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The wind was sharp off the water. It cut hard through her sweatshirt, but her tears kept running. All the tears she’d never let herself shed over the years were escaping at the same time. Tears for a mother she couldn’t remember, a father who had loved and resented her, and an ex-quarterback who’d stolen her heart when she wasn’t paying attention.
She started to run. There weren’t many joggers on this part of the path, and a few snowflakes scuttled in the wind. November would be here in a couple of days. And then winter. A cold, Chicago winter. She ran faster, trying to outrun her misery.
A woman clad in trendy athletic gear and pushing a jogging stroller was running toward her. As the woman came closer, her pace slowed, and then stopped. “Are you all right?” she asked as her baby slept peacefully in the stroller.
Piper knew how crazed she must look. She slowed long enough to acknowledge the woman’s concern. “My . . . dog died.”
The woman’s ponytail swung. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Piper started to run again. She’d told another lie. She’d never been a liar, but now she’d become a pro. All those lies.
“I go by Esme. Lady Esme, actually. Esmerelda is a family name. . . . The fact is . . . I’m your stalker.”
She spun around and yelled after the woman. “I broke up with a man I love with all my heart, and he will never, ever love me the same way, and I hurt so bad I don’t know what to do with myself.”
The only indication that the woman heard was the way she raised her arm from the handle of the jogging stroller and waved.
Piper gazed out at the lake, her hands in fists at her side, her teeth chattering, icy tears on her cheeks. She had to find a new self. A self who was indestructible and who would never, ever again let this happen to her.
***
A week passed. Piper was gone. It was as though she’d never been there. The cleaning staff had scrubbed his blood off the apartment wall and put the furniture back where it belonged. Coop had walked in there once and couldn’t go again.
The image of Piper standing in front of him with a gun shoved to her head was seared on his brain. At that exact moment he’d understood. It was as if a gust of wind had swept away the fog that had obscured the truth he should have recognized long before. But instead of coming out with it right away, he’d screwed up bad at the hospital. He hadn’t said the right thing, which was ironic, considering his reputation for working a good sound bite. Years of having microphones shoved in his face had taught him how to divulge exactly what he wanted to, precisely as he intended. But when it came to saying the right words to Piper, he’d fumbled in the worst possible way, and now she wouldn’t take his calls.
The wound in his side was healing, but the rest of him was a mess. Someone knocked on his office door. This was the first time in days that anybody had bothered him. He didn’t blame them for keeping their distance. He was brusque with the customers, unhappy with the servers, and outright hostile to his bouncers. He’d even gotten into an argument with Tony because Tony insisted there was nothing wrong with the club’s HVAC system. But the air was stagnant, not circulating. So heavy with the funk of perfume and liquor it had seeped into Coop’s pores.
He twisted from the computer screen he’d been staring at for who knew how long and directed his wrath toward the door. “Go away!”
Jada barged into his office. “You broke up with Piper! How could you do that?”
“Piper broke up with me. And how do you know about it?”
“I talked to her on the phone. At first she didn’t tell me, but I finally got it out of her.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying to be casual, even though he wanted to shake the details out of her. “So . . . what did she say about me?”
“Just that she hadn’t seen you since the accident.”
“And from this you deduced that I’d broken up with her?”
“She sounded sad.” Jada dropped down on the couch. “Why did she break up with you?”
“Because she thinks I didn’t take our relationship seriously.” He couldn’t sit a moment longer. He shot up from his desk, then pretended to adjust the shutter slats on the window behind him.
“Is that what she said?” Jada asked.
“Not in so many words, but . . .” He made himself go over to the small refrigerator next to the bookcases. “She’s extremely competitive. She thinks I am, too.”
She leaned forward like a minishrink. “Aren’t you?”
“Not about her.” He pulled out a Coke and held it up. “Want one?”
Jada shook her head. “Are you going to try to get her back?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound too confident.”
