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“So, what happened?” she asked, prying gently into the cause of the heartbreak.
“She came to see him at the office, making a big show of being his fiancé. I… I was with him after she left, and we told each other that we love each other. I told him that I would be his wife, that I would spend my whole life with him, and I thought that doing that would make it possible for him to get out of his marriage. He wouldn’t have to marry her if he knew that he could have me that way, but he didn’t choose me. He chose her. So I quit my job and walked out.” Eva sighed and rubbed her hands over her face again, wishing that she could push every memory of him out of her mind.
Jamie nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’m proud of you for walking out. I’m glad that you quit. You couldn’t stay there in a situation like that, loving that fool while he goes off and marries his other woman and then leaves you there to pine away after him for god knows how long, wishing that it was you that he chose. I knew that he was going to do that. I knew it. I’m so pissed at him.” She shook her head angrily.
“Well, now what do you think you’re going to do?” Jamie asked her, looking at her seriously.
Eva shrugged. “I don’t know. I have no idea what to do now. I just walked out of the best paying job I’ve ever had, and I don’t
want to ask him for a reference. It’s probably not likely that I can get another job that pays that well in time to keep my apartment, so I’ll have to let that go. I… I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The reality of her situation felt as if it was falling on her like an avalanche. Jamie patted her hand. “You need to make a choice. You need to figure out the best thing for yourself… you know, your best option, and go for it.”
Eva ran through every single scenario that she could think of, and her mind could only come to one solution. She looked at Jamie with deep sadness. “There’s only one thing. There’s only one place to go from here.”
“Where’s that?” Jamie asked, looking as if she wasn’t really certain that she wanted to know.
“I go back to Ryan. I leave here. I can’t stay here, knowing he’s so close and I can’t ever have him in my life. I can’t risk him trying to get back into my life after he’s married. I need to get the hell out of here and go to California. I should have done that in the first place. I should never have stayed in New York. Ryan wanted me to go with him, and I never even considered it. It was too far away. It was too different. It was not where I wanted to be. I guess what I couldn’t see was that it doesn’t matter where I am, as long as I’m with someone who loves me and who wants to be with me. I should have stayed with him. I loved him. Not like I love Derrick, but I do love him, and if I had gone with him I’d be happy. I’d probably be engaged and not feeling like my heart has exploded in agony.” Eva stared off into the distance as she thought about it all.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to California. I’m going to call Ryan and ask him if I can come out. I know he’ll say yes. I know he will. He said that if I ever want to be there with him, then I can. I’m going to. That’s it.” She looked at Jamie and saw Jamie’s disappointment mixed with determination.
“Then go do it, girl, and don’t wait. Go do it now. Get the hell out of here, and go mend your heart as far from here as you can. I get it, honey, I totally get it. I’ll be sorry to see you go, but I want your happiness more than I can be selfish and wish that you would stay here. Besides, I can come and visit you there, and that will be best for you. Go do it.” She gave Eva an encouraging smile, and Eva tried to give her a little smile back, agreeing to the new plan.
***
Garrett picked up his beer and held it aloft toward Derrick, giving him a half smile. “Congrats, brother. Here’s to the future. May it be filled with all the things you really want. Happy bachelor party.”
Derrick looked around them and raised a single brow. “It’s just the two of us… that’s not much of a bachelor party.”
“Well, I know how excited you really are about this wedding, and I didn’t want to get too crazy about it. No sense celebrating something that feels more like a jail sentence than a blissful and happy union, am I right? Are you telling me that you’d really prefer to have a bunch of guys here giving you hell and wanting you to look forward to the life you’ve got coming starting tomorrow?” Garrett looked at him doubtfully.
“No… I guess not,” Derrick said with a sigh. “Thanks anyway, though. I’m glad that I don’t have to fake it with you and pretend that I’m thrilled about getting married tomorrow. At least there’s that.”
“Listen, I know you aren’t thrilled with the prospect of spending your life with Felicia, and I can’t fault you for that, I think I’d rather have myself tied to the front of a train to be honest, but it seems to me that there’s something else bugging you. You’re off more than I expected you to be. What’s going on?” He looked at Derrick keenly.
Derrick groaned and shook his head, raking his fingers through his hair as he stared into his beer. “It’s Eva. She’s like a drug to me. I just… I couldn’t keep away from her. We were together right up to the last, and then she quit. She’s gone. I am not ever going to get her back or have her in my life even just as my secretary. We had agreed that she’d stay, that she’d be there with me and that we wouldn’t have an affair or anything, but at least we could be around each other, but then she left. She couldn’t do it. Now I’m totally on my own, with Felicia to look forward to at home.”
Garrett frowned and glowered at him slightly. “Are you serious? You mean to tell me that you actually asked Eva to stay there after you got married and you two weren’t going to have an affair? Dude… that’s torture. That’s the worst! I can’t even believe she said yes to that! You were going to keep her there on a shelf, watching you while you’re married to another woman, and you leave her alone in limbo? God… that’s the most selfish thing I think I’ve ever heard you say or seen you try to do, come to think of it. That’s so not like you… that’s…” he paused and stared at Derrick, slowly setting his beer down on the bar in front of them.
“Oh my god,” he said quietly.
Derrick looked at him miserably. “What?”
“You’re in love with her. That’s why you wanted to keep her there so badly. You’re in love with her, and you wanted to keep her close so that you could still have her in some kind of way. That is selfish as hell, brother, but it makes sense to me now. You’re in love with her.” Garrett furrowed his brow and shook his head, waving his hand at Derrick.
“What in the hell are you doing giving up a woman you’re in love with to marry a woman you don’t care about at all? Where is your head? What is that all about?” Garrett demanded.
“Politics,” Derrick answered quietly, staring down into the beer in front of him that he hadn’t even touched. “I am in love with her. Madly in love with her, but I can’t have her. That’s that. It’s what my father wanted. I can’t get out of it.”
Garrett sighed with disgust. “You are a grown man and a billionaire. You can get out of it.”
***
Derrick sat with his morning coffee in the kitchen of his condo and stared out of the window toward Central Park. It was his wedding day. He couldn’t believe it, but he was about to get married, and he couldn’t have possibly felt worse about it.
The cell phone on the table buzzed, and it stirred him from his melancholy thoughts. He reached for it and frowned in surprise as he saw the name on the screen. Swiping at it, he answered and held the phone to his ear.
“Greg… good morning. What can I do for you?” he asked curiously.
