Free South Beach: Hot in the City by Lacey Alexander

aren’t defeated. You won. “Leaving,” she said, proud when the word came out strong and confident, like she usually was.
    “So…last night was…”
    Come on, be tough, you can do this. Be…honest. Brutally honest. “A game. The whole weekend was a game. To show you how it feels to be hurt and abandoned.” That wasn’t strictly true—the part that had happened last night, in bed, hadn’t been a game at all, but this just kept things simpler, cleaner. He didn’t need to know she’d ever had any doubts or wavered at all.
    He simply stood there looking at her, myriad emotions passing over his face. At first, he appeared dumbfounded, but then his expression eased into one of hurt and maybe even some humiliation. And God, that kind of stung. It shouldn’t—he’d hurt her far worse once upon a time—but it still did.
    Yet even so, she managed to stand there and keep her game face on. Because if she could do that for only another minute or two, surely he would finally give up and leave, and then she would have what she’d wanted—victory. Hollow now, maybe. No, hollow for sure. But at least her heart wouldn’t be back at risk, not with him, not ever again. Keep being tough, keep being strong. You’re no one’s innocent little farm girl anymore.
    “When I woke up and you were gone,” he began, “I figured out that maybe I’d hurt you so badly when we were young that it was how you got from where you were then to where you are now. That maybe that’s why you just wouldn’t talk about it. And I was sick to think I hurt you that way. I was sick and came running to find you to tell you that I love you and want to somehow make it all up to you. But I never dreamed you could be this cold, Holly.” And then, finally, as she’d been waiting for him to do, Trey simply set her phone on the nearest table and turned to walk away across the marble lobby floor.
    And—oh God—her heart broke. Right there in the lobby of the Imperial Palms, her heart crumbled to dust in her chest. And a painful lump rose in her throat.
    Because the biggest truth here, the biggest one of all, suddenly slapping her in the face, was that maybe she was a fool. A fool to have walked away from the only man who had ever really cared for her. A fool to be letting him walk away from her now.
    You can spend your whole life putting up walls, trying to keep your heart safe…but where has that really gotten you? What was so great about her life the way it was now anyway? After all, she’d been the one who’d decided she needed to make changes, that it wasn’t what she wanted for herself .
    Or…you can actually, for once in your adult life, be brave, do something scary, do the scariest thing you’ve ever done.
    She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. And—oh Lord, this was so hard, so frightening—but she let her heart begin to guide her. And that had been tricky enough in the dark of night, but it was much more terrifying now, in the bright light of day. And in that acoustically perfect lobby, her voice rang out, “Trey! Wait! Please!”
    And when he just kept walking, nearly reaching the entry to a hallway that would lead him out of sight, she called again, more frantically this time, “ Please !”
    It was then that he drew to a halt, turned to face her again.
    Their eyes met across the distance that separated them, and even as aware as she was of the audience still tuned in to their drama, she knew she had to take a chance on this. If she didn’t, she would never forgive herself. She couldn’t hold the past against him forever.
    “I still love you, Trey. I still love you and I’m sorry I started to run away. You just…scare me to death.”
    Across the lobby, he blinked, then took a few steps toward her. She did the same without even thinking, abandoning her suitcase.
    “ I scare you ?” he asked. Then, to her surprise, he let out a short laugh. “I hate to break it to you, fishie, but you scare me, too.