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I hear the door open and footsteps approach. A hand touches my shoulder. I grab it and hold on. He bends and coaxes me to standing then grabs me in a tight hug. I shatter.
Eric doesn’t speak. Doesn’t make a sound. I, on the other hand, am making quite a scene. And I don’t give a flying duck.
After I don’t know how long standing like this, a horn honks outside the café. My phone pings. I feel Eric turn his head.
“Yours?”
I nod against his shoulder.
“Still want to take it?”
I nod again.
“Okay.” He releases me and grabs the handle of my rolling case. I take my purse.
Eric opens the door to the black Toyota Prius, but before he lets me get in, he takes my face in his hands and stares right into my tear-filled eyes. I blink to bring him into focus, but he moves and comes in for a kiss.
I kiss him like this may be our last kiss, because that’s how I feel.
I register movement to my side. The driver is putting my case in the hatchback. I hear one door close. Then another. I pull away from Eric and we lock eyes again.
“I love you,” he says.
“You don’t know me.”
“I think I do.”
“Impossible. I don’t even know myself.”
I break away and drop into the cab. He leans in for one final kiss. “I love you and nothing I can learn about you will convince me otherwise.”
He closes the door and lets me leave.
“Where to?” the driver asks as we’re rolling away.
“Somewhere safe,” I reply.
CHAPTER15
Eric
The first thing I do after putting Catherine in her cab is beat the living crap out of Will. Metaphorically speaking.
“You’re the biggest bastard I’ve ever met.”
He shrugs. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Why do that to her? Expose her like that?”
“I thought I was pretty gentle. You know what it’s like being attacked by someone who wants to do damage to your reputation. I didn’t have that intention, and I don’t think the conversation had a negative impact on her—”
“Are you fucking kidding right now? You realize that some people have emotions under their hard, entrepreneurial shells, right? That people who didn’t grow up protected from all the shit you never had to face carry wounds and scars and hurts—”
Will stands and comes around his desk, gets right up into my face.
“I don’t have wounds or scars or hurts? Really, Eric? Being born with this fucking name that’s forced me to be some godlike guru of enterprise and success? You think this would have been my first choice of a career? You have no idea of the pressure put on me to carry this fucking torch just because I was first-born. Do you know the last time I fell asleep without having to pay someone to talk me down, relax me? Two years, Eric. For the last two fucking years, I have not fallen asleep without a therapist’s voice quite literally talking to me until I pass out.”
He takes a step away and turns his back. We stand in stony silence for a minute or more. When Will faces me again, his energy is calmer.
