Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

Hope flickered to life, she wasn’t running, she was listening. It was a start. ‘Would you rather live a half-life in fear of what may be?’

She couldn’t answer him and he could see the fight dying in her eyes.

‘I’m scared of the guilt too.’

‘The guilt?’ His frown deepened, what could she mean by that? She’d faced her guilt head-on when she’d helped Zoe surf again, she’d let go of it.

‘The guilt of finding the kind of happiness that will forever be denied my brother.’

He shook his head. ‘Malie, you have to stop with this guilt thing – do you honestly think that Koa would want you to feel that way?’

She closed her eyes, shutting him out, and it all slid into place for him: It wasn’t just her love life this guilt affected, it was everything else too. He remembered their conversation in the car when he’d asked why she wouldn’t compete in the Queen of the Pipe, the way she’d closed herself off, just like she was doing now, how her smile never quite reached her eyes.

‘It’s why you don’t compete in Big Wave competitions, isn’t it?’ he said softly. ‘It’s your passion but you don’t do it… because of him.’

Slowly, she opened her eyes, her surprise that he’d put it together clear. ‘I can’t bear it… walking in his footsteps, overtaking them or even failing in them, like he doesn’t matter, like none of it matters, when it does…’ She squeezed her eyes shut, opening them again to blaze up at him. ‘It hurts, really hurts.’

‘But you wouldn’t be, don’t you see that? You’d be living your life for the both of you, doing everything you dreamed of doing together.’

A tremor ran through her body, he could feel it through his fingers, see her head shake as her brow creased into a frown.

‘Do you really think your brother would want you to forgo doing what you love, what you were born to do? Do you think he’d want to see you like this, torn up with guilt, putting off your own happiness? You saw how sad he was when your parents quit, you lived through it with him.’

She was so quiet but he knew she was listening, he only hoped his words were getting through.

‘If your brother was still alive, would you be competing?’

A wet smile lifted her lips. ‘If Koa was still here, everything would be different. Mum and Dad would still have their surf school, their boards, their lives, real living, not just going through the motions day in, day out.’

‘But can’t you see that that’s what you’re doing too, just going through the motions?’

She shook her head fiercely now. ‘No, I’ve been OK, I got out of there, I refused to quit surfing because they demanded it, I surfed and surfed and surfed, and then I used that skill to make others happy, to help them. I’ve made a life for myself away from all that pain and heartache.’

‘A life that’s still constrained by it.’

‘It’s not.’

He brushed his thumb over her lip, felt it tremble beneath his touch and fought the urge to kiss her, to make her realize what really living feels like.

‘You’d be crowned Queen of the Pipe several times over already if you were living your life to the full – and you wouldn’t be pushing me away, you’d be in my arms, my bed, my…’ He almost said heart but he knew she was already there and so he gave in and kissed her, softly, heard her breath catch, felt her lips part.

‘The truth is your brother would want you to go after your dreams,’ he said, his mouth brushing over hers as he spoke, his own body thrumming with awareness of hers, so close and yet so far away. ‘If you were honest with yourself, you’d know it’s true.’

A whimper worked its way up her throat – was it denial, acceptance, something more? But then her hands were in his hair, her mouth moving beneath his and he couldn’t think past the rush of warmth that flooded his body, the tightness, the need…

‘Let me take care of you, Malie, please, just let me be there for you…’

Let me take care of you…

Malie broke away startled, her eyes wide, her mouth agape.

Let me take care of you…

She stared up into his eyes as black as the night, at the sympathy, the pain, the worry and the pity. Oh my God, he pitied her, he pitied her life and the pain she was in. That wasn’t love, it wasn’t close.

But for a second, she’d thought it, she’d felt it. She’d taken Zoe’s words and used them to reassure herself that this was real. No. Don’t blame Zoe for this.

You believed it, because you wanted to believe it, because you love him more than you ever thought possible, and now you are paying the price.

She’d got so wrapped up in it, in the moment, in the fantasy, that she’d missed all the signs. How could she have been so stupid? She knew Todd was a white knight. His philanthropic nature, his inherent need to help those that need it, and now he wanted to make her his charity case, confusing it with so much more.

Her stomach twisted tight, goose bumps prickling over her wet skin. ‘I have to go, it’s getting cold, I need to get dry.’

She was rambling but she needed to get away from him before she broke again, before she convinced herself that this was more than it was. Because now she knew how much she wanted it to be more, how much she had fallen hard and fast, exposing herself to all the pain she had worked so hard to avoid.

‘Malie?’ He frowned down at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

She ducked away from him to grab up her board, startling a snoozing Nalu at their feet, ‘Don’t you see, Todd?’ she threw at him. ‘I’m your charity case, you’re trying to help me like you do all