Chapter 166: Please don’t leave
(part 3)
Sitting in the dark on the chair beside the fireplace in his bedroom, Neil leaned forward and put his head in his hands, trying not to think or feel. He had done what he set out to do and more; he had proved to himself and to her that he didn’t need her nor want her anymore, not even sexually. And he had proved to her that he wasn’t worth caring about or worrying about after she left here in the morning. She would leave this cabin hating him and anything that had to do with him.
He had accomplished his goals brilliantly, and indelibly. But he had never felt more desolate or more ashad than how he felt after doing such a thing to the woman who’d obviously cared about him more than he cared about himself.
Mia would never imagine she was in love with him after tonight, he knew, he felt it. She’d hate him completely. But not nearly as much as he hated himself. He despised himself for what he’d done to her and for the uncharacteristic weakness he was feeling at the mont that made him yearn to go to her and beg her forgiveness. He wanted to apologise for what he’d done, but he couldn’t and he wouldn’t.
He’d sworn never to be like his father, and he’d stand by his words of never loving nor marrying anyone in this lifeti; not even Mia could make him vulnerable to that emotion known as love. Never, he couldn’t. And he’d have to live with the sha of hurting her and humiliating her.
Straightening in the chair, Neil looked across the room and the bed they’d shared, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep in it anymore, not when she was lying in the next room, hating him.
"I am sorry..." He whispered as he stared at the walls that separated their rooms.
****
The next morning, the keys to Mia’s BMW was already laying on her nightstand when she woke up. She stared blankly at the keys for so minutes before she pushed herself out of bed to get ready to leave. When she was done packing her things, she began to dress up without any particular awareness of what she was doing because the pain she’d felt last night had now turned into a dull numbness.
All she wanted to do was get out of here and never look back on any of her mories with Neil, never think back on him. Forget everything about him. All her attention was focused on that, on forgetting that she had ever t him and been foolish enough to love him.
She never wanted to love anyone again if it ant being this vulnerable and stupid. Never. Mia decided as she got her suitcase out of the closet, dumped her toiletries into it, zipped it closed, and picked it up. Neil Wayner was now a past she would never look back to nor let it ruin her beautiful future.
At the bedroom door, Mia paused and looked around the room to make sure she’d left nothing behind her, then she turned off the lights. Quietly, she twisted the doorknob and stepped downstairs into the darkened living room, silently praying she wouldn’t co across Neil on her way out but then she stopped short, her heart slamming in shock and dread.
In the watery gray light of the early dawn, she could see Neil’s silhouette at the windows across the room, his back to her, his left hand shoved into his pants pocket. Quickly jerking her gaze away, Mia turned and started walking silently down the hall, but before she took the second step, he spoke without turning, "I went to et Alaric that night because I figured out he gave Miss Foster so poison to put in your wine, and when I left him, he was still alive with a broken nose from a punch he’d received from . I didn’t kill him."
Ignoring the sudden knot in her chest at the realization that he’d been at that cri scene because of her, she forced herself to keep walking down the hall, past him.
"Don’t go..." he called hoarsely, "Please, stay."
Mia’s heart twisted at the harsh desperation in his voice, but her wounded pride scread that only a fool without pride or sense would let him near her after last night, and she kept walking. She reached for the knob on the back door and his voice ca from sowhere closer behind her, raw with emotion.
"Mia...please don’t leave !"
Her hand refused to turn the knob, her shoulders began to shake with silent sobs, and Mia leaned her forehead against the door, tears streaking down her face, her handbag and suitcase sliding from her hand. She wept with sha for her lack of will and with fear for a love that she couldn’t control. And even as she wept for herself, she let him turn her into his arms and pull her against his chest.
"I’m sorry," Neil whispered fiercely, helplessly trying to comfort her, his hands rushing over her shoulders and back, clenching her to him as if he wanted to be one with her at this mont. He couldn’t allow her leave hating him, he couldn’t even imagine himself living the rest of his days here without her.
"Please forgive . Please." He begged desperately.
"How could you do that to
last night!" she sobbed brokingly in his arms. "How could you, Neil!"
Swallowing past the hard lump in his throat, Neil turned her wet face up to his because it seed to him that he didn’t deserve the protection of secrecy when he admitted, "I did it because you called
a cold hearted jerk and I couldn’t stand it—not from you. And I did it because I’m a heartless bastard, exactly as you said."
"You’re right, you are!" she choked, "and the horrible part of it is that I still love you anyway!"
Neil pulled her back into his arms and fought back the words he knew she wanted to hear, the words he felt. Instead, he crushed her to him, kissing her forehead and her cheek and her wet eyes, then he rested his jaw against her fragrant hair, letting her words bathe him in their sweetness. She loved him, she’d admitted...
At thirty-two, he had finally discovered how it felt like to be loved for no reason except for himself, to be loved when he had neither wealth nor fa nor even respectability to offer as an attraction, to be loved unconditionally by a woman of extraordinary courage and loyalty. He’d sworn not be a fool in love, but he now realized love was an emotion one couldn’t control, and if he’d be a fool just for as long as Mia was here with him, he was willing to.
And he knew it now, just as surely as he knew that if he told her how he felt about her, her love for him would make her wait for him for years after he had disappeared from her life in days to co.
Even so, he couldn’t let her sweet confession pass without comnt, and so he rubbed his cheek against her hair and tenderly spoke another truth, "I don’t deserve your love, sweetheart."
"I know you don’t," Mia joked tearily, refusing to get hurt that he hadn’t said he loved her, too. She had heard the aching emotion in his voice just now and the tornt when he thought she was leaving him. She’d also felt the reflexive tightening of his arms and the increased pounding of his heart against her face when she had told him she loved him. It was enough for her to know he loved her, too. It had to be.
Mia closed her eyes as his hand slid under the hair at her nape, his long fingers stroking sensually, but when he spoke, he sounded incredibly weary. "Would you consider going back to bed with
for a few hours and postponing our discussion about my whereabout during the murder until I’ve had so sleep? I’ve been awake all night."
Mia nodded and walked back with him into a room she’d never expected to see again. She’d expected herself to be on the way alone to Mirage sa, but now she was happily back in his room.
Few minutes after they laid in bed, Neil fell asleep with his arms wrapped around her body and his head nestled against her chest.
Unable to sleep herself, Mia watched him sleep, her fingers toying with the soft hair at his temple as she rembered a similar scene like this when she’d woken up five years ago and found his head nestled against her chest in his condo, the scene now seed like it had been decades since it happened, and it brought a small smile to her face as she continued to stroke his hair.
Sleep didn’t soften his hardened features, Mia noticed, probably because he found no real peace, even when he was asleep. His brows were dark and thick, and so were his eyelashes, she suddenly noticed—spiky lashes so dark they looked black. She shifted a little to make him more comfortable, but his arms tightened instantly around her—to prevent her from leaving him, no doubt.
The unconsciously possessive gesture made her smile because it was so unnecessary. She had no intention of slipping away when he fell asleep. She would stay with him for as long as he wanted her, she would continue to love him until the end of ti.
Years ago, she had once co across a quote from Shakespeare that life was a stage on which each man must play his part. Ever since she graduated from Ivy Grove, she’d felt as if she was standing just off the stage where her own life was supposed to take place, waiting in the wings, waiting for soone to give her a cue that it was ti to step on that stage and do whatever she was ant to do. Mia drew in a shaky breath, smiling a little tearily, because she’d finally gotten her cue in life.
Now she knew what she had been waiting for all these years, why she had never found happiness even though she was rich and famous, and who she had been ant for. Neil Wayner.
Despite all her efforts to make herself into a model of society, when it ca to falling in love, she had reverted to form and fallen in love with a man who was now a black sheep; a daring, tough social outcast who in so ways reminded her of a boy in her far away mory. She loved him with a fierce protectiveness that made her feel strong and wise and maternal, she loved him with a desperation that made her feel helpless and fragile and under his control.
And she loved all those feelings, every single nerve-racking one.
The future was an uncertain path filled with danger. But Mia felt utterly at peace and in perfect harmony with the entire universe. Laying her hand against his head, she cradled him protectively close to her heart and touched her lips to his dark hair. "I love you," she whispered tenderly.
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