6. Kate
6
KATE
I sit on the edge of my bed with my eyes swollen from a downpour of tears. The shitshow of my dad catching me and Tommy naked in his living room will haunt me for the rest of my life. The cold prickle of shock and embarrassment hasn’t left my skin, and it blooms afresh with each pounding heartbeat.
Should I face my dad again? Try to explain the unexplainable?
I don’t know what to do, but the weight of his disappointment crushes me like a physical blow, and fear gnaws at my insides—fear of losing Tommy and fear that my dad will never accept us. My heart is splintered, shards of longing to stay and fight mingled with the strong impulse to flee.
My lungs feel heavy as I drag in a deep breath, my decision made. I rise to my feet, my movements robotic when I slip out of the room. Each step is laden with a myriad of emotions and turmoil, but I don’t look back. Not even to assess the damage, not when every inch of this place screams of our betrayal. My father is wrong. This is my fault as much as it is Tommy’s. Even so, I don’t regret the time I had with him.
The chill of the predawn air hits me as I step outside, and I shiver, though not from the cold. It’s the emptiness beside me, where Tommy should be, steadying me with a mere glance and an affectionate hand at my lower back. Now, there’s just the hollow echo of my footsteps on the driveway, a one-woman procession toward exile from her father’s home. Perhaps that’s a bit dramatic, but that sure is what it feels like as I slink out of the house before my dad can convince me otherwise.
At the airport, the waiting is a slow torture. I huddle in my seat, phone clutched like a lifeline in my hand as I stare at a glaringly bare screen. No messages, no calls. No sign that Tommy is even thinking of me, or missing me, or wanting to bridge the distance. Hope frays a little more with each passing second, unraveling into the void he left behind.
My thumb hovers, tempted to send yet another text, but I resist. Tommy Sinclair doesn’t chase; he’s pursued. He’s a billionaire, for heaven’s sake, and he’s used to beautiful women throwing themselves at him. And yet, I desperately want to believe that I’ve somehow rattled him. That beneath his controlled, polished exterior, there’s a tumult raging as fierce as mine. The silence is deafening and relentless as each tick of the clock is a reminder of the widening gulf between us.
My seat belt clicks into place, trapping me in a plane soaring toward New York, a city that now feels colder and darker than it did before. The hum of the engines vibrates through my body, resonating with the storm swirling inside me. I close my eyes and sink into my seat as images of the last few days play on repeat in my head. His deep, warm laughter. Flirty glances and seductive touches. Explosive orgasms that made me shatter apart in his muscular arms. Tommy made me feel alive in ways I never knew I was craving.
Now, he’s gone, and I’ve never felt so lost.
“Would you care for a drink, ma’am?” The flight attendant’s question pulls me from my thoughts.
“Just water, please,” I mutter, barely able to hold back more tears.
The ride home is a jolt to reality, and the city lights twinkle mockingly as we cruise through the busy streets. They used to be stars beckoning me to new adventures; now they’re just distant, uncaring points of luminescence. I unlock my apartment door, and it creaks open to reveal the life I left behind, a life that feels hollow and less vibrant.
“Welcome home, Kate,” I whisper to myself, sarcasm lacing my tone.
I drop my bags at the door. My reflection in the hallway mirror is a ghost of the confident woman who once believed she could conquer anything, claim the world as her own alongside a man who could move the heavens with a nod of his head.
Collapsing fully dressed onto my bed with a heavy thud, I bury my face into the sheets. My lavender-scented laundry detergent fails to soothe me as the brand claims it should. It’s here, in the dark of my room while I stare at the ceiling, that the dam breaks again. Tears pour down my cheeks, hot and relentless, each sob a release of the weight I’ve carried from Chicago to New York—shame, disapproval, fear. And the ache for a man who hasn’t returned my calls or texts.
No, he never said he loved me, but surely, I didn’t mistake his feelings. Did I?
The tears continue until there’s nothing left, until my eyes are dry and my heart begins to harden with anger. I draw in a shaky breath, curling into a ball on top of my comforter. “Damn you, Tommy Sinclair,” I choke out between sobs. “For making me love you, then leaving me behind.”
Sunlight filters into my bedroom, and my puffy eyelids flutter open. A single glance at the empty space beside me is a punch to the gut, as Tommy’s absence is a tangible void in the cool morning air. I reach for my phone with a sliver of hope, my heart stuttering when the screen lights up to reveal his name. It’s a message, one I’ve been craving since that horrid night, since our blissful world came crashing down around us.
I press his name on my phone, and the words of his voicemail cut through the fog of my sleep-deprived brain. “I’m sorry, Kate. This was my fuckup. If I could fix it, I would. Please believe me.”
His voice holds a familiar warmth, and I imagine his furrowed brow with a shadow of regret in his intense brown eyes. My trembling thumb hovers over the keyboard while I take a slow breath, steadying my resolve before tapping out my reply.
Can we talk? Face to face?
After hitting send, I clutch the phone to my chest like a lifeline, waiting for it to vibrate with his response. There’s nothing, and my heart breaks a little more.
As the day drags on, and I shuffle aimlessly around my apartment, the silence from him weighs heavy on my shoulders. I busy myself with menial tasks. Straightening my bookshelf, cleaning my kitchen, rearranging pillows that don’t need rearranging. Anything to keep my mind off the empty chat bubble that haunts my screen.
By evening, the apartment is immaculate, and I’m anything but. My mind is a wreck, circling back to Tommy with every turn.
What is he doing? Why hasn’t he replied?
Then, finally, the phone rings, jolting me from my misery, and my pulse spikes with an erratic rhythm. I swipe to answer, pressing the cold device against my ear. “Tommy?” My voice cracks with emotion, laced with longing and trepidation.
“Kate.” Hearing his rich baritone causes goose bumps to appear on my arms. “I’ve been thinking... Maybe we should?—"
“Can’t we just figure it out?” I interrupt him, my knuckles turning white as I clutch the phone.
There’s a sigh on the other end, a sound that seems to echo through the empty space of my apartment. “I think we need some time apart. Let things cool off a bit.”
Those dreaded words fill my stomach with acid, and my heart plummets, while I feel like I’ve been cut to my very core. The room stands still, the ground beneath me feeling shaky as I plop onto the couch.
“You can’t mean that,” I protest as tears well in my eyes for the umpteenth time in the last forty-eight hours. “I never meant for any of this to happen, but I can’t pretend these feelings aren’t real.”
No, this isn’t how our story ends. Not with whispered apologies and a line gone dead. I won’t accept it. I just can’t .
As the quiet stretches on, my resolve shatters. I don’t know what else to say.
“I wish things could’ve?—”
“I love you, Tommy,” I profess before abruptly ending the call. If he doesn’t feel the same, I don’t want to hear it. The sting of his rejection is already painful enough.
I draw in ragged breaths, each one a mix of anger and sorrow as a fresh wave of tears spill down my face. I was foolish to think a man like him would fight for me, to think what we had was real, despite how fast it all seemed to happen. It was reckless, impulsive, and stupid.
And I won’t make that same mistake again.