The lump in my throat is too big to swallow, and I try several times before it goes. I step away from Aaron when he reaches for me and walk to the windows.
“I pushed that aside because you asked me to, but no matter what happens, no matter how real this is, it’s only happening because I have to be here. We can’t ignore the fact I’m only here because you’re paying me to be.”
“What if I stopped it? Called your agent and cancelled it? Would you stay, or would you go?”
“Don’t ask me that,” I whisper.
“Would you call her and leave? Stop doing it so you could stay?”
“I said not to ask me that!” I snap, turning. “I don’t know, Aaron. I don’t know. What I do is my life. It’s all I have.”
“You have me, Day. You know you do.”
I close my eyes. “Because I’m paid to. That’s always going to be the bottom line.”
He cups my face. “So quit. Quit and stay with me.”
“I—”
“Model. I’m not asking you to sit at home cleaning and cooking and making babies, for f**ks sake. You love your independence, and I love that about you. I always have.” His nose brushes mine. “You’re a natural in front of the camera. Give up all the call girl bullshit and stay with me.”
“I can’t have this conversation right now.” I cover his hands with my own and pull them away.
“Then when’s the best time? When we’re back in Seattle and you can run?” He circles my wrists with his fingers, stopping me from moving away. “This conversation was always going to happen, and there’s no better time than right now.”
Yes, there is. There’s always a better time. Preferably one where I’m not still reeling from the realization that I’m madly f**king in love with you and I’m still technically your whore.
“I need to think, Aaron. I can’t just make decisions like that. I’m not impulsive. There has to be a plan. I have to know what I’m doing and where I’m going.”
“Jesus f**king Christ, Dayton. I just told you. Leave Monique. Model for us, and live with me.”
“Three weeks! We’ve been ‘together’ three weeks and you’re suggesting I live with you? Now that’s how to scare an independent girl off.”
He looks to the ceiling. “Fine. Don’t live with me. Just leave and be with me.”
“It’s really not that simple.”
“I never stopped loving you. Not even for a second. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”
My heart pounds in my chest. “And if that’s true, then you’ll respect my need to think things through. The only people I’ve truly cared about for five years are my aunt and my best friend. You can’t ask me to throw everything away and jump into something without knowing it’s the right thing to do.”
He exhales heavily and wraps his arms around my shoulders. “Fine. I don’t like it. Not a f**king bit. But I respect it.”
I sink into his body and wrap my arms around his waist, laying my head on his chest. “Thank you.”
“Just… Do you have any idea how hard it is waking up next to you every morning and wondering if this is all we have together? The time I’m forced to pay for?”
“Yes. I ask myself the same thing every day,” I whisper painfully.
His grip on me tightens. “Then for god’s sake, woman, find an answer before you kill us both waiting.”
“I’m trying. I’m really trying.”
“Don’t ever doubt that I’d wait forever for you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know right now.” He kisses the top of my head. “And if this is all the time we have, don’t ever doubt that I won’t stop until I have you. If I have to pay for you until you’re absolutely, completely mine, then I will.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“There isn’t a price I wouldn’t pay for you, Dayton. Money has no value when the thing you desire is priceless.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Beautiful, don’t you think?”
I smile as Aaron’s arms circle my waist, my eyes fixed on the Tower standing before me. “It is.”
“Oh, you’re talking about the Tower.” He curves his lips against my cheek. “I’m talking about you.”
I shake my head and turn my face toward his. “You’ve been waiting to do that, haven’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My fingers link through his, and I turn my attention back to the Eiffel Tower. There are no words to describe the feelings running rampant through my body in this moment. Being back at the place it all started, with him, is surreal. It’s been so long, but it really does feel like yesterday he was pulling me to the coffee shop around the corner to replace the one he made me spill.
“At least I’m not covered in coffee this time.”
Aaron laughs and steps to my side, keeping one arm firmly around my waist. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Sure you didn’t. I believe you.”
“Whether I did or not, it remains the greatest success in pick-up f**k-ups.”
“Pick-up f**k-ups?”
“Where it all goes wrong but still works. At least, that’s what Joey, my nineteen-year-old cousin, tells me.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m laughing. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“What did you think when you saw me for the first time?”
I stop and look at him after a long moment of silence. His eyes are set on me, clouded with that memory and full of tenderness, and his lips are curved on each side.
Slowly, he reaches out to push my hair from my face. “I remember sitting on the grass, working on something for my father, when you walked past. You were humming to yourself. You couldn’t have been more in your own little world if you’d tried to be. You walked past and I watched you, and I remember the exact moment you truly looked at the Tower.
“You just…stopped. Your eyes flicked over it until you’d seen every last inch and your lips parted like you’d never seen anything that incredible before. And it was as if the whole world stopped, just for that moment.” He trails his fingers down my cheek and cups my jaw. “I couldn’t let you leave without speaking to you. If we’d only ever exchanged a few words, that would have been good enough. But I had to talk to you.”