My best friend raises her eyebrows with a shake of her head.
“What?”
“How can you do that? Leave the guy you’re in love with and think about sleeping with other guys?”
“I’m kidding myself that maybe there’ll be a hot hunk of a guy waiting for me this weekend and he’ll f**k all the heartbreak out of me.”
Liv stares at me blankly.
“Kidding. I’m kidding. Geez.”
“I wondered there for a minute.” She taps a long fingernail against her mouth. “Do you have to go back to work? You have savings, right?”
“I’m not retiring at twenty-four because of a f**king guy, Liv. I’m going to have one hell of a good cry tonight, let it all out. Then, tomorrow, I’ll get my shit together. If I sit at home every day, I’ll spend my life wondering if I made the right decision or not.”
“You did. Make the right decision.”
“Thank you. So I have to get on with it. I can’t spend forever on the past.”
“You’re missing one huge point though.”
“How am I? It’s over. He’ll go back to New York and his cushy little rich-guy life, finalize his divorce, take over the company, and find a second wife that isn’t me.”
I think it before she says it.
“No. No, Liv. Don’t even.”
“Or he’ll come looking for you. He knows where you live, remember?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck. “He won’t,” I say through shaking hands. “I told him never to contact me again. He wouldn’t.”
Her lips twitch. “He paid three times your rate just to keep you in his life. You think he’s gonna let you walk away now?”
“Shut up.”
“Get back to it, Day. You can try and live your life like you never happened, but you’re gonna be fighting him the whole way for it.”
“You’re a really shitty best friend, you know that, right?”
“Just keeping it real.” She grins and grabs her jacket. “Besides, you’d kick my ass if he does exactly that and I didn’t warn you.”
True that. Oh, how well she knows me.
I hug her before she goes. “Thanks for coming over tonight.”
“It’s my job. By the way, you need that bath.”
“Bitch.” I shut the door behind her. She isn’t exactly wrong.
Heartbreak does funky things to you.
Her words in mind, I jump under the shower before climbing into bed and snuggling under the covers. I cocoon myself between the thick sheets, my legs still wet from my lazy towel drying, and my mind runs rampant.
It’s the same thing it’s done every night since I left. This time though, it’s not going over every word of our conversation. It replays the final night in Paris like I’m watching it in HD and slow motion, but there are no words. No sounds. Only feelings and emotions and the truth of them.
Without reminding myself of the words that shattered the possibility of a future we’d never set in stone, I see more. Everything. I see the raw pain in his eyes when he realizes I’m going. I see the shake of his hands that lingers all night and only intensifies when he finds me packing my suitcase. I see the brutal agony and guilt swamping him, and I see the defeat that beats against his usually determined and assured stance.
And I hear through the silence. I hear the begging through the desperate way his mouth forms his words. I hear the anguish every time his lips say my name. I hear his realization that his secret did the very thing he was trying to avoid—that it was all for nothing.
But mostly, I feel. I feel the shattering pain all over again, this time combined with his. I feel his desperation to keep me there and my need to go. I feel him reach for me at the same time I step away, and I feel the heaviness that settles when I walk through the door. Away from him. Again.
I feel the crushing of my hopes, the helplessness of my heart, the rapidly increasing flow of my tears. And I realize that I’m not remembering anymore. The tears cascading down my cheeks are real, so very real, and so is the hollow ache in my chest. The twisting of my stomach with bitterness is the same as it was then, and the hopeless feeling penetrating my bones hasn’t eased a bit.
I miss him. Despite the pain, I miss him as much as I hate him, and I hate him as much as I love him. I miss his body next to mine at night. His breath on my neck. His arms around me. His legs and feet tangled in mine. I miss the gentle way he’d whisper my name to wake me up and the look he had reserved just for me and the notes I never knew he was leaving. Everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t miss him at all. But I do.
I miss him the way I love him.
Entirely.
Chapter Two
Home smells like home. That scent that always lingers no matter what, the same one that comforts you.
I leave my suitcases strewn in the hallway and collapse onto my bed upstairs. It’s soft and familiar. More comforting than the warm, fruity smell of home. I reach into the drawer of the nightstand and pull out some matches. Lighting one, I lower the flame to the wick of my bright pink Yankee candle, letting the strong Dragon Fruit scent assault my senses almost immediately.
Goddamn, I love these candles.
I close my eyes for a long moment. Now I need to get changed. As much as I don’t want to, these sweatpants aren’t going to cut it much longer. They’re two days old, after all.
I strip and throw all my clothes into the laundry hamper. My drawers are half empty, but I find a pair of pajama pants and a tank.
This house feels huge after a month of living in what were essentially apartments. And kind of lonely too. Like someone should be walking around the corner and knocking into me or sitting on the sofa, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom. And only pulling one mug from the cupboard and placing it under the coffee machine feels alien. So does not hearing creaking floorboards just before it’s stolen from me.
I swallow and put the mug down. Seven days, Dayton. One week. Time to get your shit together.
I survived it once. I can do it again—if only because I’ve done it before. Because I know I can. Because I have to.
Because I’m stronger than to let love be the death of me.
My cheeks sting as my palms connect with them sharply. It’s cheek slapping or head knocking, and the closest thing I have to hit myself with is a saucepan. I’ll pass that one up, thanks.
A loud ding-dong echoes through the door followed by the sound of it opening. Monique. Not even Liv walks in. I turn around and brace myself for the first conversation with her in days.