I opened my eyes and searched his. “Right now my heart is telling me that there’s something else going on, JC, and that you’re reacting to it by pulling this crap.”

“This isn’t crap. This is me saying I want to give my life to you.”

His touch on my skin, the affection in his voice—what if he really did just love me that much? Was that the most absurd thing in the world?

Yes. It was absurd. And I was losing patience.

I dropped his hand and backed away. “You had a phone call that upset you—upset you enough to punch a freaking hole in the wall—a phone call that you can’t tell me anything about but it led you to propose. There’s something going on. This is not just a whimsical romantic notion.”

His posture changed as he assumed a new tactic. “Marry me, Gwen. And I’ll tell you everything. All of it. Every single secret I have.”

I suddenly went cold. “That’s a pretty shitty ultimatum.” Hot rage blew in across my icy veins. “You think I’d marry you just to ease my curiosity?” I hadn’t pressed him. I hadn’t pressured him in any way to tell me anything, and he came back with this?

He was quick to amend. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. It’s not an ultimatum. It’s just…it’s just how it has to be. I wish it were different and it’s just not. Because I had obligations. And a road I was taking before I ever met you. I’m bound and it’s killing me. You have to hear me—it’s killing me. I need you. I want you. I love you. So I’m not suggesting you’d marry me to ease your curiosity, but I wanted you to know that I wouldn’t be a husband with secrets.”

He pulled me back into his arms. Back into his heaven. “Marry me, Gwen. Marry me and let me make you feel good. Let me bring you coffee in bed. Let me push your body and show you how beautiful you are. Let me cover you everywhere with love. Let me take care of you and adore you and be with you.”

If there were warmer words in the dictionary, I didn’t know them. If there were other phrases and sentiments that were capable of melting the most frozen parts of me, I’d never come across them. I’d accepted my role in life. I knew who I was and what my purpose was. I hadn’t been made to be noticed or adored. And this man—this man not only noticed and adored, but he worshipped.

And he knew how to make me believe that he’d worship me forever.

I let myself kiss him. I let myself feel his urgency and his sincere need for me through the movement of his lips and tongue. I let myself feel worthy of his devotion.

Then I stepped away—out of his heaven, out of his peace. And I prayed that one day, paradise could really be mine. “N-no,” I said, my voice catching. “I’m sorry. But I know I’m not wrong. It has to be no.”

His whole body fell in defeat.

Like a good dream that fades upon waking, I tried to cling to it, tried to bring some of it back. “Look, we need to spend more time together. Move in, maybe.” He was in L.A. more than half the week anyway. It was a compromise that I could agree to, though I had a feeling there wasn’t anything that could appease him at this point. He had his mind stuck on this one thing, for some reason, and there was nothing I could do to unstick him.

All animation was gone from his features now. He’d given up. “That won’t work. I don’t even know when I’ll be back in New York.”

“Because I won’t marry you?” My throat felt like it was closing, and my emotions were warring. Was I pissed at the emotional blackmail? Or was I worried that I was losing him entirely? Maybe a little bit of both.

“No. Because it’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe? Why is it not safe?”

He waved his hand. “Forget that.” He gathered himself, reigning in all expression. “Please don’t ask me to say more. This is how things are right now and I can’t change them. I don’t know if I’ll be able to be back here for a while.”

I thought he might have made a slip of some sort, but now I was focused on his last words. I don’t know if I’ll be back here for a while.

He delivered it with such stoicism, and I had to be—something—in response. Something that would counterbalance the complete impassiveness that he’d adopted after his stunning display of passion only a moment before.

Had to be something, so I chose pissed. “Okay, let me get this straight. You were going to marry me then abandon me?”

He put a palm up in the air as if he could stop my train of thought with the flash of his hand. “I was going to ask you to come with me.” Like that fixed everything. Like that made all the difference.

Like hell it fixed everything. The only difference it made was to make me more irked. “You mean, you were going to ask me to pick up and just leave everything? For you don’t know how long?”

His answer came in the form of a guilty smirk.

“Why would you think I’d do that? I can’t do that. I have a life here. A job. A sister. I can’t just leave.” My voice was getting higher and with it probably my blood pressure. I threw my head back like a Pez dispenser, but instead of letting out candy, I was letting out frustration. I couldn’t figure out why a normally rational person would be so unreasonable all of a sudden.

Unless I was fooling myself, and I really didn’t know enough about JC to know that he was normally rational.

Or maybe…

The comment about safety came back and my head popped back down in place. “JC, are you in trouble?”

He’d been pounding his fist against his forehead but stopped and met my eyes. “Not the kind of trouble you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything! I don’t have enough information from you to form any sort of thinking at all!”

My phone started ringing in my hand. I ignored it for two rings. Then, cursing under my breath, I glanced down and saw Norma’s name as well as the low battery flashing. It wasn’t the most appropriate time to take her call, but I needed to talk to her. And I needed a break from the conversation with JC. I needed a moment of levity.

I angled away from him and answered. “Hello?”

“Did I catch you at a good time?”

I stole a glance at JC. “Not really. But my phone’s going to die, so go ahead and talk.”

“Got it.” She was walking as she talked. I could hear her heels clipping along tiled floor. She almost never made a phone call while she was sitting still. It was a waste of time. She was more efficient than that. “Are you doing okay this morning?”