But the truth stabs at me with every single heartbeat.
Cate is gone.
And I’ve given her no reason to come back.
It would be so easy for her to send a moving service to her apartment. They could pack up everything that’s not here and send it home. At least, to wherever she decides home is. Once Cate’s done being royally pissed off at me, she’ll be able to get a job wherever she wants. Seattle. Chicago. Her options are endless.
Selfishly, the one place I want her to be is in New York City, preferably in my penthouse, her gorgeous body pressed up against mine.
I don’t text her.
I don’t call her.
The situation with her sister sounded pretty serious, and I’m sure the last thing she wants is to be interrupted by a desperate ex.
That’s what I am now.
Her ex.
For some reason, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that it’s over. That Cate is the one who ended it and walked out without a backward glance, without an apology text, without so much as a note saying that her plane touched down successfully.
I know it did. It’s my plane, after all. But it would have been nice to hear it from her, to get another chance to talk to her…
Thinking about her consumes me, even when I’m pretending to be wholly absorbed in other work.
I sign contracts while I think about her. I review the numbers from Basiqué while I picture the sway of her ass in a tight skirt. I place orders with Laurence and my favorite carryout places while I picture her face, flushed with pleasure as she grinds her sweet, sweet slit up against my hand until she finds her release. I order coffee from the shop down the street—a last-ditch attempt to give myself something to do—while I remember the sensation of my hand coming down across the firm expanse of her ass and hearing her sharp intake of breath, pain and delight all wrapped up in the most beautiful package the world has ever seen.
And the one thing I can’t escape: this is all my fault.
Cate had every right to be furious. I can’t blame her for not wanting to listen to me. I would have been just as angry, and probably would have said worse things if the situation was reversed.
Hindsight is fucking twenty-twenty, as they say.
I could have handled it differently. I could have waited longer to approach her about it, could have sweetened the deal in advance instead of planning some stupid gesture that she probably wouldn’t accept anyway, could have made it clearer to that bitch Sarzó what the next steps would be instead of leaving the details in her hands to the extent that I did.
Since I graduated from college, I’ve had nightmares where I arrive at my office only to find out that someone has taken everything: my name, my fortune, everything. I wake from those dreams soaked in sweat, shivering, heart pounding.
How is it that I managed to force the only woman I’ve ever loved to endure one of my nightmares?
Yet I did.
And even at the end, when her eyes were flashing with rage and she was spitting her fury at me, I should have fought harder.
I should have insisted on taking her to the airport. I should have gone with her into the elevator. I should have run out into the street after her car, waving my arms and making such a scene that the driver would have had no choice but to stop.
I should have fought it every step of the way.
Instead I just let her go, like the world’s biggest jackass.
Every day, I see more clearly how dull and colorless my life is without her.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cate
Days go by in the strange zone that’s known as hospital time, where the meals are served according to a schedule but you can still lose track of what day of the week it is. I spend my time shuttling between the hospital and Bee’s house, bringing things they didn’t think to pack, getting food from their favorite places, and generally being…useful.
After my year with Sandra, it seems unthinkable to just sit down and do nothing.
So I do everything I can think of.
Aside from the first day, Bee is a post-op champion and so in love with her daughters that I cry when I see that, too. The nurses wheel her carefully down to the NICU and she and Dex take turns holding the babies up on their chests. My gorgeous sister cannot get enough of them, or her husband.
“Look!” she says to him over and over, her delight filling the room. “Look at what we did, Dex!”
“Don’t give me any credit,” he says, and laughs. “You did most of the work.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I wouldn’t have done it with anyone but you.”
“Uh, guys,” I say, teasing. “There are other people in the room, and we’re all about to be sick.”