Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
ABIGAIL
F or the first time in ten years, I felt empathy for Simon. Tears stung the backs of my eyes, but I blinked them away. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate me crying for him and what was more was that I didn’t want him to know how badly it hurt to hear what he’d gone through.
As apprehensive as I’d been about hearing his version of events, I suddenly felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. He hadn’t had a choice. He knew he’d been wrong and he knew he’d messed up leaving the way he had, but he’d been forced into an impossible situation, and still grieving the loss of his twin, he’d done what he’d thought he needed to do for his family.
That was more than I’d ever let myself hope for. While I wished that he hadn’t gone about it the way he had, I understood how it’d come to that. I remembered how he’d been after his brother had died, the turmoil, the agony, and the confusion of life without his twin.
I remembered the way his mother had moved at the funeral, so robotic, as if she was simply going through the motions with this vacant look in her eyes, like she wasn’t even really there. I remembered his dad and how he’d snapped at Simon, snarling commands at him even on the worst day of his life.
“Thank you for the apology.” I looked deep into those green eyes and hoped he could tell that I was being sincere.
There was so much more I wanted to say, things about how I felt and how sorry I was in turn, but this wasn’t the time. Simon had just cut himself and bled some of his pain all over me, and I wasn’t going to make it about me. Instead, I was going to let him off the hook. For tonight, anyway. The guy had hurt me so damn badly, but I wasn’t vindictive and I didn’t want to hurt him back. From the look in his eyes right now, he was plenty hurt himself already anyway.
“We really don’t have to talk about it anymore,” I said. “I appreciate the explanation and I’m glad I heard you out, but we were young and we thought we were in love. Obviously, we were wrong, but part of me is glad you went to Harvard instead of coming to NYU just for me. Things probably wouldn’t have ended well anyway and then where would you have been?”
Unless I was imagining things, he looked pretty hurt when I said we obviously hadn’t really been in love, but he nodded anyway. “Does that mean you don’t have any questions for me?”
“I don’t.”
It wasn’t even a lie. I’d met George Astor. Not as many times as Simon had met and been around my family, but from what I’d seen of the guy, he was absolutely capable of everything Simon had just told me. Cold as ice, he was purpose-driven and a real asshole. It figured he’d use the grieving twin to fulfill his dreams for the one he’d lost.
It was devastating and I wished Simon had told me back then so that I could’ve been there for him, but I already knew there was nothing I could’ve done. George had never approved of our relationship and he would always have found a way to threaten Simon to stay away from me.
As he looked back at me now, I realized that we had always been doomed. Neither of us had wanted to admit it and neither of us had wanted it to be true, but we were as star-crossed as could be. Even so, Simon shot me a small smile and swallowed the sip of wine he’d just taken, apparently determined to lighten the mood.
“Okay, then. Let’s put it all behind us for now,” he said, though I knew we were both still smarting on the inside.
Maybe we should’ve kept talking it through, but words couldn’t change the past. I didn’t want to go scratching at his old wounds or my own. I’d heard what’d happened that night and that was enough.
Questions I’d had ever since had been answered and pointing out all the ways he could’ve done better wouldn’t help either of us. Nor would arguing about the way it’d gone down.
What had happened, had happened. At least now I knew why, and as difficult as it was not to tell him what he’d put me through, I didn’t want to revisit those early days after I’d received his note. Perhaps with time and after I’d processed what I’d just learned, I’d open up to him about it but not right then.
Simon nodded at me. “Okay, well, clearly, you and I have got some catching up to do. I’d like to know all about the new Abi. Who is she? What does she like to do?”
To my surprise, I chuckled. “What makes you think there’s a new Abi? Maybe I’m the same girl I always used to be.”
“You’re not,” he said confidently, but not arrogantly. He was simply stating a fact he’d observed. I knew that because I often did the same thing. “You’ve changed a lot, from what I can tell, but I’m willing to bet some things are still the same.”
“Like what?” I asked a little more flirtatiously than I’d meant to. I cleared my throat and decided not to make him guess after all. I didn’t need to know how much—or how little—he remembered about me. “Actually, you’re not wrong. I am different, but I also still like doing a lot of the same things. I’ve just added a few new hobbies too.”
“Let’s start with those,” he said. “What new things do you like doing?”
“Spending time with my dog, August,” I said. “She’s the most gorgeous golden Doodle you’ll ever meet and I’m absolutely in love with her.”
He grinned. “You got a dog? That’s awesome. I still want one.”
“You haven’t gotten around to getting one yet?” I asked, a little surprised. “I thought you said that was the first thing you were going to do when you got your own house.”
“I did say that.” He let out a soft sigh and shrugged. “That was the plan, but then I bought a penthouse that doesn’t have a yard and I, uh, don’t spend much time there. I’m always working or away.”
“You go out of town a lot?” I asked, just as curious about him as he seemed to be about me. “I suppose that explains why we haven’t run into each other before.”
Those greens bored into mine from across the table. “That might be it, but yeah. I’m always the one who volunteers to go when we have to meet with clients in other states or countries. Even when I’m here, I’m at the office or out more than I’m at home. You?”
“I don’t travel as much,” I admitted. “That might change now that Dad’s retired, but we’ve got pretty strong teams in place in all the areas where we operate. Olivia and London have moved to Houston to take over our operations in Texas, which was the only place where we really needed to get our own boots on the ground once Dad decided to lighten his workload.”
“Yeah, I’ve, uh. I saw Liv moved down there. Her campaigns for the Andersons have made a pretty big splash.”
Pride swelled through me at the recognition of what my big sister had achieved. “I should’ve guessed that you already knew that. They do keep going viral, so I suppose everybody knows by now, but yeah. Liv, London, and Liam have done really well down there.”
“Liam’s working for you guys now?” he asked, laughing as he shook his head. “Now that , I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised. He always was an honorary member of your family.”
“Him and Austin both,” I said without even thinking about it. When I noticed a tick under Simon’s jaw, I chuckled. “Oh, relax. He’s like a brother to me. Not that it should matter to you, but Liam and Austin are like the boys my parents never had. They’re practically Walkers.”
The tightness around his eyes eased, and for some reason, it made me silly-happy that even just hearing Austin’s name had tensed him up so much. He exhaled a slow breath. “That’s good to know. Even if it is none of my business. So, what else is there? You got a dog and a new friend, and you don’t travel much, but you’ve taken over your New York office, right?”
“I have, yes. It was daunting at first, but it’s going really well. Outside of that, I took up running, August and I spend a lot of time at the dog park, and I still clean when I’m stressed.”
“That sounds about right.” He laughed but then paused as he looked at me, handsome features lit with the warm white glow of the twinkle lights. “No boyfriends?”
“Not currently,” I admitted after a brief moment of hesitation. “You?”
“I don’t have any boyfriends either.” He winked before his face grew a little more serious and he shook his head. “I’m not in a relationship, Abi. I haven’t really been for a long time.”
Immediately, I wondered if he meant that he hadn’t been in one since me , but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Instead, I asked more about his travels as our appetizers came out, and we ended up talking for a few hours about our lives, learning that we’d both pretty much thrown ourselves into work since we’d become adults.
The restaurant started closing down, the servers putting the chairs on the tables around us. I sighed. “We should probably get the check. It looks like we lost track of time.”
I’d been determined to only stay for the hour I’d promised him, but talking to him was just as easy now as it always had been, and somehow, even the whole night hadn’t been enough. As he nodded and signaled to our server, I inhaled a deep breath and took a leap of faith I hoped wouldn’t turn out to be mistake.
“Hey, do you want to come over to my place so we can finish our conversation?” I asked. “You still owe me the Fit Gal info and you can meet August.”
He smiled. “I’d love that. I’ll drive. I’ll have someone pick up your car and?—”
“I didn’t bring my car,” I said, lifting the almost empty glass of wine in my hand. “I figured I might drink a bit more than we ended up doing, so I had a driver bring me.”
“That works out well, then.” He pushed his chair back as the waitress approached us with a little leather folder, and I noticed that he didn’t even reach for his wallet.
Suspicion trickled through me, but I smiled up at the woman and offered her my card. She frowned at it in return, her head shaking as she glanced at Simon. “Mr. Astor has already covered the bill.”
“Of course you have.” I chuckled as I glanced at him. “I freaking knew it when you didn’t go for your wallet, but it’s still not a date.”
Our server thanked us and left, and Simon pumped his eyebrows at me after lifting his card out of the folder. “You’re damn right it’s not. If it was, I never would’ve made the rule about our clothes staying on.”
My cheeks heated, but I laughed. “Jeez, what kind of guy are you if the clothes have to come off if it’s a date?”
He winked playfully. “The kind that knows how to plan a date.”
Laughing again, I stood up and followed him out to his car, a black, hybrid SUV with tinted windows. I smirked at him once we were both inside it. “When did you become a rock star?”
“Damn it. I didn’t ask for the windows to be tinted.” He scowled, but I could see him trying to hide a smile. “It came out this way, but it’s actually pretty nice to know that I’ve got complete privacy in here.”
“Why?” I asked teasingly. “Do you do a lot of crying in your car?”
“Crying’s not the only thing one might need privacy for.” He smirked right back at me and I groaned, but still couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He pretended to be offended. “I mean singing along to the radio, of course. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
We laughed the whole ride back to my place, but we always had laughed a lot when we were together. Even when he’d been in the thick of it with his grief, I’d managed to find ways to make him smile.
That was one of the things I’d missed most about him, and it was nice to know it hadn’t changed. On the other hand, it made our situation even more dangerous for me, but I was determined not to overthink things.
I hadn’t forgiven him and I still wasn’t sure I ever would, but I was so tired of hating him outright, and now that I knew what a difficult position he’d been in back then, it was easier to just let myself relax and enjoy being with one of my oldest friends. That didn’t mean that what he’d done hadn’t been deplorable, but I was giving myself a break from all that.
I’d been carrying around the weight of our breakup for almost a freaking decade and it felt so good that it was gone that I just wanted it to stay that way. For the first time in just as long, I was actually feeling carefree. Unguarded. Spending time with a guy without constantly wondering how he would end up hurting me—even if it was the same guy who’d caused me to think that way in the first place.
When we arrived at my townhouse, Simon smiled and glanced at me. “You live pretty close to your parents, huh? Or have they moved?”
“They haven’t,” I said simply and left it at that, not wanting to tell him that I’d stayed in the area because of him. I’d always hoped I’d see him again and I’d figured that if he ever came looking for me, this was where he’d begin. “Say hi to August.”
As soon as I opened my door, my ball of golden curls barreled toward us, her tail wagging as she nuzzled my leg. I chuckled and scratched her head. Then she moved away from me to give Simon a curious sniff.
He surprised me by dropping to his haunches without any hesitation, his hands in her fur as he grinned. “Hey, girl. I’m Simon. You’re just as beautiful as your mommy, aren’t you?”
I flushed but decided not to call him out on calling me beautiful to my dog. Instead, I hung up my purse on a coat hook behind my door and dropped my keys in a silver bowl on the side table in my foyer. I kicked off my heels next, padding barefoot to my kitchen and grabbing two beers from my fridge.
Simon followed me with August sticking close to his side, and I frowned at my dog. “What’s this, girl? Why are you with him?”
He shrugged and sent me a devilish smile. “Because she loves me. That’s why.”
I shook my head and bit back a giggle, handing over his beer before I sat down on my couch and tucked my legs underneath me. “Okay, time to spill the beans on Fit Gal. What do you know?”
He sat down next to me, toeing off his own shoes and getting comfortable without skipping so much as a beat. Turning on the cushion to face me, he hooked one of his legs up and put his foot under his opposite knee, gaze never leaving mine.
“We’ve managed to find out two pieces of information that might be useful to you,” he said. “One is that they’re wanting to launch Fit Guy within the next year, so having ideas ready for that pitch will put us both above the other two companies trying to win the contract.”
“Within a year? Wow. I didn’t know they were that close.”
“They are,” he promised. “The other thing is that Fit Gal’s secret ingredient is bat poop.”
“What?” I laughed. “There’s no way.”
“I’m one hundred percent serious. Go look at the ingredients list. They’ve got the technical name for it right there on the bottle.”
I grimaced. “I’m not sure how I feel about how much of that stuff I’ve drunk right now.”
He chuckled. “It’s still the same product, but that’s the one part they haven’t advertised at all.”
“I don’t blame them.” I exhaled through my nostrils and nodded, taking a sip of my beer before bringing my eyes back to his. “Okay, so now that we both know this, are we enemies or are we in an alliance?”
“We can be a little bit of both,” he said after thinking it over for a beat. “At least until we’re the last two companies standing. Obviously, after that, it’s going to have to be every man for himself.”
“I can get behind that,” I said easily. “Mostly because I can’t wait to see your face when I get the account.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “I’ll send you a ‘Get Well Soon’ basket after you’ve had to watch me win.”
Both of us laughed, and an unmistakable sense of rightness washed over me. It felt like I was finally back with the very best friend I’d ever had. I kept having to remind myself of what he’d done, but it was hard to stay tough when he brought out the soft side of me.
Simon and I just clicked in a way I’d never felt with anyone else. Even now. Even after everything. I still felt like our souls were two halves of the same whole. Logically, I knew I should fight that feeling, but I honestly didn’t know how to do that when letting myself feel it was as natural as breathing.
All I could really do right now was hope that he felt the same and that, together, we’d figure out a way not to hurt each other all over again.