nolan Fortune walking away, to text her roommate to bring her baby home.
Chapter Five
Thirteen days. Minus Christmas, so twelve days. Twelve days. That was all he had to get through. He had the new arrangements to work on—scores written by Glenn specifically for the Austin gig. Sleep to catch up on.
Some reading to do.
He’d passed a couple of gyms between his apartment and Lizzie’s place. He could get some workouts in. Hell, he could walk down to Rainey Street, check things out. He was a little old for party streets, and was working nights when things would really get going, but there’d be good eats among the historical homes turned bars.
What he couldn’t seem to do that Saturday afternoon was get visions of Lizzie out of his mind. Or that...sense of her out of deeper parts of him. That sense...it was like she had some kind of power over him.
He couldn’t have that.
Couldn’t allow it. Or let himself get pulled under by it.
He’d just never have imagined how difficult it was to walk away from her.
Wealth came with privilege. And it came with detriment, too.
Which was why he had his two weeks away every year. And why he’d been so vulnerable to having the companionship of a woman who had no idea that he was rich.
Leaving the bar after an afternoon practice session on Saturday, he forced himself back to the hotel, rather than taking the walk back toward Lizzie’s that his body was ordering him to take.
Just to see...
He’d been honest with her, confessing his lies, but telling her how much he’d cared, too.
He got that she didn’t trust him. But if his leaving her with no way to contact him had bothered her that much, it meant she cared, too, right?
After his lies, he could see her being hesitant, perhaps wondering if he’d lied about other things with her, too. He could see her pulling back, but her sending him away...it wasn’t sitting right. In the first place, if he didn’t matter, if she was truly over “them,” what would it hurt to chat? She’d been in such a hurry to get rid of him.
But it wasn’t even her opposition to hanging out with him that was haunting him. What kept coming back to him, over and over throughout the day, was that odd look of fear that flashed in her eyes a time or two as they’d talked.
In all of his years, all of his relationships, Molly included, the one thing he’d never done was scare a woman. What on earth did she think she had to fear with him?
Carmela had said he’d messed her up. Lizzie had clearly been put out by him disconnecting the phone number he’d left her.
She’d had to have called it to know that.
Was it possible that she’d felt the same strong bond between them that his crazy self was telling him he’d felt? Did such a thing even exist outside the movies?
Had he broken her heart? Was that what she feared? Being hurt again?
Why had Carmela come to see him? What had she expected him to find?