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Next tough question. “Are you... and Celeste...” I let the words trail off.
We stared at each other for a long while. With just the soft glow of the park’s lamps, the emotion between us was evident. The hurt between us showed on our faces, his dark eyes filled with a heart-breaking regret.
“I’m sorry, Britta.”
Three words.
In three words, Hawk Carnage broke my heart.
He’d chosen Celeste.
Not out of love, but responsibility.
Biting my bottom lip, I couldn’t stop the tears. They prickled my eyes, my cheeks heating. Slowly I nodded, accepting his choice.
I wanted to say, ‘What about us?’
I wanted to yell, ‘Didn’t we mean anything?’
But there was no us. We were friends with benefits. There was no obligation to someone you were ‘just fucking.’
But it was more than that. Hawk Carnage had always been more than ‘just that.’
He reached out to touch my cheek, but I moved the other way.
“I never meant for it to be like this...” he said with remorse. “I never wanted to...”
I could no longer hear his words as I backed away. I couldn’t even swallow, a hard, painful lump caught in my throat.
There was no future between us.
There was no... us.
Everything before me, including his sad, handsome face blurred and flight mode took control.
I turned my back on his pleading words.
I turned my back on the pain in his eyes.
I turned my back on the man I loved.Chapter 20BrittaMy cell beeped.
It was a message, but my eyes were too swollen to look at anything. The night had seen many tears. I cried for Hawk, knowing how stressed and overwhelmed he would be.
I cried for myself, gutted I’d lost the man I loved.
And I cried for us. Because we could no longer be something to pursue.
Despite the rule being ‘we were just friends,’ we both knew that had it not been for the interruption, we would have had a future together.
I curled up on my pillow and dragged the sheet over my head. Daylight was creeping in, and I simply wasn’t prepared for work. I wasn’t prepared to see Hawk. I wasn’t prepared to see a pregnant Celeste waltzing through Carnage Industries to claim her man.
I wondered if I should look for another job.
I wondered if I could ever look at Hawk the same.
I wondered if he felt the same as me.
Broken.
My cell rang.
This was the fourth time.
Disgruntled, I flipped the sheets off and reached for the offending noise.
Sara.
While I was staring at all the missed calls and unanswered messages, she called again.
“It’s 4:45 in the morning, Sara,” I answered in the way of a greeting.
“Well, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you since last night.” There was no mistaking the urgency in her voice.
I rubbed my sore eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Your flight leaves at seven?”
Had she lost her mind? “What flight?”
“Hawk was supposed to meet with the Renshaw’s in San Antonio today, but he’s had to cancel last minute and instructed I rebook the flight under your name.”
My heart sank.
Was he sending me off down the country so he’d have uninterrupted time with Celeste?
“I don’t even know the purpose of the meeting. How does he expect me to—”
“He said you’d say that. The Renshaw’s are the ones instigating contact. They’ll lead.”
He couldn’t tell me this himself?
He couldn’t pick up the phone from one professional to another and explain the situation?
Farewelling Sara, I kicked the sheets off me in anger until they fell to the floor. I had two and half hours to get ready, pack and get my ass to the airport.THE FLIGHT WAS UNEVENTFUL.
Sara sent through the itinerary, which I read while my driver took me to my San Antonio hotel. Still, I had no idea as to the tone of the meeting and all prior interactions had been done in New York.
Dialing Hawk’s number, I waited until it rang out. Calling again, I saw the same result.
“Pick up,” I mouthed angrily. He had no right to ignore me, especially within a business situation. This was his doing. Not mine.
I went to compose a text instead.
Please call regarding the Renshaw meeting. Unsure as to what I’m supposed to achieve.I waited, tapping my cell against my palm while staring out the window. The volume was set to loud, so there was no reason why I had to check it every second for his response, but I did.
I entertained the thought of texting him that despite everything I still loved him. But his priorities were elsewhere. He could still be a father to the child and not be with Celeste. He could still build a life with me. But Hawk had come to a decision almost immediately. It was like, whatever we had, or whatever we pretended it just to be, was simply... less than I ever thought.
It was nothing to him.
I was merely his employee which he managed to bed.
