“I want to talk to you—face-to-face.”
“We don’t have anything to say to each other that requires you standing up.”
Out of breath from the attempt to get up, he leaned back against the sofa. “Now who’s the one presuming?”
Pain lanced her as she realized she was arguing with him about nothing. “This is pointless anyway. We already knew our relationship was going nowhere, that once the campaign finished, so were we.”
His expression went icy cold. “Oh, is that what we knew? Or did you just make that decision for us?”
She lifted her chin. “Be realistic, Gray. How would we make it work? I’m going to be in D.C. That’s my home base. That’s where I want to be and where my future lies.
And you’re”—she waved her hand—“everywhere else.”
“So you’ve decided that you and I can never work. And there you go presuming again.”
She refused to let him bait her. “It just doesn’t make sense and we’ll both get hurt in the long run.”
“Yeah, might as well cut our losses while we can, right? A good campaign strategist knows when to get out of a race before an impending loss.”
“Yes. That’s it exactly.”
He reached for the remote. “Then I guess we’re done here, Evelyn.”
She stared down at him, already missing him, aching to lie down beside him and put her arms around him one last time.
But he was right. It was time to cut their losses.
“I guess we are, Gray.”
She turned around and headed toward the door, pausing to take one last look. “You should call your . . . nurse to help you off the sofa.”
She closed the door to the suite behind her and made it all the way to her room before the tears started to track down her cheeks.
She left the light off as she entered her hotel room, closed the door, and fell onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
It was over between them.
It should be a relief. Now she could concentrate on the presidential campaign with nothing else on her mind, no emotional entanglements.
Just work. Just the way she’d always liked it.
She smiled into the darkness, realizing the idiocy of that statement.
She’d just walked away from the man she loved. And she’d never told him she loved him.
Despite the fact it was “for the best,” as she’d told him, it wasn’t the best.
Not for her, anyway.
She rolled over on her side and closed her eyes, needing to shut it all out, just for a few minutes.
Maybe tomorrow she’d be back to her old self again.
And then again, maybe she’d never be her old self again, because being with Gray had changed everything.
The floodgates burst and she let out a soft sob, then anguished cries as pain wrapped itself around her, squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe.
She’d lost him. She loved him, hadn’t wanted to leave him, and she’d let everything go anyway.
There was no winner at all in this race.
*
GRAY THREW THE REMOTE ACROSS THE ROOM.
Dammit. Shit. Fuck.
That’s not the way this should have gone down.
He dragged his fingers through his hair, so damn frustrated. He wanted to jump off the sofa and go after Evelyn, to pull her into his arms and kiss her until the frustration and misunderstandings were obliterated.
Seeing her tonight had made him so happy.
Why hadn’t she been happy, too?
He’d wanted to surprise her, not piss her off.
Had he presumed? He hated being one of those guys. He leaned his head back against the sofa and stared at the white ceiling fan blades, their soft whirring sound the only noise in the otherwise quiet suite.
He was a guy, and guys weren’t all emotional and shit. Women liked to think they could do all that multitasking. And God knew Evelyn was a master at it.
He blinked. She was right. He’d made decisions for her instead of telling her where he was. He would have loved to have seen her this week, even if only for a few minutes here and there. She’d have given him comfort when he was feeling like shit, which was mostly every goddamned day since he’d done the flying car bit.
So why hadn’t he let her? Because he thought he knew what was best for her?
Since when? She was an independent woman more than capable of juggling her job and their relationship.
But maybe the accident and subsequent end of his season had altered his mood more than a little, and he’d backed off his relationship with Evelyn because of it.
What better way of altering a relationship than calling all the shots, right? It was the one thing he’d been able to control in this whole out-of-control week.
Only he hadn’t been in control of the relationship with Evelyn any more than he’d been in control of the number fifty-three during that hellish wreck. So he’d gained nothing, and lost everything.
Now what was he going to do about it? Because Evelyn had just walked out on him, out on them, and effectively ended things between them.
How was he going to fix this now? Or could he even fix it?
He grabbed his phone and made a call. He needed help.
TWENTY-NINE