Dayton’s eyes flick between her glass and Naomi. I wonder if she even realizes she’s doing it. I wonder if she can feel her heart breaking the way I can see it in her eyes.
I wonder if the guilt in my eyes reflects the consuming feel of it inside.
Dayton puts her glass down and reaches inside her purse. “Excuse me. I have a call.”
What?
No. Fucking no.
She turns away from me and walks through the room, her cell against her ear and her purse tucked under her arm so she can put her finger in her other ear. It’s good, I’ll give her that. Convincing. If I didn’t know what this meant.
I discard my drink on the bar and follow her, ignoring Naomi’s eyes on my back. Fuck her. All that matters now is Dayton and stopping her from leaving.
The elevators doors close on me, and I curse under my breath, looking at the second elevator. I press the down button repeatedly, knowing that it’ll get down three floors faster than I can climb twenty sets of stairs.
The doors open and I run in without a care for anyone else. I pace the tiny space as it climbs the floors, rubbing my hand through my hair. Fuck f**k f**k.
The second it dings on my floor, I run out of it and into our suite door. I fumble for the key in my pocket, slide the card through, and shove the door open.
I find her eyes immediately, like my own are drawn to her dark gaze.
“Yes,” she says into the phone. “He’s aware.”
I draw in a sharp breath. “Don’t go.” My voice comes out as a whisper. “Please. Don’t go.”
“I don’t have a choice.” She zips her cases with a calmness that contradicts the shaking of her hands. “If you’d told me before, maybe I could have dealt with it. But to tell me an hour before you expect me to stand face to face to her? No way, Aaron. No way.”
“Dayton. Please.” I’m aware of the plea in my voice. Fuck. I’d get on my knees and beg if it meant she would stay here. With me. I cross the room swiftly and cup her face in my hands. Her cheeks are like silk against my palms as I bring my forehead to hers. “Please. Just one night. Let me explain everything. Just don’t leave me again.”
“You knew I was going tonight. I’m just leaving sooner. I can’t stay down there with her, and it’s ridiculous to expect me to.”
I see the tears before I register the crack of her voice. They hurt more than anything. Fuck a punch to the gut—watching the woman I love so much cry is like being hit with a freight train and crushed by its weight.
“Fuck, Dayton,” I rasp, my own emotion evident in my voice, and I brush my thumb under her eyes to wipe away the wetness. “Don’t go, baby. Don’t go.”
She takes a deep breath and steps back. My hands fall to my sides limply, and she shakes her head. “You lied to me, Aaron. A lie of omission, but a lie all the same. This isn’t a tiny thing that can be swept under the rug and forgotten. This is huge and a central part of your life. All the times you asked me to tell you everything about me, you were never willing to return that. You were never going to tell me. You said so yourself. I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”
She swipes at her cheeks, and all I can do is stare at her. Every part of me is screaming to reach out to her, to grab her, to hold her to me and never let her go.
There’s a knock at the door and she opens it, sniffing quietly. A porter is standing there, a cart at his side, and my chest tightens. She opens the door wider for him to enter, and all I can do is stand in silence as he loads her suitcases onto the cart and pushes it back outside the room.
“Is my car ready?” Dayton asks quietly.
“Oui, mademoiselle.” He disappears into the lift, and she grasps the doorknob tighter.
“I’m begging you, Dayton. I’m f**king begging you not to go.”
“I was ready to give it all up,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “When you gave me my necklace again, I was going to tell you. I was ready to give it all up to be with you. I was going to call Monique, cancel the payment, and leave her. I didn’t think I could walk away from you again. I didn’t know if I’d survive another broken heart.”
Her words ricochet through me so f**king painfully that I can barely breathe. “So don’t. Stay. Please.”
“You were right. True love never dies. It only fades, lingering below the surface until we’re ready for it again. Until fate puts us in the right place and the right time and that simmering love can come alive again.” She clasps her purse to her chest and looks over her shoulder at me. “I love you, Aaron, but I have more integrity than to stay with a man who can lie to me so easily. I respect myself too much. I’m sorry. I can’t stay.”
She runs through the doors, and I move instinctively. Her words fuel my running toward the elevator. Just in time to see the doors close.
“Day! Fuck, Dayton!”
I slam my hands against the doors. My chest is heaving as her words repeat again in my mind.
“I love you, Aaron…”
I push off from the doors and head toward the stairwell. Fuck this. I need to get down there to her. I need to try one last time. I don’t care that I look like a madman in an expensive suit, flying down the stairs of Paris’s most exclusive hotel. All I care about is getting to the woman who has held my heart for seven years.
But I’m too late. I explode into the lobby and my eyes find her car immediately as the door closes. It pulls away from the hotel and leaves me standing in the middle of the lobby, unable to do anything but watch her go.
I’m powerless. This is a situation I’m unable to control, one I was never able to.
I run my fingers through my hair, anger mixing with the dull ache in my chest, and I turn to the concierge. “Do you have anywhere I can make a private call?”
“Oui. Follow me, sir.” He leads me to a small room off the lobby and leaves me.
I pull out my cell and dial my assistant’s number. She answers immediately.
“Aaron Stone’s office. How may I help you?”
“Dottie, it’s me.”
“Oh, Mr. Stone! Is everything all right?”
“No, honestly. I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course.” I hear the shuffle of papers as she grabs her notepad and pen. “What is it?”
“Cancel all my meetings next week and the next. Condense as many of the Paris meetings into the next seven days. If they can’t do it, then tough. I will be leaving Paris at six p.m. on the twenty-third. Got that?”