Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
SIMON
I t was finally Friday and I was ready for my dinner with Abigail. I’d spent the rest of the week since I’d seen her at the coffee shop preparing everything I wanted to say, and I was all set.
In her story, I was the villain. If I was being totally honest, I wasn’t not a villain in my own story either, but there was more to what had happened than me running scared and I wanted her to know that. All I wanted was to explain, so that she’d know that it’d had nothing to do with her. I’d hurt her and it was time I took responsibility for that, but it’d hadn’t been her fault.
If nothing else, I was hopeful that the truth would break some of the ice she’d put between us. The next ninety days were going to be completely wretched otherwise.
Winning Fit Gal as a client meant competing with Abi’s team, but that didn’t mean things had to be tense and awful every day. Plus, if I was going to win this contract, I would need my head in the game and it wouldn’t be there if things stayed the way they were right now.
Ultimately, I would do whatever it took to sign Fit Gal at the end. I’d simply prefer to do it without causing any more damage to either myself or Abigail than I already had. With that thought in mind, I spent all day refining the pitch in my office, working with my team on preparing for it.
At five thirty in the afternoon, the boys walked in, no doubt coming to check whether I really wasn’t going out on the town with them tonight. Benny came in first, followed closely by Josh and David.
David dropped into a leather sofa in my sitting area and kicked his feet up on the coffee table before he grinned at me. “Dinner with Abigail tonight, huh? Is this really the way you want to learn to live with it?”
“Yeah, are you sure you don’t just want to come out with us instead?” Josh asked. “The other night, you were pretty pissed about that guy you saw her with. Maybe it’s best to just leave her be.”
“Gentlemen,” Benny said with humor underlying his tone. “Are you seriously trying to talk Simon Astor out of dinner with Abigail Walker ? Have you lost your ever-loving minds? It’s never going to happen. He’s going to go, she’s going to do something else to either humiliate or piss him off, and then he’ll come join us to blow off steam after.”
I barked out a laugh. “That’s not going to happen. It’s not what you think it is.”
“It’s not?” Benny pulled a face at me. “You used to be all about this girl. Now you’re going to dinner with her and it’s not what we think?”
“It’s not a date,” I repeated her words to them. “It’s just an opportunity to clear the air before we start at Fit Gal. It’s not tenable for us to work together with things the way they are right now and I need to try and fix it. That’s it.”
“Oh.” Josh smirked at me. “You mean getting naked with her on the beach didn’t achieve that goal?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “That was a mistake. I let things go too far and I won’t do it again. I’ve already told her the clothes are staying on tonight.”
“As if that’s going to happen.” David grinned and lifted his hand for a high-five that nobody gave him.
I sighed. “It’s not a date, guys. Seriously. We’re just two people who used to know each other and who need to talk through some stuff so we can work together.”
“How are you feeling about the beach fiasco, then?” David asked. “Even the other day when we were talking about it, you didn’t seem too happy about her ditching you stark naked. If memory serves, you mentioned something about being ready to play her game right back at her.”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I’ve given it some thought and I deserved that. I’m not going to retaliate. I wanted to. Briefly, but I’m willing to call it even.”
“Even?” Benny scoffed and lifted both his eyebrows at me. “Bro, if you think you’re even, you’ve got another thing coming. There’s no way Abi agrees with you. Do you still love her? Is that what this is about?”
I chuckled. “Dude, you know me. I keep my commitment level to any woman at a big, fat zero. I know you’re going to say that this is different because it’s Abi, and in a way, I guess it is, but that doesn’t mean I want to be with her again.”
“Let him lie to himself.” Josh sighed. “We’ve got to get going, boys. Happy hour starts at six. Si, you know where to find us when dinner goes to hell.”
He and Benny waved to me and left, but as the door started closing behind David, he stopped and stuck his head back in. “I don’t believe you. You’ll always love her. Don’t kid yourself, bro.”
When he finally shut the door behind him, I knew he was right. I didn’t have time to wonder too much about what that meant, though. I still had to get home and then get to the restaurant early.
After hitting Save and shutting my laptop, I packed up my stuff and headed out. My penthouse still felt infuriatingly empty, like it was one of those things I couldn’t stop noticing. I took a shower and changed, trying to shake off the gloomy vibes.
She seemed to have liked my cologne the other night, so I used that one again, and then I was ready for my first date with Abigail in a decade. Not a date , I reminded myself, but leaving my place, I was as nervous as I had been when I’d gone to pick her up for our first date ever.
It was ridiculous, but everything about our situation and how I still felt when she was involved was pretty fucking ridiculous. I arrived at our restaurant twenty minutes early, prepared to embrace the ridiculousness of it all as I put my card on file with the host.
Since this was not a date , I knew Abi was going to try to pay for her own dinner, but I was one step ahead and there was no way she was paying. I’d invited her here and, hell, negotiated to convince her to come. The least I could do was buy her dinner.
Besides, it wasn’t even an expensive restaurant. Not that it would’ve mattered if it’d been the priciest in the city. I still would’ve paid, but here? Give me a break.
The little Italian place was one she and I had discovered when we’d been fifteen, racing around the neighborhood on our bikes. It was situated in an old house that had been converted into a cozy restaurant that spilled out into the garden in the spring and summer months.
Murals of scenery from the Amalfi Coast had probably been painted on the walls before we’d even been born, and the air inside smelled faintly like garlic had been infused into the bricks at this point. The interior was softly lit with chandeliers that been made to look like they had candles in them instead of light bulbs, and the orange glow they cast was either spooky or romantic.
Abi and I never had settled on which was more accurate. It had been an ongoing debate.
I chose the table we’d had the first time we’d come here, a semi-private spot outside. With a hedge on one side of it and the wall on another, it was as close to alone as we were going to get here. While I waited for her to arrive, I studied the blooms of the flowers growing in the beds, the colorful buds illuminated by the twinkle lights strung up in the trees all around.
Italian music played over speakers so old that they crackled every so often, but I loved this place. I’d never brought another person here and I never would. I hadn’t even been here myself in years.
My heart lurched when she appeared in the doorway, not even stopping to look for me. She turned and walked toward the table like she’d already known where I was. Her features were more stoic than I would have liked, but at least she didn’t look angry.
Dressed in jeans and a flowing black shirt that exposed one of her shoulders, I could tell she hadn’t wanted to get dolled up for me, but the sight of her still made my breath stall in my lungs. She’s here. She actually came.
Hope tried to spark in my chest, but I smothered it.
“Wine?” I asked as I stood up when she approached the table. “I got us a bottle on the way in.”
When I reached for her chair to pull it out, she grimaced at me. “I can do that myself.”
“I know.” I inclined my chin in acknowledgment but pulled the chair out anyway. “I do as I please.”
To my surprise, she cracked a little smile before she sat down. “I always did like your alpha vibes.”
More hope tried to take root, but this time, she was the one who snuffed it out. “Too bad it doesn’t matter what I used to like. Clearly, I was wrong about who you were, but yes to the wine. All the wine.”
I poured her a glass before I sat down in my seat again, shifting in my chair so I’d be looking right at her. For a moment, I considered trying to make small talk or exchange pleasantries, but I only had an hour.
I had to make it count, so I didn’t waste any time. “I know you said it was in the past, but I’d really like to talk to you about what happened that night after graduation.”
“I—” She cut herself off when our server appeared now that Abi was here.
Without even looking at the menu, she ordered a few appetizers and I did the same, and we both handed our menus back without ever having opened them. We’d both ordered the exact same dishes we had the first time we’d come here, and when she glanced at me as she realized, we shared just the tiniest, most fleeting moment.
The server shattered that brief moment when her cheerful voice chirped into the night air. “I’ll bring those right out. Please enjoy your drinks while you wait.”
When she was gone, Abi looked back at me and finally responded. “I really don’t think I want to know, Simon. All I need from you is closure. Just tell me why you left me in a note and we’ll call it a day.”
“That’s why you need to hear this.” I would insist if I had to, but Abi didn’t make me.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, picking up her glass and letting it hover near her mouth as if she sensed she’d need to take a drink soon. She probably wasn’t wrong.
“When I got home that night, my dad was still awake,” I started, ignoring the pain that shot through me as I remembered how I’d felt when I’d heard his booming voice calling my name.
It had rung out in the relative darkness of his mansion, a sharp command I hadn’t been able to ignore. To this day, dread cooled my veins when I recalled that memory.
I sighed and tried to keep focused on Abi’s blue eyes, filled to the brim with trepidation. “I never told you about this, but he and I had been arguing for weeks. I’d known something like what happened that night was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon after graduation. He cornered me the minute I walked in the door.”
Abi’s light brown eyebrows tugged together, her posture tensing as she stared back at me. “Cornered you?”
I nodded. “He called me into his study and told me to sit down. He didn’t make it optional.”
I might’ve imagined it, but I swore I saw the tiniest flicker of worry in her eyes as her frown deepened. “Did he…”
I shook my head, not even needing her to finish the question to know what she was trying to ask. “No. He didn’t hurt me. Not physically, anyway. He just settled for cutting my heart out with a blunt knife and trying to feed it to me.”
“What did he do?”
I drew in a breath and exhaled it slowly. “We had a long talk about my future. Well, he talked. I listened. He told me that I was going to go to Harvard, get my degree, and not look back. He didn’t make that optional either.”
“What happened to talking to him about coming to NYU with me?” she asked, and I didn’t blame her. For a few weeks back then, I’d really had hope that I’d be able to convince him, but I winced when she brought it up now because I’d failed. Spectacularly.
“I tried, Abi. That was what we’d been arguing about, but it was a non-starter for him. Losing Brooks…” I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath, counting to ten in my head before I released it again.
I looked at her as my eyes reopened. There were definite tears shimmering in hers. I hated pity more than anything else, but Abi had been there. She’d known him.
This was different. It wasn’t pity. It was empathy. “Losing him sent my dad over the edge. That whole year, he’d been pressuring me about Harvard. I’m sure you remember that was where Brooks was meant to go, but once he was gone, it was all on me.”
“So what happened?” she whispered, though I wasn’t sure she’d meant to say it at all.
Knowing her, she’d probably been thinking it and it’d come out only because of who she was talking to right now. She never had been able to hold herself back in conversation with me. It was a door that swung both ways.
“What happened? I caved, that’s what. After being pressured for a whole damn year, I finally folded.” There was nobody else I would ever admit that to. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I just had to go. I had to get out there.”
Abi’s gaze softened, but I wasn’t done yet and I needed to get the rest of it out. “I was an idiot and I know that, but I was eighteen. I realized almost immediately that I’d gone about it the complete wrong way, but it was too late. It was done and I didn’t know how to go back. My brother was dead. My father was threatening to cut me off and kick me out the house if I refused, and the tension was killing whatever was left of my mother.”
My breath left me in a rush, bitterness rising up from deep within my soul, but I swallowed it down. I was so close now. “All I wanted back then was you, Abi. If you don’t believe anything else I say tonight, believe that. I didn’t want to leave you, but you were locked into NYU and my dad made it pretty clear that I would ruin your life if I tried convincing you to come to Harvard with me.”
I shook my head at the stupidity of having believed that, but I genuinely had, so I pushed on. “I considered going to your dad and asking for a job, but that wouldn’t have saved my family. At the time, I was the only person left who could do that and I really thought that going would save my dad. Save my parents. Their marriage. Hell, in way, I thought it might even make them feel like they had my brother back.”
A stabbing pain started up in the center of my chest, but I pushed through that, too, I had to. No matter how hard it was. I had one, single hour and time was ticking by. “I’m sorry, Abi. It took me a long time to realize Dad had used our loss to get me to do what he’d wanted all along, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice that night. He told me that my relationship with you would end eventually and that it would hurt just as much as losing my brother. He told me that I had to choose the future he wanted for me, or go pack my shit and get out. I felt trapped and desperate, so fucking lost without Brooks, and I caved. I’m sorry.”
As I stared at her from across the table, I could see that she believed me. It meant so much more than it should’ve after so long, but Abigail had finally heard my side of the story, and despite her obvious hatred for me, she still believed me.
“I am so, so sorry,” I said quietly, my gaze hooked firmly on her now stormy, glimmering blues. “I never meant to hurt you, Abs. I’m not asking for our future back. I threw that away and I’ve regretted it every day since, but I needed you to know what happened. I needed you to know that if I’d had any choice at all, I would never have walked away.”