Chapter 38
CHAPTER 38
NOW
Henry hadn’t come back. I’d fallen asleep way past midnight without him returning, and woke up too early, unable to contain the worry settling in my stomach that had kept me tossing and turning all night.
You weren’t supposed to drive on high emotions.
But when I sneaked onto the balcony, the sun just having risen, looking out into the driveway, his SUV stood slap bang in the middle of it. I exhaled so loudly it hushed the birds out of a nearby tree.
“Scared I left you stranded in the middle of nowhere?”
My hand clutched at my chest, startling at his voice. “ Jesus ,” I gasped, more to myself. I cleared my throat. “Something like that.” I didn’t feel like mentioning I’d been scared for him more than anything.
He leaned against the doorframe, a cup of coffee in hand. Not black. “Now that would’ve been a great reason for a breakup,” he contemplated solemnly.
I tensed at the mention—at the sheer reminder of our argument. Henry leisurely pushed off the wall, coming to stand beside me. He did not look at me as he placed his cup on the thick stone balustrade.
He sighed, and I stupidly said, “As great as yours must’ve been?”
On to round two , I thought.
His eyes stayed on the winding drive-up, and the trees that lined it. Like it was the easiest thing in the world—not paying attention to me. Just when I thought he’d ignore me, he swallowed thickly, spoke into the morning air.
“The things you mentioned last night.” He began. “Are not at all why I had to break up with you.” He said it like he wished he hadn’t.
I did, too. And with a sense of dread, stomach plummeting, I realized fuck , it’s going to be so much harder getting over him this time. Because he wasn’t my boyfriend and I wasn’t his girlfriend—I had no right to his heart, not a sliver of a claim. We were just Henry and Paula. Friends. Partners. Exes .
“You didn’t have to—” I wanted to say, but Henry shook his head, gaze still on the driveway.
“ I did, ” he stressed. “Even if you didn’t like it, and I did even less. I had to.”
My head shook, and I felt some of the anger from last night stir. “What is it, then?” I finally turned from the view to face him. “Why did you have to break my heart?”
“Paula—” He began, worry in his tone. Probably because my eyes were stinging, and my vision was blurry and that was a tear rolling down my cheek. I didn’t care.
“ No .” My head shook fiercely. “Go on. Look at me and say it. Tell me.”
His throat worked, but no words came out. He just looked at me in silence. It drove me mad. “Say something!” I demanded, loud voice wavering. “Because I deserve better? Because you’re not good enough?” I mocked. “Surely you can come up with a better excuse—”
“God damn it, Paula!” His calm demeanor snapped, and he matched my tone. I think we were yelling at each other. “Yes!” he roared unapologetically. “That’s exactly it. Congrats.”
The cup, still standing on the banister, had been forgotten when he stemmed his hands on the stone. It fell to the ground with a loud, high-pitched clink, like it might’ve been porcelain. He only sighed, hand washing over his face.
“You have dreams. Aspirations. Goals and ambitions!” He said it like those were bad things, then clarified, “And I almost ruined that for you. I almost fucked up your entire future because I’m selfish.” His voice cracked . “When you told me what happened with that article, I couldn’t think of anything other than the fact it was my fault. I’d blame myself for the rest of my life if you couldn’t do what you wanted because I got in the way. Because I stood between you and your career. Don’t you understand that?”
“Mark wasn’t—”
I wanted to tell him that Mark hadn’t really been his fault. Even though I’d been trying to make myself believe it for a year now, I knew it wasn’t true. Henry couldn’t have known what might come of the introduction. He’d only wanted to help me, even if it had backfired massively.
“It’s not just about him.” Henry cut me off. “It’s about everything . You kept sacrificing, over and over again. Don’t you think I noticed how much you gave just for us to see each other? I didn’t want that for you, Paula. You do deserve better than that. You know that.”
My eyes closed when I shook my head, huffing and puffing until I could get my next words out.
“You know,” I said, sounding and feeling defeated. “When a man says you deserve better, he’s usually right.”
He rubbed his temple similarly. Like we were both too tired to argue. “I know.”
The silence that followed almost choked me. Neither the song of the birds nor the rays of sun on my skin could make it feel less like it was about to suffocate me. Swallow me whole and honest to God kill me.
Through it, I watched him carefully. Monitoring how his brows twitched when he told himself Fuck it under his breath, only to dismiss the thought. Whatever thought. “I just—” Hesitation again. His eyes flicked to mine, burning through me, eating me alive. “Jesus, Paula! I just can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I’m trying to let you go,” he stressed. “I’ve been trying. Because you do deserve better.” He repeated, pushing himself off the stone, frustrated. “You deserve everything. Someone who has all the time in the world for you, doesn’t have to schedule ten fucking minutes between practice and dinner to learn the language you grew up in.” He huffed a dry laugh. “It’s pathetic. I should’ve been at it all day—have at least been able to.” His head shook again, throwing it back in resignation. Like he’d gone over this list before and just found another addition. “Fuck, your cat doesn’t even like me.”
“Pip doesn’t like any—”
His eyes slid back to me, and he straightened. “I just can’t picture it,” he confessed, the bite in his tone gone. “You with anyone else. I want to be the man you deserve, and I’ve been trying to figure out how for… a while now.” He exhaled sharply, hands running across his face in frustration and stress and agony—trying to walk off any of the three.
“Henry,” I breathed, nothing but a whisper coming from my lips. Even through the sound of the breeze in the trees, the humming of insects and birds in the air, he stopped his pacing. Looked at me.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t, either.” My voice shook, I think. “Picture me with anyone else.”
He looked at me for a long moment, from the other side of the ornamented balcony. His brows pinched, and his breath stuttered in his throat before he finally crossed the distance between us. Slow steps, heavy and echoing in my mind until he stopped so close, I had to look up to level our gaze.
His breath fanned against my nose, uneven. “That’s not good,” he whispered, tugged a curl behind my ear. His hand lingered, holding my chin tenderly. He was shaking. “That’s really bad,” he amended.
My eyes closed, and I felt him more intensely. Hovering above me, his knuckles brushing across my cheek like he couldn’t help it. Pinewood and citrus lingered in the air, but more than that it was the sweet note of coffee on his lips, the scent of the bodywash we’d both used yesterday. The bad ideas. Always those.
“Is it?” My eyes fluttered open. He didn’t seem very sure anymore.
Henry only mumbled, “Mhm.” Paired it with a lazy nod. Came closer. “So bad,” he repeated. “Because it makes me want to be selfish again.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head, taking a deep breath like it took him everything not to place them elsewhere. “It makes me want to take you,” he said. “Have you in all the ways I can.”
My heartbeat tripled in my chest, an unsteady rhythm that could still be felt between my legs. Pulsing with need and desire and tragedy. He could have me, I thought. In all the ways he’d wanted.
“Is it—” My breath caught in my throat. “Is it still selfish when I want you to be?”
I did. I wanted him to be selfish enough to throw his reasons to hell.
Henry drew back, his eyes fluttering across my face wildly. They always found their way back to my lips. “I guess it wouldn’t be. No.”
And it was sad—longing and angry, the way I kissed him. The way he held my face between his hands, pressed his body against mine like he was scared I might disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough.
He kissed me like he wanted to make up for the fact he’d ever let me go. And I let him. With my lips parting, my breath hitching, and my hands clinging to him, I let him.
“I don’t know how—” He breathed into my skin, connected our lips again. “How was I able to walk away from this?” As he trailed a string of kisses along my neck, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d survived a year without it. My back arched against the balustrade with a barely audible moan.
It drove his hand up my leg, slipped it under his shirt I’d fallen asleep in. He stopped short of where I needed him most, froze against me completely as his fingers curled around my bare hip. “You’re naked,” he discovered.
His statement brought color to my cheeks; I could feel it climbing up my neck all the way into the tips of my ears. “I didn’t think I’d walk into you.”
He fell into motion again with a groan, let his fingers draw across my hip, over my stomach, between my thighs. Never touching me where I wanted him to. “So you thought—” His grip tightened. “You’d walk around the house with nothing but my shirt on? And what? Kill me in the process?”
I was going to say that no, I just meant to check for his car, then jump back into bed. But he’d swiped his fingers between my wetness, and every thought was wiped from my brain.
“God,” he hummed against me, my knees buckling, legs giving in. “This is what I do to you?”
In answer, I took him down to the terrace floor with me, not caring how cold or hard or uncomfortable it might be. I leaned against the foot of the banister, back against stone, and pulled Henry over me, legs on either side of him.
I shook my head in answer to his question. “No,” I moaned, just as he sucked on my neck, then trailed to my breasts, kissed them over the shirt.
I took his hand in mine, the one continuously teasing my entrance, and said, “This is” before I pushed his finger into me. Moaning and marveling at the way he moaned.
“Paula,” he hushed, breathless, needy. I thought he might say something else, but he didn’t.
Just Paula. Just me .
Slowly, rhythmically, he pumped his fingers into me until his head disappeared under my shirt and his kisses trailed over my nipples, down to my stomach, between my thighs.
Wholly, eagerly, while my head fell against the stone and I moaned his name into the trees around us, he devoured me.
I must’ve fallen asleep again after we’d moved to his bedroom, because when I opened my eyes, enough time had passed to make the house smell. I would’ve loved to say amazing—like homecooked meals and freshly prepared produce, but it just smelled. Perhaps like someone was trying to cook.
I slipped out of bed, fished some clothes out of the bag Henry had packed for me, and went to investigate.
When I got to the kitchen, before I’d even said anything, Henry turned away from where I’d appeared in the doorway. “Are you wearing more than just that shirt?” He asked, continuing to shield his eyes. “Because I’m busy over here, and I don’t want to have to abandon my workstation. Which I would have to if you’re—”
“I’m decent.” I cut him off as I strolled into the chef’s kitchen.
Henry sighed in relief, let his hands fall to his sides. “Couldn’t say I’m not at least a little disappointed regardless,” he hummed, with an amused tone as he got back to the pot. My eyes were drawn to the contents of it, and I stopped short when I approached.
I recognized it immediately.
Arroz de Pajarito .
My gaze snapped back and forth between Henry and the traditional dish he was preparing.
Not that seeing him behind a stove wasn’t unusual enough—you didn’t really learn to care for yourself when you grew up with nannies and cooks and housekeepers to do it for you—but that he was trying to make one of the few Dominican specialties that didn’t center around meat, knocked the wind out of me.
“What are you doing?” I asked because I didn’t know what else to say.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Cooking, obviously. A meal I hadn’t had in years and hadn’t realized I’d craved, for just as long. “I thought I’d feed you before you tear my head off on the way home. And I remembered you said you missed Dominican food.” His eyes slid in my direction, a playful grin on his lips as he turned the stove off. “And surprise, surprise. You came just in time. It’s like you have a sixth sense for these things.”
Arroz de Pajarito was an almost foolproof dish. Cook rice. Fry plantain. Combine the two and cook them together for another few minutes. “This would’ve been one of my many groveling-attempts.”
I assessed the food absentmindedly. “ One of many?”
He laughed.
Henry had nailed the rice like any Dominican might—burnt to the bottom of the pot. My dad was a forty-eight-year-old working-class man, and he wouldn’t have done it any better than Henry the billionaire. So, I didn’t blame his privilege on that.
Instead of ripe plantain, Henry had accidentally opted for its green equivalent. Which meant it wasn’t sweet and chewy, but starchy and a little bland. It worked well in a variety of other dishes, but not necessarily in this one. It could’ve also done with a bit more seasoning.
All in all, it was… okay. But I couldn’t care less because Henry had driven to the store, picked up groceries and cooked a foreign meal for me.
So, when we sat at the dining table fit for a group of twenty, and he’d asked me how I liked it from the chair to my left… I lied. Who wouldn’t?
“I love it.” I took another big bite to demonstrate, and honestly, it really wasn’t that bad. He gave me a disbelieving look despite my great performance. “Seriously,” I stressed.
His frown grew and he rolled his eyes. “I like it,” he countered, unsure what to think of his own food. “I do think it could be a little sweeter?” It would’ve been in he’d picked the right plantain. “Maybe if I added sugar next time?”
I audibly snorted at the suggestion. Just so beautifully American of him.
“No.” I shook my head quickly. “Dios mío, no.” It sounded worse the more time passed. “That’s the plantain’s fault, mi amor. I’ll help you… next time .”
And the nickname slipped out so naturally, I couldn’t even freak out, because I’d only realized I’d said it when we were back in the car, and I fell asleep to the memory replaying in my head.