“Come in,” I said to the knock at my door. I’d specifically told my assistant, Rosemary, that I couldn’t be interrupted. I had a lot of people to catch up with after being out for a week.
Rosemary poked her head around the door. “Sorry to disturb you but I thought I should let you know that there’s a woman in reception who wants to see you. When I explained you were busy all day, she just told me she’d wait and took a seat.”
My heart began to pound. I knew exactly who it was. Couldn’t Grace take a hint? Jesus, she was stubborn.
“I don’t know what to do,” Rosemary said with a helpless shrug. “She looks like she might sit there all day. Do you want me to call security?”
“Did you get her name?” I asked, even though I knew damn well.
“Grace Astor. I think she’s been here once before.”
I stared at the screen and nodded, trying to pretend that hearing her name hadn’t affected me. “Show her in and I’ll see why she came.”
“Okay.” She paused. “Can I help in any way? Is she waiting for payment? She wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“I have no idea what she wants, but I’ll deal with her.”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Rosemary went to say something else, then thankfully thought better of it and closed the door behind her.
I closed my eyes.
Breathe, Sam. Breathe.
Being cruel to be kind was in her best interests as much as it was my own. It might hurt to start off with, but it was pain that could be survived.
I opened my eyes at the sound of the door handle turning but I didn’t look away from my computer screen.
“Grace Astor,” Rosemary announced as Grace hobbled in on crutches. Why the hell hadn’t I been the one to take the hit? Why had it had to happen to the only woman I’d ever had any hope of a future with?
I kept my eyes facing the screen but all I could focus on was Grace—so small and fragile.
I could almost hear the ticking of a clock in the fraction of a second I didn’t acknowledge her.
As soon as the door shut behind Rosemary, Grace used her crutches to step toward my desk. I stood, shoving my hands in my pockets, my gaze fixed on the door to her left.
“Sam, look at me.”
I wanted to. I really did. I longed to take in every inch of her, commit her to memory before I’d never see her again. But at the same time, I wanted to go to her, scoop her up in my arms, tell her I was sorry and that everything was going to be okay.
“Why are you here? You should be resting at home,” I said.
“Why am I here?” she asked softly. “Where have you been?” Her voice grew louder. “Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or messages? It’s like you just disappeared.”
I had to do this. I had to make the wound sharp and deep or she’d never accept it was over. I turned my head and looked her straight in the eye. “Things got too heavy too quickly between us.” That much was true. Her love had run me over like a herd of buffalo. “I’ve had a chance to re-evaluate.” My ears began to buzz as if my words were coming from someone else.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, her eyes narrowed in confusion.
I’d tricked myself into thinking that I could be happy. That I could love. That I could live like other people. Grace’s accident had reminded me that could never be my life.
“It’s been a week. What could have changed so much?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe our brief fling was something it wasn’t.” I tried to keep my voice even and detached, as if I were negotiating the purchase of a new building, but what I was saying cut deep, each syllable a separate blow. There was nothing about my love for Grace that was brief or could be described as a fling.
“Sam, don’t talk like that. I know you don’t mean it. You’re just scared.”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t want to get serious with you, so I’m scared?” I snorted. How dare she pretend to know me better than I knew myself? She’d never experienced what I’d been through.
“Yes, Sam. You’re scared of opening yourself up. Scared of loving me. But I’m here, by your side, and we’re going to weather the storms together. Don’t you remember? You said you’d try.”
I wasn’t scared.
I just knew how vicious life could be.
I was a realist.
I took my hands out of my pockets and leaned forward, placing my palms flat on my desk. I looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not scared of anything. I just don’t have feelings for you. You need to accept that.”
Her eyes welled with tears and her knuckles whitened where she gripped her crutches. “Well, I don’t accept that.”
I straightened up and put my hands back in my pockets. “There’s nothing I can help you with. Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
She gasped and it was as if someone had their hands around my heart and was squeezing and twisting.
The creak and stretch of her crutches filled the room. She shouldn’t be on her feet. I’d offer her a seat, but I needed her to leave. Every moment she was here, beautiful and warm and the woman I’d always love, I could feel myself weakening. “You should go, Grace. Can I call a car for you?”
I walked around her, keeping as much physical distance as I could between us as I made my way to the door. That didn’t stop her scent from filling my lungs. I fisted my hands, digging my nails into my palms, hoping the pain would be enough to distract me from what my heart was telling me to do. Comfort her, soothe her, love her.
My back to her, she screamed, “Sam!”
Fuck, why was she making this so difficult? I’d been mean to her. Cold. Nasty. She should throw me away and get on with her life.
I stopped, facing the door. “You need to leave.”
“I know you’re hurting, and I know that the accident must have been horrible for you,” she said. “But I’m fine. You’re fine.”
I didn’t move. Despite my abandoning her, even though I’d said such awful things to her, she was still trying to give me the benefit of the doubt, trying to see things from my point of view. She was an amazing woman, but I couldn’t be the one who told her so.
“I love you,” she whispered, her voice cracked and small.
My hand went to the door handle. I had nothing I could say. If I looked at her now, I knew I’d go to her because I loved her too, and eventually it would be the destruction of us both.
I turned around to face her for what I knew would be the final time. I needed to deliver a knock-out blow. “I’ve told you I don’t feel the same. You should go.”
“Sam.” Her voice was full of tears and she leaned on her crutches as if they were keeping her afloat. “Please don’t do this. I need you.”
Those final three words gave me the strength I needed to open the door.
She shouldn’t need me.
And I couldn’t need her.
“Good luck, Ms. Astor.” If she wasn’t going to leave, then I would. I walked out of the office and away from the only woman I’d ever love.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grace