Page 17 of Love.V2
“You put a fake meeting on my calendar?” She demanded, the smallest spark igniting under her hollow words. I nearly grinned.
“I did what I had to do. Just like coming here was something I had to do.”
“Dylan…I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but you need to just go back to Nashville and we can…” Her eyes darted around the ceiling, looking for the right words and avoiding looking at me. “Pretend this—us—never happened.”
My jaw tightened. Did she really think so little of me? That I’d just move on after losing the only woman I ever wanted to love? Keep living without her, as if she’d beenoptional?
She wasn’t optional. She was oxygen.
“I can’t do that. I can’t just erase the last twelve years of my life.”I can’t just erase you.“Look, I know I screwed up. A lot. I got lost in work and I lost sight of you, and us. But I’m only asking to talk. You just left, Tess, out of the blue. You didn’t give me a chance to fix what I’d broken.”
“It wasn’t out of the blue,” she whispered, voice so soft I barely heard. Something hot and angry spiked in my veins. I shoved it back down. Yes, she’d left me without a word, but I was to blame. I couldn’t be angry with her when I was the one who’d fucked everything up so badly.
I took a breath, calmed my thrumming pulse. “You’re right. I should have realized how unhappy you were. I was too focused on things that didn’t matter. My work, the promotion, it means nothing if you’re not there to share it with. So yes, I left Nashville, because you’re here and that’s what matters. I can be better for you, Tess. Just give me a chance to show you.”
She’d found something fascinating to stare at on her desk. It held her attention for a long time before she spoke again. “I don’t know if I can do that. I…I left for a reason. You hurt me so much. And now you’re here and it still hurts. It took me months to feel okay again after I left.”
A single tear dripped from her eye, dragging my heart along with it.
“Do you feel okay now?” It was the million-dollar question. The one I’d abandoned everything to fly across the country and ask her. Because if she was fine without me, if this was really, truly what she wanted, I’d walk away. The thought made me want to ram my head into the nearest lime-green wall, but I would.
But if she didn’t feel anything for me, this wouldn’t hurt, right? If it was over, she’d be able to look at me. She was treating me like I was the sun, glancing everywhere but directly at my face.
“Because I don’t feel okay. Not since you left, and not a long time before that. I know we weren’t in a good place, Tess, and we never talked about it. Give me a chance, just to talk. Don’t you think we owe it to ourselves?”
Her face twisted, unconvinced. My attention snagged on the brass frames on the wall behind her. The ones that used to hold us.
“Don’t you think we owe it to them?”
She stiffened, like she knew exactly what I was looking at. We had built entire universes together, she and I, and now they were gone. While we were here, sitting in the ruins, didn’t our life together deserve some sort of recognition?
Her fingers fidgeted in her lap, picking at her cuticles. I waited, but she didn’t say anything.
“I have been miserable since the minute I realized you were gone, and probably a long time before that, too. But if you’re happier here, if you can look me in the eye and tell me there isn’t a part of you, however small, that wonders what would have happened if you’d stuck around, I’ll walk out this door right now.” She’d sunk so low in her chair, I had to lean forward to try and look into her eyes. “But if there’s a shred of a chance that part of your heart is still mine, I’ll fight for it. Tooth and nail. If you give me the opportunity, I can show you how much better I can be for you.”
“I can’t do this right now.” Another tear, hastily wiped away by raw, ragged fingertips. I stared at the sheen it left behind on her cheekbone.
“We don’t have to do this now, but…another time? Will you talk with me?”
Her teeth sank into her lip. “I’m on thin ice at Jinx, and with Eric wanting to expand to bigger proposals, it’s too much. I…don’t have the space for all this.”
Oh, the irony. Her telling me she needed to focus on work. It still wasn’t an answer, and I could practically hear her brain scrambling for an excuse; a way to get me out of the room as she reeled.
“Tess.” Maybe her name on my lips snagged her attention, or the gentle way I said it. Blue eyes lifted to mine, and I saw all our universesthere. Our past, our present. Grief and shame and hurt and…a little bit of hope. My heart leapt into my throat. “Are you done with me? For good? Tell me now and I’ll walk out that door. Forever this time, I promise.”
Her eyes shut on more tears. They spilled over, two identical tracks running down her face.
“But if you can’t give me an answer, I’m blindly, maybe stupidly, going to believe I still have a shot. Do I?”
“I…I don’t know.” Her lips formed the words, but I barely heard them. Her fingers twisted in her lap.
“You don’t have to have an answer right now.” I could let her avoid it all for a little longer. I had waited this long, months to work out the logistics and deals with Henry just so I could stand here today. I could wait a little longer on the off chance that maybe, just maybe…
“This is just a lot. You being here,workinghere. It hurts to even be in the same room with you. How are we supposed to work together with all this…I don’t know.” Her hands flailed at her computer monitor.
“Let’s take it one day at a time. I didn’t come here to run you out of your dream job. We can get through this first project together and figure out what happens then, alright? Take your time. Think it over. In the meantime, we can be…professional.” I nearly choked on the words. I’d rather chew off my own arm than be relegated to Tess’s colleague. But for now, if that’s what I had to do, that’s what I’d do.
“I need to think about it.”
