He did. Unfortunately, he did.
He knew her too well to let himself believe even for a moment that she was here for him. She wasn’t here to reconcile with him. She was here to work, first and foremost, and secondly—it appeared from the haste with which she’d accepted his invitation to sign the divorce papers on Monday—for her freedom. He could see her motivations as clear as day. She wasn’t here for him. She was here to say goodbye to him once and for all.
Glancing at his watch he realized he’d been in his father’s office for almost half an hour and surely Beth would be looking for him. Though he had no interest in spending the night with her anymore, he wasn’t interested in hurting her feelings either.
He stood from his father’s desk and crossed the quiet office.
Elise is here for work and a divorce, not for you.
Preston vowed to be cold as ice as he watched her walk away for the final time.
And God help me, this time I will let her go.
***
Being kicked out of Westerly on Saturday night had been unexpected.
Thought Elise had expected Preston to be surprised and yes, angry with her, she hadn’t expected the level of vitriol she’d received. Looks aside, he seemed like a totally different person from the playful, charming, patiently persistent man she’d fallen in love with in New York. Not to mention, with perfect Beth on his arm, it certainly seemed too late for a ninth hour reconciliation.
After telling Jax that she wasn’t feeling well, Elise had spent most of Sunday in her room, crying about what Preston was probably doing with Beth and hating herself for waiting so long to ask him for another chance. She thought hard to remember if she’d seen an engagement ring on Beth’s hand, but she couldn’t recall. Two things were for certain: first, with the papers all drawn up and ready to go, Preston was certainly eager to get a divorce, and second, Beth appeared more than happy to take Elise’s place as the next Mrs. Winslow.
She narrowed her eyes, whipping the covers off her body, and reminded herself that until they signed those papers she was still Preston’s wife, regardless of Beth.
Crossing the guest room purposefully, she flung open the closet doors and pulled out a new dress that she’d bought to impress Preston. Likely something Beth would choose, it was a tailored, coral-colored Escada power suit with a peplum skirt that looked both elegant and trendy while still managing to be flirty. Checking the time, she had over an hour to do her hair and makeup and choose a pair of matching shoes and— Holding the suit in front of her body and staring at herself in the mirror, she was distracted by the sight of her favorite jeans slung over the back of a chair behind her. She’d worn them around her room yesterday and they looked worn-in and comfortable. In fact, they were the same ones she’d worn all the time when she lived in New York, when she’d fallen in love with Preston and he’d fallen in love with her.
She considered the suit for another moment before hanging it back up.
Tugging on the jeans, she plucked a sky-blue T-shirt from her bureau and pulled it over her head. While the rest of her figure had slimmed down, her breasts had remained stubbornly voluptuous, and the words “Keep Calm and Carry On” stretched across her chest, the little white crown a beacon at the valley of her breasts. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, securing it at the nape of her neck with a simple tortoise-shell barrette, and eschewed her usual makeup for a little mascara and a swipe of strawberry Chapstick.
Looking in the mirror again, she almost didn’t recognize herself. She looked awfully young and worried, but she also looked like her real self after playacting at “Hollywood Elise” for two years. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses or designer clothes or a shopping bag full of Sephora on her face. She didn’t look sophisticated or polished. In fact, she looked like a farm girl who had decided to stop playing dress-up…and to her immense surprise, it felt so good and so familiar to be casual again, she couldn’t helping smiling at herself. In a strange way, it was a little bit like coming home.
“Hmm,” she breathed softly. Since when was being a farm girl okay with her? Since when was it something she didn’t feel the need to hide or conceal?
Her mother’s voice, so frequently her companion of late, intoned, Maybe since you stopped being so scared of everything.
It was true.
She’d been so scared of leaving home and so scared to stay.
She’d been scared to move to New York City on her own and scared to pass up an opportunity to go to Tisch.
She’d been scared to turn down mediocre parts, and scared to stop waitressing, and scared to get her own apartment, and scared to date Preston, and scared to marry him.