CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Hardy
I grip the phone like a vise as I stare at the city’s lights beyond.
Everything Whitney didn’t say, couldn’t say, is what resonates the loudest.
She loves me. I know she does. I could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch and yet ... that’s not enough.
My chest aches in a way I’ve never known before. It feels heavy. Grieved. She might not ever be able to acknowledge what she feels.
Other things, even fears, will keep her from wanting to be with you . Wanting me in her life.
Funny. Not the first time I’ve had someone feel that way about me.
“You okay?” Lennox asks softly from her seat on the couch behind me.
I tense, so wrapped up in my emotions, that I forgot she was here.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I know you better than that,” she says.
I turn to look at her. My agent. My friend. The only other person I know who looks out for me and my best interests, other than myself.
“Open up negotiations.”
The way her head startles is comical. Her expression is pinched, and her eyes narrow at me in disbelief. “I have to advise you against that.”
“I need to keep my options open.”
“I still need to make it known for the record that I advise heavily against it.”
Heavily . Oh. Like that will scare me.
“Objection noted. I still want you to make some calls.”
“Hardy.” It’s that same tone that Whitney uses with me. Like she’s disappointed I’m not the man everyone expects me to be.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
Maybe it’s not.
Guess we’ll find out.
“Dreams change, Lennox. They shift. Sometimes you have to find a new one. Maybe now’s that time for me.”