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“Don’t be a dick, Sarah. Have you seen her?” I pull my phone out, ready to dial Ava and track her down.
“She left.”
I swing my worried eyes onto Sarah. “What?” She left without even saying goodbye? And more to the point, she left withoutme?
“Five minutes ago.” She points her champagne flute toward the doors, and I’m off like a rocket, pushing my way through the crowds, wishing, once again, that they’d all fuck off out of my penthouse.
I nearly take an old chap off his feet. “Sorry,” I say, making sure he’s steady.
“You in a rush?” he asks, holding out his hand. “Patrick Peterson.”
Ah, Ava’s boss? “Nice to meet you.” I leave his hand hanging and hurry away, smacking the button for the elevator repeatedly when I get there, like it might arrive faster under pressure. “Come on, come on,” I chant. I rush in as soon as the doors are open wide enough and hit the button for the ground floor. Why did she leave? I start pacing the small space feeling a sweat coming on and reach up to my chest and apply a bit of pressure, trying to force my heart into slowing down. Don’t tell me what I just shared with Ava will be it. Don’t tell me I won’t ever experience lightness like that again.
The doors open, and I dart out, nearly taking the concierge off his feet too. “Sorry,” I call back, landing outside the foyer, my eyes scanning. I see her car, but I don’t relax. She was drinking. She wouldn’t have driven anywhere. Good girl. But is she walking? Alone?
I scrub my hands down my face, slumping back against her car. This isn’t how I expected the rest of my evening to pan out. I pull up her name in my phone, but as my thumb hovers over the dial icon, I hear something.
Ava?
I frown, glancing around.
And I spot her, sitting on a bench on the docks. She’s on her phone. I look at mine. I don’t know why; she won’t be calling me, and that fucking hurts. I wander over quietly, coming to a stop a few paces behind her.
“Oh, Kate,” she says on a sigh, her head dropped back. I can sense her despondency from here. Can feel her regret. “I’ve made a monumental fuck-up,” she whispers, and I flinch. How can she say that was a mistake? It was nothing short of perfection. “I’ll be home soon.”
My heart in tatters, I hit dial on my phone, as if I need her to ignore my call and give me the agonizing confirmation that she’s talking about me. Of course she’s talking about me.
But shedoesanswer. And it throws me. “Hey,” she says quietly.
My mouth is working before my brain. “Where are you?”Please don’t lie to me.But her hand goes straight to her hair and the frantic, unconscious twiddling begins.
“I’m at home.”
I’m crushed. Fucking crushed. “Okay,” I murmur, hanging up before I say something stupid. Why is she doing this? It’s even fucking harder to understand now. She can’t give herself to me like that, make me feel like that, and deny me the chance to ever have her again. It doesn’t work like that.
My head spins as I watch her on the bench, sitting quietly, wondering what on earth is going on in her head. She needs to tell me. Maybe then I can reassure her.Or continue lying to her.
I cringe that thought the fuck away, focusing on the here and now, and she stands. Turns. Our eyes collide, and the second they do, I know beyond anything I’ve known before that this is it. She is it. Whatever I’ve been waiting for to redeem me, to rebuild me, to cure me, is standing before me, her eyes welling, her entire being yelling that she wants me. I am smitten, and whatever she’s set alight inside me can only burn if she preserves it. And that means I need her. And to need her is to keep her forever, and to keep her forever means I have to start being honest about who I am and what I have done. It’s a terrifying prospect. More terrifying because the chances of her running for the hills when she finds out everything there is to know is more likely than her accepting me. All thirty-seven years of me.
I need to make her need me. Make it impossible for her to ever walk away from me.
If only it were that simple.
After an age of us staring at each other, she breaks down, and my dead heart cracks. She feels hopeless. Overwhelmed by this crazy connection. I should take comfort in her inability to shield herself in this moment, to keep her vulnerability and conflict hidden, and instead wield her determination. But I don’t. I just feel like a first-class wanker for reducing her to despairing tears.
I move in and take her in my arms, holding her tightly and relaxing, feeling untold comfort in her embracing me, burying her face in my neck, her arms clinging to me firmly.
I let her be, give her time to let it all out. It’s all I can do in this moment. That and hope. Hope with everything I have that this isn’t a goodbye embrace. Because it’s amazing. Having her in my arms is amazing. Comforting her when she’s sad. Holding her when she needs to be held.Purpose.I reach up and massage the back of her head, sighing deeply.
The jerks of her body lessen slowly. “How long have you been here?” she eventually asks.
“Long enough,” I reply, holding her tighter, preparing myself to ask the question I’d like to avoid. “What’s all this about a monumental fuck-up? I hope to God you weren’t referring to me.”
“I was.”
“You were?” Unexpected annoyance drifts into my tone. I’m putting it down to surprise. I’m surprised she’s being so brutally honest with me. I should follow her lead. Open up. Yet everything is telling me it’s too soon. She’s swaying back and forth without knowing all the details, without really knowing me, leaving me concluding that the age difference must be one of her issues, along with this fierce intensity. Because it really is quite frightening. “Will you come home with me?” We’ll talk. I’ll remind her. Take her back to the places we went to only an hour ago.
“No.”
