Chapter Twenty
Katherine waited inside a room filled with charcoal-grey tables and chairs. She was surrounded by three walls of black glass while the back wall was a glossy gold and the floors were light, tying the space together perfectly.
She had never been this anxious in a team motor home and had never been left alone. Journalists weren’t usually unaccompanied, but the team had seen fit to let her stay.
So now she waited. She hoped and prayed that Lukas would see her. She had already been waiting awhile. Almost everyone she had initially seen here had left to perform their functions, but she wouldn’t leave. Not until she spoke to Lukas.
After an age, he entered the hospitality area talking to a tall, broad, blond man with wire-framed glasses on his patrician nose.
The logo of Command Technologies, a well-known tech company, on his shirt.
Her instinct was to find out what he was doing here, but she ignored it.
She wasn’t here for work. She was drawing a line.
‘Lukas.’ She tried to keep her voice light, maintain perfect composure that wavered slightly when he looked at her. For a moment she thought she saw longing in his eyes, but it was gone faster than it appeared. ‘Would it be possible to have a word?’
Lukas looked her over, processing her request before turning to the man and shaking his hand. ‘Thank you for stopping by. We’ll be in contact soon.’
‘Definitely. Vortex Command Racing is going to be the start of great things for us, J?ger.’
Lukas smiled. It wasn’t one of the heart-stopping smiles he had given her in Monaco, this one was practiced. Cordial and charming. No one would know the difference but her.
‘I couldn’t agree more, Matthew,’ Lukas said and watched the man leave. The door had only just closed when he rounded on Katherine. ‘We can talk in my office.’ He led her through the back doorway to a set of stairs. ‘I don’t need you making a scene.’
‘I would never do that.’ It hurt to hear him think that way of her.
‘Really?’ They reached the top and he held a glass door open for her to step into. ‘What would you call all those calls and messages, then?’
‘Wanting to talk.’
He closed the door, sealing them inside a small, impeccably neat office. He had two visitor chairs on one side of his desk and a large comfortable-looking one on the other, but he didn’t sit, nor did he invite Katherine to do so.
‘You had plenty of opportunities to talk but when it mattered, you didn’t.’
‘Can you at least say my name?’ It had been months since she’d heard him use it and all through the day he wouldn’t acknowledge her. Now he was talking to her yet still wouldn’t address her. It was tearing her up.
‘Why?’ he asked in a hard tone.
‘Because I need to hear it.’
He shook his head and walked past her to stand at the glass wall looking out at the sunny paddock.
‘Why are you here, Katherine?’
Every cell in her body came to life at the sound of her name on his tongue and she couldn’t savour it. ‘To ask for your forgiveness.’
‘My forgiveness,’ he scoffed.
‘I asked them to scrap the article and they ran it anyway without telling me. You know this. I tried to fix it, Lukas. Yes, I should have told you about it, but I never meant to hurt your feelings.’
‘Don’t lie.’ He turned towards her. Sadness, disappointment, hurt written all over his face. ‘That’s not true. Because the fact is you did write that article. You planned it, did research, thought of the words—the best words to get your point across—and then reread it before you submitted it.’
Katherine didn’t know how to defend herself against that because he had a point. There was always a lot of consideration in her writing. ‘You said you’d already seen all that I’d written, that we moved past the hate. Did you mean that?’
‘You don’t get to ask me that.’ Despite his even tone, there was anger in his eyes. ‘Are you proud of it?’
‘No!’ Katherine replied instantly. It was the least proud she had ever been of herself. No matter how disappointed Lukas was in her, it would never compare to how she felt about herself when she thought about how she had let her mistaken hate of him colour her judgement.
‘When you first wrote it, Katherine,’ he said slowly, ‘when you typed it up and put it on an email that you sent to your editor, were you proud of it?’
Her insides squirmed. How she wished she could go back to that moment and do it all over again because she had been proud.
Exceptionally so. ‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘But, Lukas, it isn’t like that.
I’ve changed!’ She marched up to the man she loved and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, but his arms hung limply by his sides.
He looked down at her, not pushing her away, but not touching her either.
And even though it was the worst pain imaginable, she continued, ‘I see you for who you are. I was wrong and I’m sorry, Lukas. I’m so sorry!’
He stepped back, forcing her to let go. ‘You don’t get it. You did believe the things you wrote about me even if you no longer do. You were willing to believe the worst about me without ever talking to me or finding out the truth. You can only believe the worst about someone if you want to.’
‘Lukas…’
‘And you didn’t just believe it,’ he went on.
‘You kept telling the world. You wanted everyone to think of me as you did. And even though you attacked me over and over again, I never said a bad thing about you, Of course, I vented to Dominic or my father because I am human after all. But not publicly, ever. Not once, Katherine.’
Her eyes welled with tears because he was right.
‘I never once did the things you did.’ He walked to the door and grabbed onto the handle about to pull it open but she stopped him.
Tears she couldn’t control streamed down her cheeks. ‘I’m not doing the column anymore.’
She could see that caught his attention. He let go of the door handle and turned towards her even though he remained at a distance.
‘I’m done with opinion pieces.’
‘What would you like me to say?’ he asked plainly.
‘I just wanted you to know.’ Maybe then he could see that she was committed to being better.
‘I never wanted you to give up your job, Katherine. I know what your success means to you. Means for your family. And I’ve been in the racing world a long time, I understand the need for you in it.
The media is an important part of the sport, but it was never going to work between us.
Don’t give up your dream for me when we’re never going to be together. ’
‘I just need you to forgive me,’ Katherine pleaded.
‘And then what? Hmm?’ Lukas crossed his arms. ‘How does it help? Where do we go from there?’
‘Even if you can’t be with me, maybe if you can forgive me we can find a way to at least be friends. I confided in you, Lukas. I trust you. I can’t lose you from my life.’
But all he did was shake his head. Katherine was breaking apart. Willing to settle for the crumbs of the affection he once had for her, but he wouldn’t budge.
‘I said I wanted you on the boat but I didn’t want to think about why I wanted you so much, Lukas. I want all of you. I love you, but I’ll settle for anything you’re willing to give me.’
He pressed his back to the door, dropping his head back to rest against the glass, his neck exposed. He closed his eyes. Katherine wanted to scream for him to open them. Open them and look at her.
‘Love doesn’t hurt like you hurt me.’ He ran his fingers through his hair as he said softly to himself, ‘Maybe it does. What would I know about it?’
The woman he’d wanted to marry had left him because he was too zealous about protecting their privacy; his mother had left and kept punishing him for choices he hadn’t made.
Everyone Lukas loved had hurt him, including her.
Katherine hated that fact. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and comfort him.
Wanted to hear him say he forgave her and that he needed her.
‘I know I hurt you, but I’m willing to make it up to you every single day, Lukas. ’
Then he did look at her, and she thought she might combust. ‘Why should I take you back?’
‘Because you still love me. You loved me on the boat, and you love me now. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be hearing me out.
You could have exposed our fake relationship—even though it wasn’t fake to me—and ruined me, but you didn’t.
And I know I saw pride in your eyes when you saw me with the other presenters. It was so brief, but it was there.’
He pulled himself up to standing, shaking his head and pressing his thumb and finger to his eyes.
Katherine saw his jaw twitch from gritting his teeth.
His throat bobbed in a hard swallow and when he finally dropped his hand from his eyes and spoke, his voice was rough.
Low and raw. Bleeding all the pain she could see in his stormy gaze.
‘Of course I love you, Katherine. I can’t turn my feelings off. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I felt about you, but I don’t know how to trust you. It’s just best if we have nothing to do with each other. It will be easier for both of us and save us the heartache.’
‘Please, Lukas,’ she cried.
‘You can take a minute to compose yourself. Goodbye, Katherine,’ he said softly. Solemnly.
She thought she had reached the bottom of the well when it came to this pain, but hope had kept her afloat. Now she was drowning. Couldn’t breathe because every breath had shards in it, ripping her on the inside. Lukas, the only man she had ever truly loved, was gone.