A Sip of You(42)

I was so confused. I wasn’t sure if I was happy to be heading home or sad to be leaving William. As pissed as I was at William, I knew I needed to cut him some slack because he had a lot going on right now. I was a complete mess, totally over emotional, and I kept needing to swipe tears away from my eyes. Fortunately, the passenger sitting beside me had his nose buried in the Wall Street Journal and didn’t even look at me.

The flight attendant came by and gave me a sympathetic look. “Can I get you a drink, honey?”

“Just water, please.”

She came back later to offer food, but I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry, even though I hadn’t eaten all day. I typically lost my appetite when I was upset. Regret filled me, leaving no room for anything else. I was so stupid to think I could spend any time with Jeremy without dealing with our past. It wasn’t sharing all of our memories about Jace that bothered me. It was remembering our history after Jace.

We shouldn’t have had a history after Jace. But I’d fucked up and made probably the biggest mistake of my life. I’d slept with Jeremy. Slept really wasn’t the right word. More like I started sleeping with Jeremy, because it went on for a while after Jace died. When William and I first met and I resisted him, I told him I didn’t do the fuck buddy thing. That was because I had done it—with Jeremy—and it had been a complete and total disaster.

I’d been so desperate to get out of Napa today I thought I could just pretend my and Jeremy’s little fling never happened. But Jeremy hadn’t forgotten, and now he was ready to pick up where we’d left off. Shame washed over me. Even though so much time had passed, I still felt that hot, dizzying emotion. Why didn’t Jeremy feel it too? Why couldn’t he see how much I loathed the person I’d been before I’d moved away?

I wasn’t Cat Ryder anymore. I wished I could get away from her and her stupid mistakes as easily as I could jump on a plane and get away from Jeremy. I just wanted to go back to Chicago, back to my life as Catherine Kelly.

I couldn’t help but wonder if that life would include William. I wasn’t going to put all the blame on him for the failures of the past few days. I’d messed things up too, because I’d had the wrong expectations from the outset. I could see that now. Why did I ever think this was going to be a romantic getaway? The trip to Napa wasn’t a vacation for William. He’d gone because he was being threatened. Again. He’d gone to protect his family and deal with whatever psycho was after his money now. It was never about me or us.

I should have known that. And I shouldn’t have come in the first place. But I had come, and then I’d had my naïve expectations smashed. That was part of why I was so upset. Not just because William left me to take care of business or because he didn’t stay in touch, but because my unrealistic hopes hadn’t come to fruition. I’d been so swept up in the romance of our night at The Peninsula, so excited about being back together with William and the I love yous I thought were sure to come, that I’d somehow turned this trip into what I’d wanted, rather than seeing what it was.

And what it was did not look pretty. Yes, we’d had amazing sex. Really amazing sex. I looked down at my wrists, which were still sore from pulling against the handcuffs, and I felt myself stirring. All I had to do was think about William and I started to heat up. I couldn’t help it. Sex was never going to be the problem between us.

Everything else on our little getaway had been the problem. I had turned jealous and whiny and wore my every insecurity on my sleeve, and I hated that I’d been like that. And William might have given good lip service to being more open with me, but his actions said otherwise. Why he thought it was perfectly acceptable to be secretive and controlling whenever he wanted and to disappear without explanation for days was beyond me. I needed to accept that this was the way he operated. I had seen it before. He wasn’t going to change.

All the talk about Jace on the ride from Napa had made me remember how great it had been between my late husband and me. Why couldn’t things be like that with William? The two of us against the world, fighting off the bad guys. Together. He’d asked me to trust him, but why wouldn’t he trust me back?

I was glad I hadn’t told William I loved him. Those words didn’t come easily to me. They were precious, and right now, I didn’t know if I still did love him. I didn’t know if I ever could. And that made my heart shatter.

***

It was after eleven o’clock by the time the plane landed. I was exhausted, and the weather in Chicago didn’t help matters. It was cold and damp and raw outside, and I shivered as I headed out to the cab line. I was wearing just the lightweight dress and sweater I’d thrown on this morning; my winter coat was left at Casa di Rosabela. Oh well, guess I’d be doing some shopping this weekend. Luckily for me, a taxi pulled up right away.