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Chapter 1
Monday
Eva
Sometimes the fear of losing everything is our last, best chance to be who we truly are.
Though I hadn’t seen it in more than eight months, it was as familiar as if I’d been there yesterday. The same couches, the same slightly musty smell in the office, the same view of the city, the mid-rise office buildings across the street, packed so tightly together you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began, the sinuous curves of steam, caught upon the breeze, rising from chimneys here and there.
It was afternoon, which was when we used to come here. When I still thought there was hope.
I wasn’t surprised to find that I was there first. He was always late, though I never really learned if it was intentional, or if it was a sign of his fear, a signal of how much his reluctance kept him from really opening up.
Opening up, and what that might lead to, were the only real reasons it was worth even coming here. I sipped from the coffee, the liquid bitter, hot, slightly burnt. It was too quiet in that office, that solitude making me force myself to confront the reasons why I was there. There was the squeak of the entrance door, the hinges badly needing oil, heralding the entry of someone else into the office suite. Dennis had allowed us to use his personal office, for this first time anyway. He’d said it was “neutral ground” but honestly, I don’t think he ever expected us to actually show up. Not that I blamed him, considering how we’d behaved on more than one occasion in the past.
The door to the inner office where I waited creaked open, whispering against the fringe of the deep pile carpet. At first, I didn’t look up to see who it was. I knew very well it was Nick, but the last thing I was going to do was make him think I was eager to see him. Of course I wasn’t, but the thought that I might actually lead him to think so, even unintentionally, was even worse. It was much too late for that, far past the point where such a consideration even mattered anymore.
The scent of his cologne, an appealing combination of sandalwood and soap, and that indefinable male note that I’ve never been able to resist, was on the air.
“Hello, Eva.” His voice was lower than I remembered. It was then that I looked up at him… and had to will my jaw not to drop to the floor. I said the words almost on autopilot, shock at what I was seeing momentarily short-circuiting my ability to be circumspect, disabling my inner filter.
“Nick. Oh, you look—good.”
His chuckle was rich and deep, exactly as it had always been. It was one of his most appealing—and dangerous—qualities. But it wouldn’t matter, the power and seductiveness of the man’s laughter no longer had any effect on me. Or so I hoped. This was complicated enough and having to deal with him pouring on the effortless charm was only going to make this more painful.
For a moment, he stood there, his hands in his pockets, utterly at ease. It was a… new confidence, something I hadn’t seen in him in a very long time. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it.
“Thanks, Eva. I… It’s good to see you.” The words were kind, but they were belied by the flat tone of his voice, the taut line of his lips, the subdued light in his eyes. Was it resignation? Regret? There was really no way I could figure it out, for Nick was exceedingly good at disguising his motivations, at obfuscating what it was that really animated him.
And never truly letting me in.
Wasn’t that one of the reasons we were there, at that moment?
He was slimmer, and it suited him. Nick had never been fat, or particularly overweight, but the last time I’d seen him he’d been…a little soft around the middle. There was a roundness, a paleness to his face that I could never admit how much it turned me off. To me, that look bespoke a man who wasn’t a master of himself, a man not quite in control of his urges, his compulsions. Perhaps that was unfair of me, but it was the truth—as uncomfortable and uncharitable as that truth might be.
He was wearing a set of faded blue jeans that hung low on his hips, looser than anything he typically wore yet still highlighting the muscles of his thighs, the compact curve of his ass. An ass that hadn’t looked that good since we were in college.
“Have you been working out? I mean, you look like you’ve been…taking care of yourself.” I hated the words as soon as I said them, feeling like a clumsy cross between a come on, and a backwards compliment, the implication clear—if unintentional—that he hadn’t been taking care of himself before.
Rather than show any sign of irritation though, his blue eyes, like a sparkling shade of cobalt, glinted just the slightest bit. The side of his mouth curved up into a cross between a smile and a sneer.
Don’t do this, Eva. You don’t have to do this anymore.
“I didn’t think you were going to show up,” Nick said, his voice low and smooth. He laced his fingers together upon his lap as he sat down on the couch opposite me. His black boots were scuffed, pleasantly worn, the silver of a couple of the buckles catching the light as it poured in through the plate glass window. His long-sleeved navy dress shirt was form-fitting, stretching across his chest to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders, the solid strength of his neck, the bulge of his pectoral muscles. His waist was as tight and narrow as I’d ever seen it. Even more than when we were back in school.
Whatever he’d been doing, it seemed he’d transformed himself. It wasn’t just his body that seemed to have changed, either.
“I could have said the same thing about you.” I looked around the office pointedly, then fixed my gaze upon him. “But here we are. Now what?” My lower lip wanted to tremble as I said the last words, and I had no idea why. I had nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to be so much as nervous about. And yet I was.
How many times had I stood in front of the mirror, and replayed all the things that I planned on saying to him? And yet when I first laid eyes on him as he walked through that door, I sounded like a nervous teenage girl.
Foolish.
I wasn’t there to revisit feelings. I was there to end it.
And I was certain he felt the same.
“Now what…is up to us. You remember what he said, don’t you?” Nick’s eyebrow arched, a devastatingly attractive gesture in the past, but one that I took great pains to ignore now.
