“Come inside?” she asked. “I don’t have much practice sneaking boys into my room here, but honestly, I don’t think Elaine would mind.”
Rhys smiled at that, but it was a brief one, and when he reached up to smooth her hair back from her face, Vivi felt like she knew what he was about to say.
“Much as I would love that, cariad, I’m afraid I need to get back tomorrow.”
Vivi rocked back slightly, her hands falling from his waist. “Back as in . . . to Wales?”
“The very place,” he said. “My father needs to be told about all this, and that’s really a conversation best had in person. And work will get busier with the holidays . . .”
Vivi felt like someone had dunked her in cold water, all that silly, magical happiness draining off her as she stood there on the porch, looking up into Rhys’s blue eyes.
“Right, of course,” she said, and made herself smile. “I mean, we both knew this was temporary. Your life there, mine here.”
“Exactly,” he said, and his smile seemed a little forced, too. “Of course,” he added, pulling her in, “I could beg you to come with me. Down on my knees, the whole bit, very dramatic, quite a scene.”
She laughed a little at that even as she closed her eyes against the sudden stinging of tears. “I would really like to see that.” And she would, was the thing. Wanted Rhys to seriously ask her to come, wanted to know what this meant to him.
But he’d showed her, hadn’t he? He cared about her, he always would. But he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who could stay in one place. He’d built a whole life around that.
And now that her magic was inextricably bound up in Graves Glen, she didn’t want to leave. This was her home.
“You do enjoy me down on my knees.”
Vivi closed the space between them, wrapping her arms around him, breathing in the smell of autumn that clung to his clothes, the faint scent of smoke still hanging around them both. “Truly where you do your best work.”
His grip on her tightened even as he chuckled, and Vivi wished they could put off this bit just for a little bit longer. Just let her have him a little longer, one more night, maybe two.
But that wouldn’t make this any easier. If anything, it would just make it harder. Because Rhys couldn’t stay.
And she couldn’t go.
“Look on the bright side,” she said, as she pulled back. “At least this time I won’t be cursing you. Might even set up a little mini–Rhys Penhallow shrine on my desk at work.”
“Canopy bed included, I hope.”
Vivi could feel the smile wobble on her face. She was making the right decision. They both were. This thing between them had always been built not to last. They were too different, wanted different lives, had different dreams.
That didn’t make letting him go any easier.
But she did.
“Good-bye, Rhys,” she said, brushing her lips against his one more time.
“Good-bye, Vivienne,” he murmured, but he didn’t kiss her again. He just turned and walked back down the porch steps and, for the second time, out of her life.
Chapter 35
Winter semester was always a little bleak.
If Graves Glen was at its absolute best in October, January was the flip side of that coin, the time of year when Vivi started wondering if she should move to a beach or something. The snow was never that bad, and it could even be really pretty when you were watching it from a porch up in the mountains, the snowflakes floating through the bare trees.
It was less pretty when you were sludging through a couple of inches of the stuff mixed with mud as you made your way to work.