Almost Like Love(22)

She was not going to compare Chris with Ian. That was insane. Chris was the man she’d wanted to share her life with, have kids with, grow old with. Ian was the rude, arrogant, money-focused corporate bureaucrat who’d cancelled her show, roped her into babysitting for him, and then insulted her.

“Kate?”

She took a deep breath. “I’m still here.”

“Could I . . . could we . . . Would it be all right if I came over? I think we should talk.”

That was the phrase he’d used two days ago, right before he’d told her about Anastasia. But even though he couldn’t break up with her twice, she didn’t really want to see him right now.

“I don’t think so, Chris. Maybe after some time has gone by we could—”

“Please, Kate. I have to talk to you. I know you don’t owe me anything, but . . . please.”

He was right about one thing: she didn’t owe him. But maybe if she saw him again it would help her achieve some closure. “Well . . . I guess that would be all right.”

“Good. Great. I’ll be there in an hour.”

She spent the hour curled up on the couch with a book, trying not to think about Chris or Ian. When her attention drifted, she added a few more panels to the comic strip in her head called Why Cats Are Better Than Men.

Andreas buzzed to let her know that Chris was on his way up, and Kate steeled herself for the meeting. When his knock came she opened the door.

Chris smiled at her nervously. His light blue eyes were anxious and his thick blond hair was mussed, as though he’d been running his hands through it. “Hi, Kate.”

“Hi.” She stood back to let him in, nodding politely.

How could you go from sharing a bed with someone to this stiff, awkward formality in less than forty-eight hours?

They sat down across from each other in the living room, she in an armchair and he on the couch. Chris crossed his legs, the way he did when he was nervous, and sat without speaking, his teeth sunk in his lower lip.

She was determined to make him speak first. He was the one who’d wanted to talk.

After what felt like five minutes but was probably more like thirty seconds, Chris finally said, “Thanks for letting me come by.”

“Sure.”

“I want . . .” He paused to clear his throat. “I want to apologize for the way I handled things on Friday.”

He was sorry for the way he’d handled things? “It might be more to the point to apologize for cheating on me, but okay.”

He flushed. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. I mean . . . I didn’t realize what was happening with Anastasia until it was too late.”

If she’d thought she could hear about his other woman without a pang, she’d been wrong.

“What the hell kind of name is Anastasia?” she heard herself snap. “Is she heir to the Romanovs, or what?”

He flinched. “Anastasia is . . . Anastasia is . . .” His hands fluttered in the air a moment before coming to rest on his knees. “Anastasia is gone.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean, gone?”

“She left for Mexico this morning. Or maybe Brazil. I can’t remember exactly what she said. She . . . she’s very . . . spontaneous.”

“Is she.”

Chris took a deep breath. “I was a jerk to you on Friday. I know that. I just . . . I was starting to feel trapped in our relationship. Like I couldn’t breathe. And then I met Anastasia, and she was so wild, so free . . .”

The implication being that she wasn’t.

A sudden wave of depression went through her. Chris had said all this on Friday, and she didn’t want to hear it again. Was this why he’d come over? To restate all the ways their relationship had been boring and predictable?

All the ways she was boring and predictable?

“But then, after she left this morning, I did some thinking. And I realized that I can’t have it all. No one can. Maybe this whole . . . episode . . . was just my version of wedding jitters or a midlife crisis or something.”

“A midlife crisis? You’re thirty-two.”

“Well, something else, then. To tell the truth, I’m not convinced that monogamy is a natural state for humans. Especially for men. I mean, think about it. Men are programmed to spread their seed as widely as possible. To propagate the species in a way that gives the greatest chance for survival.”

Kate rubbed a hand over her eyes. Chris was a biology professor, and he voiced ideas like this occasionally. She’d always found his tendency to opine about human sexuality and natural selection sort of quirky and endearing, but she’d assumed his theories were just that: theories. It had never occurred to her that he might want to live his life according to them. To obey a biological imperative to “spread his seed as widely as possible.”