Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Kate
I walk into my bedroom and pick up a soft white blanket. I hold it close to my face and inhale the sweet fragrance.
“Arleth smells like heaven, doesn’t she?” Olivia asks from behind me. “Sometimes I catch Alexander with his nose in her little neck just inhaling that perfect baby scent.”
I laugh as I turn to face her. “Your husband is a smart man. Arleth is a little peach.”
Olivia reaches for the blanket. She tossed it on my bed along with her purse and Arleth’s diaper bag when she got here an hour ago.
Since then, we’ve been waiting for Tilly to get off of work.
Olivia fed Arleth while I took a quick shower and changed into ripped jeans and a white tank top.
I pulled Tilly and Olivia into a group text message after Gage left the boutique this morning.
It was their joint idea to spend the evening together. Olivia brought sparkling water for herself and a big salad with roasted chicken to share. Tilly is picking up a bottle of white wine for her and me.
“I put Arleth down in that little travel bed you had tucked in your front closet.” She smiles. “I think she’s beginning to like it more than her crib at home.”
I picked up the travel bed soon after Arleth was born.
I thought Olivia could use it when she goes to visit her husband at the music school he runs.
It turns out, Alexander bought a crib for his office there, so the travel bed is in my apartment ready to be put to use whenever Olivia brings her daughter over.
“I set up the bed close to the window.” Olivia sighs. “I swear that little angel loves sunshine more than she loves me.”
I smile. “I love how happy you are.”
Her blue eyes brighten. “Life is good. I’m a very lucky woman.”
She deserves everything life has gifted her with including her wonderful husband, baby daughter and the job she loves. She’s on maternity leave now, but in a few weeks she’ll go back to her executive position at Liore Lingerie, and Alexander will take Arleth to the music school with him.
“I want you to be happy too, Kate.” She brushes a strand of her brown hair behind her shoulder. “I know how much it upset you seeing Gage this morning.”
It was jarring. I didn’t know he was in the boutique until I turned around and saw his face.
A thousand different emotions collided inside of me all at once. I wanted to scream at him, drop to my knees in sorrow and run out the door. I didn’t do any of those things.
I told him to go. I’ve waited five years to hear him say he was sorry, and yet when the words left his lips, the pain inside of me didn’t dissipate at all.
“I still can’t believe he’s in New York.” I pinch my eyes shut. “I thought I’d never see him again and now we’re living in the same city.”
A chime from my cell pulls my gaze over my shoulder to my nightstand. I dropped my phone there when I took off the dress I was wearing before my shower. “That’s probably Tilly. I’ll buzz her up.”
“We’ll get you through this.” Olivia hugs her baby’s blanket to her chest. “Tilly, Arleth, and I are your crew. We have food and wine. What more do you need?”
Peace.
I had it before Gage showed up and now that I know he’s in New York, the confusion that enveloped me after he walked out of my life five years ago has wrapped itself back around me.
“If I were you, I’d call Preston and fuck his brains out.”
Tilly and I both look over at Olivia. It’s not that she doesn’t curse, but a statement that bold hasn’t left her mouth since she gave birth to Arleth.
Dinner was delicious. The conversation focused on Tilly’s day at the vet clinic. After Olivia fed Arleth again, she put her down to sleep, and the discussion took a sharp turn in the direction of Gage Burke.
Tilly weighed in first. Her advice was typical Tilly. She told me to set up a meeting with him, talk through what took him away from me five years ago, and see if the spark is still there.
I brushed that idea off with a swallow of wine and a roll of my eyes.
Olivia’s advice is obviously not what I expected.
“You want me to what with Preston?”
Olivia dips her index finger into the balled fist of her left hand. She slides it in and out slowly.
I almost choke on my wine. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” She laughs. “I think you should finally have sex with Preston.”
“Finally?” Tilly grabs my forearm in a death grip. “You’ve been on three dates with him, Kate. Are you telling me that you haven’t slept with him yet?”
“We kissed,” I say flatly.
Tilly, Olivia, and I were at a café on Broadway and Seventy-Fourth a month ago. Preston Metcalfe was standing in line behind me. He flirted with me. I responded in kind.
He’s good-looking with a strong, tall build, and a job in finance.
More importantly, he’s single and interested in me.
We’ve had lunch once since then and dinner twice.
We agreed at the café before he took my number, that we would take things slow.
So far, we’ve both stuck to that promise. Things are moving at a snail’s pace since we’ve only kissed a few times.
He hinted that he wanted to go down on me after our last dinner when he said I looked like the most delicious dessert he’s ever seen, but then his phone rang. Someone’s financial emergency stole him away before he could get a first taste.
“You kissed his cock?” Tilly says with a half-grin. “That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“You knew Sebastian for weeks before you jumped into bed with him,” I point out with a lift of my empty wine glass in the air. “This is a no judgment zone, Tilly.”
“He was my roommate,” she says in a rush. “It’s completely different.”
“You and the sergeant are yesterday’s news.” Olivia pats Tilly’s shoulder. “We’re here to help Kate stay strong so Gage doesn’t drive a bulldozer over her heart again.”
“She needs to talk to him,” Tilly insists. “They left things unsaid years ago. Until they clear the air, what they had will never be truly over.”
“It was over when he took his parents’ sailboat out on the Pacific.” Olivia takes a deep breath. “He hasn’t spent the past five years looking for her. A coincidence dropped him back into Kate’s orbit. She doesn’t owe him a thing, especially not another minute of her life.”
Clearing my throat, I lean forward to tap my fingers on my small dining table. “I’m sitting right here. I get a say in what my next step should be, don’t I?”
“Talk to him,” Tilly reiterates.
“Call Preston and take it past first base.” Olivia mimes swinging a baseball bat.
As if on cue, my phone starts ringing. Olivia jumps to her feet and runs toward my coffee table to scoop it up in her palm.
Her gaze drops to the screen, a wide smile spreading across her face.
“Speak of the handsome devil. Preston’s ears must have been burning.
He’s calling and whatever he wants, say yes. ”