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WHAT IN THE HELL HAD I just done? Downing another shot, I drummed my fingers against the top of the bar. I’d just pushed away one of the best things to happen to me in a good, long while, and yet, I couldn’t even find it in myself to go back and beg for forgiveness for being such a coldhearted prick.
The look in those gorgeous eyes as I’d been so cruel...
The reason was stupid, really, but almost out of my control. I felt helpless to get past my issues. I was absolutely terrified. I was nervous in a way I couldn’t remember being in years. Next to nothing shook me—normally. Hell, I had raced headlong into fear countless times without a second thought. I’d sped at breakneck speeds around curves. I’d flipped a car, having to eject or be burned to death when it caught fire. I had faced my father’s funeral, devastated, but with a brave face, and had survived that without completely cracking and breaking. Barely... but I had. I had publically fired drivers for bad behavior, and had to face the angry press when they had found out, and I’d slept fine at night.
But for some reason, a witty, curvy-as-hell redhead named Charlyse had me feeling like a completely helpless, lovesick teenager. And not because I feared committing to her, or being hers. Sure, I barely knew her, but I was damn sure that wasn’t it.
I’d known quite a few women, but there had been none who’d moved me enough to want to get to know them intimately in a way beyond the physically naked sense. The problem here was that Charlyse made me want to be intimate in an emotionally naked sense.
It had completely disarmed me. Paralyzed me with fear. A fear of the unknown. For quite some time now, I thought I’d finally gotten myself together. When the one person who understood me, who had even attempted to, was taken from the world, I’d managed to paste the broken pieces of myself together on a hope and prayer. I’d worked very hard to stand up. To man-up. Now I was coming undone over a woman I barely knew... and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. During last night—most likely the last night we would spend together—something had caved inside of me, like a dam beginning crack and spurt more than just a small leak.
Charlyse had instantly begun to look very, very different to me. She’d become a threat. Someone who was no longer just a whirlwind of fun and sex and heart-stopping grins, but would bring me to my knees with a passion that set me completely on fire. She’d become someone who could pierce the armor I’d worked so very hard to latch onto my skin. The layer that was meant to keep everything—and everyone—out. That armor was meant to be formidable, goddammit.
Shaking my head, I beckoned the bartender by tapping the bar, signaling my desire for another shot. I downed it as soon as it arrived and gritted my teeth.
I’d known her all of a few wonderful days, and she’d melted my resolve with effortless ease. There was nothing that was going to stop that. She’d already gotten in, and I’d pushed her away. I’d been cold when I did it, too. I knew I hurt her, and was still unsettled by it. How was it possible for a person to walk into your life and change the way you saw the world in the space of a few days?
A voice broke me out of my melancholy musings. “You look like a man who’s had a rough one.”
Turning to the stranger taking a stool at my right, I drew a breath, quickly nodded, and averted my eyes back to the empty shot glass. The last thing I needed was a chatty bar buddy right now. I’d rather sit tortuously alone with what I’d done than tolerate someone’s well-meaning but naïve attempt to make me feel better.
“Only a woman can make a man look that,” he said, amusement in his voice.
“Something like that,” I murmured, not sure why I was even engaging him in conversation.
“So... why not go get her?” he asked, not giving up. I studied his face, and he had kind brown eyes and an outdated moustache, with hair to match.
“Not gonna happen.”
He chuckled. “It will, I can tell you’re in pain. It’s written all over your face, man. I’ve been there. I know.”
The man was older, looking like he had some additional weight on his soul that sped the clock on how his body had aged. Well-meaning, though. He had the look of someone who was genuine, or at least aimed to be.
I ignored his comment, but he was a persistent bastard.
“Trust me when I tell you; it's not worth letting the one that got away become a reality for you. It tears a hole in your heart you’ll never be able to close.”
Shrugging, I attempted to swallow my tension and averted my eyes to the shot glass. The kind stranger patted me on the back, picked up his beer, and wandered off, leaving me to let his words haunt my heart and my soul.
The one that got away.
Dammit! The guy was right. Not that I had needed him to point it out, my dumb ass would have figured it out eventually. It was ten a.m. and I was downing shots for God’s sake; that should have been a big enough clue. I didn’t have inspections until three, but I had needed to get out of that hotel room to distance myself from her.
My mind was a jumble of emotions, but at the very least, I owed Charlyse the real truth. I would go up there and apologize and maybe she would forgive me and agree to spend the next day or two by my side, and when it was over, we could part amicably, like adults.
I rode the elevator up, practicing what I was going to say. When I entered through the doors, her beautiful body wasn’t in the bed with her dark hair splayed out on the pillow. She wasn’t in the bathroom or looking out through the picture windows. Her purse, clothes, and toiletries were gone.
Charlyse was gone, and it was all my fault.