Chapter 41 Beth
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
BETH
This was a mistake.
The thought finally broke through the numbness as Iain Erstwhile introduced me to people whose names I’d never remember. His hand was on my lower back, and it felt wrong there. His hand didn’t belong there.
For the first time in a week, my heart rate sped up.
There had been nothing after I lost control of myself in the shower. Like this veil had come over me to protect me from my own emotions. My mum and dad were constantly texting because the last time we’d spoken, they’d known something was wrong. My team had asked me all week if I was all right.
“I’m fine,” I kept saying.
But I wasn’t anything.
I felt nothing.
Not panic.
Not anxiety.
Nothing.
It was extreme. Even when my period came the day after, I felt nothing. Usually my hormones had me a bit all over the place.
But nothing.
Just going through the motions. The only calculated thing I did was avoid him.
I didn’t think his name. Couldn’t. I got up, left when I knew he wouldn’t be around, went to the gym, got to work.
Lily asked me to be a guest on her podcast. I said yes.
We scheduled it in. I brought on a new author client.
We lost a client. Iain Erstwhile asked me to be his date to a charity benefit he was attending in the city.
We’d talk about Social Queens becoming his local SM management for Pennington’s.
I said yes. I bought a dress. My period ended so silk was safe to wear.
I put on nice shoes. Did my hair. Looked in the mirror.
I felt nothing.
Until him.
Until seeing him outside the apartment building for the first time in this never-ending week.
It didn’t hit me like a freight train. No, it was like the first fissure in the veil of numb.
As I sat in the dark limo with Iain and he smiled in the way a man smiles at a woman he wants, I felt another crack in my numbness.
Because I felt a slither of panic instead.
With each step we took at the formal party, every person he introduced me to, every time he brushed his body against mine, there was another crack, another splinter. Until the numbness gave way to this compression weighing painfully on my chest.
I could feel a panic attack coming on.
Excusing myself, I hurried into the ladies’ restroom in time to lock myself in a stall. Dread crashed over me as my chest constricted, cold tingles breaking out across my face as fear rendered me frozen against the stall door.
Finally, I got a hold of myself enough to go through my mindfulness.
What I could see, hear, and smell.
The latter was unpleasant, and I wrinkled my nose at my surroundings. You’d think at a fancy do like this, they’d keep the restroom cleaner. That made me snort to myself. At my own ridiculousness.
I was a mess.
My pulse was still erratic and my legs trembled, but at least I felt like I could breathe again.
But the grief was horrendous. Seeing Callan …
I was angry at myself for letting my heart attach to him. For letting him break my heart.
And I was furious at myself for agreeing to go on a date with the biggest potential client I’d ever met. It was so bloody obvious Iain was more interested in having sex with me than a business arrangement.
I needed to leave.
I couldn’t stay here.
Not when I felt like I might burst into loud, messy sobs any second now.
There was a queue as I left the stall, and I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes in case I bumped into someone I knew. Not that it was likely. My parents might be well-known in Edinburgh, but they didn’t attend things like these anymore unless absolutely necessary.
After splashing cold water on my wrists, I left the restroom in search of Iain. I saw him chatting and smiling with an attractive brunette and felt not even a twinge of jealousy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive or that past me wouldn’t consider a May-December affair.
He wasn’t Callan.
And until I was over him, I couldn’t be with anyone. Not even in the casual sense.
I approached Iain and despite the brunette’s obvious flirting, he turned into me as soon as I reached him. Iain slipped his arm around my waist, drawing me into his side. “There you are.”
I smiled awkwardly at the brunette who sneered in disappointment and strolled off.
“Let’s leave.” Iain picked up my braid, his knuckles brushing my breast in a move that might have been deliberate. “We can talk … business.”
“I’d like to talk business.” I stepped out of his hold. “But this was a mistake coming here as your date. I’m not … I can’t. Business, great. This”—I gestured between us—“I’m just … someone hurt me recently, and I’m not in a place—”
“Beth.” Iain lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s fine. I understand.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have agreed. I—”
“Stop it.” He ducked his head, giving me a kind smile. “I got to put in an appearance here with a beautiful, poised woman on my arm. If that’s all I get from you, I still feel very lucky.”
Wow.
That was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. “You’re a gentleman.”
He gave me another kind smile and raised his arm for me to take. “Let me drive you home. We’ll set up a meeting another time.”
Relief and sadness crashed over me as I took his arm.
The limo pulled away, leaving me outside the flats.
I wanted to burst into tears.
Part of me wanted the numbness to come back, but another part of me was scared shitless of it.
Feeling, no matter how badly, was better than not feeling.
It had to be.
I let myself into the building, lifting my pretty dress so I could climb the stairs.
My sandals clacked annoyingly with every slow, heavy step upward.
For the first time in ages, I longed for a bathtub.
I only had a shower in my flat. But a soak in a tub with a glass of wine sounded like the right kind of end to this strange evening. Callan had a bathtub.
Arsehole.
Not one word from him all week!
He didn’t give a flying feck about me.
I should have slept with Iain. It wouldn’t have mattered to Callan.
I wouldn’t have been betraying anyone. Callan was probably off shagging the first woman who threw herself at his cock!
One of the many reasons I had deliberately avoided his routine this week was because I did not want to bump into him and one of his one-night stands.
Ooh, the anger felt good.
Much, much better than heartache.
I found myself stomping up the last flight of stairs, imagining him at a pub tonight with Baird and John, flirting with some strange lassie and deciding to bring her back to his bed.
To the bed we’d made love in.
We’d. Made. Love.
I faltered, sucking in a painful breath.
He had made love to me.
I didn’t imagine that.
Why?
Why did he do that if I meant nothing?
I hated him.
He was a shagging, messed-up, broken wee fuck boy, and I was better—
I stumbled as I reached the landing.
Callan sat slumped at my front door, his elbows to his knees, his head bowed in his hands.
My pulse raced.
He lifted his head and the anguish in his gaze threatened to take me down. “Did you sleep with him?” he asked, his voice rough around the words.
Indignation straightened my back as I slowly moved toward him. “Jealous?”
Callan’s huff of laughter was bitter and hoarse. “Jealous?” he whispered.
That’s when I saw the sheen in his eyes.
Tears.
Oh my God.
My legs shook.
“It’s more than jealousy, Beth,” he hissed. He pressed a fist to his stomach. “I feel like my fucking guts are being ripped out.”
With my legs ready to buckle and hope ballooning too big and overwhelming in my chest, I lowered to my knees before him, uncaring if my dress got dirty.
Our eyes held, his pleading.
“I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t even kiss him.”
Callan squeezed his eyes shut as he rested his head back against my door and a tear leaked free.
“Callan?”
“You … you terrify me.” He finally opened his eyes. “You have me in the palms of your fucking hands.”
Relief bubbled up and over, my tears springing free. I swiped at them as I promised, “You have me in yours.”
“Do I?”
“You know you do.”
“Why did you go on a date?”
“Because in order to get through the past week, I’ve been walking through life like I was on Novocain.
It was Erstwhile. I wanted a business meeting with him, and he asked me to this benefit instead.
I said yes. Then I saw you … and I remembered my heart was broken. So I asked Iain to bring me home.”
Callan cursed and reached out to take my hand. My fingers instinctually curled around his. It felt so good. Like a piece of me clicking back into place.
“You can hurt me as badly as I can hurt you,” I told him. “It’s mutually assured destruction, Captain. So why don’t we try our very best not to hurt each other?”
His fingers flexed around mine, relief lightening his expression. “Okay, princess.”
“Are you … are you saying you want to try this for real?”
“I can’t seem to function without you, so, aye. I want us to try this for real.”
My lips trembled and he suddenly pushed away from the door and stood. He pulled me up and I wobbled in my sandals.
“Can I come in?”
I nodded, my fingers shaking with a million different emotions as I pulled the keys out of my clutch.
It was a lot to come at me after a week of nothing.
I opened the door and whirled on Callan.
His expression was still brooding, his shoulders seeming to bristle with tension. “You’re not … you won’t leave?”
That earlier anguish returned as he sensed my fear. “Beth, no. I’ve been miserable without you. I won’t leave.”
Deciding to trust in him because he’d never been anything but honest, I let us into the flat.
My heart raced, a part of me not quite ready to believe this was real.
I heard him close the door behind us as I kicked off the sandals that were biting into my feet and strolled into the kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?”
Callan stopped me with a hand on my arm.