RUIN(8)

It stings even though it shouldn't. The mere fact that Parker gave up on talking to me so easily only bolsters my belief that we were never really meant to be. "That's what was going on when I overheard you."

His lips thin into grimace. "I shouldn't have agreed to what he wanted, Kayla. I should have come right back to New York to ask you to marry me but I've been so nervous about how you'd react that I kept putting it off. He kept telling me to take time to think things through. He said he didn't think I was over Elsie yet. I was really confused. Now everything is all fucked up."

"Everything works out the way it's supposed to, Parker," I offer as I pull myself to my feet. "It wouldn't have worked between us anyway."

"Why not?" He doesn't move from where he's seated.

"I don't love you anymore." I look directly at his face as the words leave my lips. "It's over for me. It ended the night you left me for her."

He doesn't respond. I see nothing within his expression so I turn on my heels, walk across the apartment and out of Parker's life for good.





Chapter 5




"What time are you done for the day?" His deep voice jars me out of the number coma I've been stuck in for much of the afternoon. I wish I could say that I was doing something fascinating like working out the details of a big merger, or planning out the investment strategy of a client, but I'm balancing Vivian's checkbook for her. Yes, this is the life of a single, accomplished woman in Manhattan.

"Noah." I grip the side of my desk to calm my shaking hands. I'd been avoiding his texts since they started to roll in on Saturday evening shortly after I left Parker's apartment. I sent him back one, brief response, early Sunday morning after I'd been woken up by a loud argument in the room next to me in a hotel I stayed at. I'd debated calling my mother to see if I could crash in my old room but the price for that would have been too steep. Answering questions about Parker and me, and my time in New York was too much for me to handle at the time. It's too much to bear now.

"We need to talk." There's urgency in his words.

I glance at the clock on the wall behind his head. It's after six. I can leave any time after four but on this Monday, the mindless haze of doing anything but sitting in my apartment has been my goal. I have to face my reality, in the form of Noah, now. "I can leave now."

"Let's go downstairs to the diner." He motions towards my office door. "I'll buy you an early dinner."

The thought of food itself is enough to make my stomach recoil. I haven't eaten more than a few bites of an apple since I woke up yesterday. Food, sleep and functioning normally are all out of my reach. "I'll just watch you eat."

"You'll eat." His hand grazes over my shoulder as I walk next to him towards the bank of elevators. The offices are silent. Vivian and everyone else left for the day with quiet goodbyes hours ago. I know they could sense I wasn't in the mood for idle chitchat.

"I'm not hungry." Arguing such an unimportant point seems futile. I know Noah well enough to know that it's easier to acquiesce to what he wants, especially if it's something this mundane.

He looks down at me, his eyes raking over my face. "You look tired. Did you sleep last night?"

Normally if a man made a remark like that, I'd be offended but I've seen what I look like in the mirror. I hadn't slept. I had replayed my time in Parker's apartment over and over again in my mind all last night. I haven't spoken to him or Ben since. I'm not sure I ever will again. "I didn't sleep much."

"You'll sleep better tonight." His hand is on my lower back as he steers me into the elevator car. "We have a lot to talk about."

He's right. We do. I have to tell him that even though I've spent weeks trying to convince him that Ben is a good person, that I was wrong. I have to tell him that I gave him false hope right before his wedding to Alexa. I have to confess that I was blinded by Ben's charm and sensual persuasion. To put it simply, I have to admit that I fucked up royally and pulled both him and Alexa right into the heart of the mess.

We ride the elevator in silence before I follow him through the lobby of the building and out into the streets of lower Manhattan. Working in a building on Wall Street fueled me when I first came to this city months ago, but now, since I've returned post Parker break-up, I've felt out of place. The people who work here are in control of their lives. I don't belong here. I don't belong in Boston anymore either.

"There's a place down the street we can eat at." He motions to the left and I nod.

I feel as though I'm a pirate walking the plank for stealing a bounty that never belonged to her. I took things from Noah that I shouldn't have. I exposed fragments of him that he wanted hidden. I saw the vulnerable parts of his heart that are only reserved for Alexa.