The Beach Wedding (Married in Malibu Book 1) by Bella Andre, Lucy Kevin Read Free Book Online Page B

never been able to say these words to him before, but with ten years of space between them, they were finally able to spill out. “You were so adamant about never doing anything or going anywhere without me that I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe anymore. Like we weren’t two individual people who were going to share our lives, but were rapidly fading into each other until I could no longer figure out who each of us was anymore.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me I was suffocating you?” She could hear the pain beneath each word, and she hated that she was hurting him again.
    “You weren’t suffocating me,” she countered softly. “I loved being with you just as much, Jason, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. And that’s what scared me. It frightened the heck out of me that suddenly both of us seemed to be letting go of the dreams that had been such a huge part of who we were up until we met one another. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you and I were never really very good at having serious discussions about things.”
    “Sure we were,” he said. “We would stay up for hours talking about the house we were going to build on the coast one day—” A house very much like the one he now lived in, actually. “—and the family we wanted to have, and all the places we would explore together.”
    “You’re right, we had no problem talking about the good things. But whenever I planned to talk with you about how worried I was that you weren’t following your dreams―and my growing fears that I was on a dead-end path myself—you’d touch me, kiss me. And the next thing I knew I was so swept up in our passionate connection that I’d never actually bring up any of my worries. By the time we’d wake up in bed the next morning, I couldn’t bear to ruin the moment. Not when it felt so good just to be with you.”
    “You still could have told me, could have found a time when we weren’t tearing each other’s clothes off to lay it all out for me.”
    “Even if I had, I still wouldn’t have been able to stay.” She felt utterly bleak as she remembered the day she’d accidentally intercepted a phone call meant for Jason. “Why didn’t you tell me the best writing program in the country had accepted you? And how could you have turned them down without talking to me about it? I only found out because they called the house line instead of your cell to beg you to reconsider.”
    He looked guilty for a moment, as if he still regretted keeping the information from her. “I knew how coming to California was your dream, and how much you loved it here. I couldn’t ask you to go back to where you grew up.”
    “Graduates of that program have won Pulitzers and become international best sellers, Jason. It killed me to find out that you’d turned it down. And that’s when I knew for sure that our relationship wasn’t going to work. Two people in love are supposed to bring out the best in each other, but I didn’t bring out the best in you. It was the exact opposite. Still...you have to know that it nearly killed me to pack up my things and leave.”
    He was silent as he processed everything she was saying. Finally, he asked, “But even if you thought you needed to leave for my own good, why did you do it like that? Without any warning. Without even telling me why.”
    “I know it was the coward’s way out,” she admitted softly, “but I also knew that if I tried explaining things to you, I would just end up in your arms, where you would persuade me to stay.” Couldn’t he see that it hadn’t been about not loving him? It had been about loving him too much. “And then you would never have ended up going for your dreams and getting what you wanted in life.”
    “You keep talking about all of the things I wanted, but can’t you see that the only thing I really wanted was you?”
    The force of his statement took Liz aback. Yes, her feelings for him were roiling just barely beneath the