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“Listen, I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you sometime next week.”
“Cool, man. Take it easy.”
“You, too.”
I drop my phone in my pocket and take a deep breath. I’m ready to tell Emma how I feel.
CHAPTER29
Emma
“Hey.” Griffin walks into the kitchen. “How was your meeting?”
My hands grip the edge of the counter as I try to steady myself. If my confidence walking into my parents’ apartment a few minutes ago wasn’t already waning from my conversation with Jess about Griffin finally cashing the check I offered him, hearing him talking on the phone made it completely vanish.
I don’t want to hurt her.
I need to do what’s best for me.
A fresh start for both of us.
I know I shouldn’t have been listening in on his conversation, but I’m glad that I did. It doesn’t hurt less, but at least I’ll save myself the humiliation of rejection. It will make these last few days together much easier to endure. Okay, who am I kidding? It’s going to be absolute torture, but at least pretending like I’m not dying inside will be easier than having him look at me with sympathy when I tell him I love him and he says nothing back.
“Um, what?” I ask, still trying to get my bearings after my world has been knocked off its axis.
“Your meeting?” Griffin prompts.
“Right. It was good. Everything’s good.” I nod, but I know I’m trembling. My thoughts are racing.
Silly woman. It was a fun night in Vegas. And a few weeks pretending in New York. You’re getting ahead of yourself again. He doesn’t want to be your forever. This isn’t going to work out.
“You okay?” His brows furrow with concern.
He reaches his hand out toward me, but I back away. If he touches me, I’ll break. I need to find a way through this. Detach from the moment, so I can keep some semblance of composure.
“You wanted to talk?” I ask, hoping he’ll rip it off quick like a bandage. I pick up a pen from the counter and start nervously tapping it against the granite.
“Yeah, I, uh,” Griffin’s eyes drop to the pen in my hand, “can you stop tapping that pen and look at me?”
“Sorry.” I grip the pen in my hand and look up at him. He looks nervous. I swear there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. He runs a hand over his mouth. I haven’t seen him like this before.
“Emma, I—” he begins again, only for me to cut him off.
“Wait.” I hold up my hand because I’ve changed my mind. I can’t take his rejection, not right now. I’ll never be ready for those words, but I need longer than five minutes to process this massive change in direction my life is taking. Is it really a change, or had I gotten ahead of myself again? Taking the fun we’ve been having together over the last two weeks and making it something it wasn’t?
Griffin pauses and then we both stand there staring at each other in silence, until he breaks the quiet.
“Did you have something you wanted to say?” he asks. “Something you wanted to tell me?”
That’s right, I did tell him I wanted to talk to him this morning. It was about the condos I’ve looked at, asking him to stay in New York and stay married, so clearly all of that is off the table now.
I scramble to come up with something else of importance. My brain latches on to the only thing I can think of in this moment.
“The annulment,” I say. It’s more of a shout as a lightbulb goes off in my head.
“The annulment,” Griffin echoes less enthusiastically.
“I was thinking we should probably talk about when we’re going to do that. You know, the timeline and everything.”
