Chapter 15
Nate
New York, late night…
My gut twisted. I hadn’t seen her in years, and perhaps if I had actually returned her calls I wouldn’t be seeing her tonight either.
But I didn’t have any obligation to return her calls, or respond to her emails, so I hadn’t done either.
She couldn’t possibly have anything to say that I would need or want to hear.
I started walking into my building, like a man on a mission. Maybe I could even ignore her and march straight up to my apartment, grab my suitcase, change my shirt, and act as if I’d never seen her. Hell, maybe she was simply an apparition.
But judging from the tension on Casey’s face, the way her lips were parted and her jaw dropped, Joanna was very much real, in the flesh, and waiting for me.
“Nate!” Joanna took a step toward us. I took a step away. She took another step. I closed my eyes briefly, wishing her away, then opened them. She was still here.
“Yes?” I could’ve said why are you here, what are you doing, what do you want, but I didn’t want to give her the courtesy of that many words.
“You haven’t returned my calls or responded to my messages,” she said, sounding oddly apologetic. “So I had no choice but to come here in person.”
“Actually, you did have a choice. You had a choice not to find me. You always have a choice. You just chose different things. Let’s not confuse the issue, Joanna,” I said, biting out the words. Perhaps I had more to say to her than I’d thought.
She nodded, seeming to admit that I was right. “In any case, I’m here because I wanted to see if you still have the sculpture of your hands.”
The world slowed. Her strange request echoed in my ears, and I was sure I was hearing things. This is what she wanted from me? A work of art?
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes. There’s a museum in Chicago that’s putting together an exhibition of all my work, and that seems to be the one missing piece. I hope it’s not too much to ask, but I really think it could round up the exhibition quite nicely. And, truth be told, I was always rather proud of it.”
I scoffed, my derisive huff carrying into the breeze of the warm June night, trailing over the noise of the cars and buses on Columbus Avenue.
“Well, in that case, let me run upstairs and grab it for you,” I said, staring hard at her.
“I like to drink coffee with it. Hold it tight when I’m sad.
Gaze at its beauty. But since you want it, of course I’ll give it to you. ”
She pursed her lips, lifting her chin up high.
I wondered how I’d ever been in love with her.
As I looked at her now, I had no clue how I’d intended to share my life with this person who only cared about taking—taking what she wanted, when she wanted it, at any time.
But that was my big problem—I hadn’t seen it coming.
I’d had no clue that I couldn’t trust her.
I might possibly be the worst judge of character when it came to love, and I damn well needed to stay far away from the foolish emotion.
“Touché,” she said calmly, then gestured to Casey and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Joanna Simone. You must be?”
My ex-wife stood there waiting for an answer from Casey, and that made my blood boil. But Casey was classy, always classy, and she took her hand, saying, “Casey. I’m Nate’s friend.”
Joanna turned her focus back to me, tapping her toe. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but might you have it?”
I winced. I honestly didn’t know, but I was pretty sure I’d packed it up and stuffed it into the back of a closet somewhere. “I’m not sure,” I muttered.
“I’m happy to pay you for it. I certainly don’t expect you to simply hand it over.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s really amazingly generous of you to offer to pay me back for a wedding present, but I don’t need your money, and you know what?
I don’t want those stupid hands,” I said, spitting out the insult, hoping it stung.
But the presence of Casey, mere inches from me, was the only thing that made me smooth out the next few words so they weren’t filled with the vitriol inside me.
I didn’t want her to know that I still harbored this kind of anger toward my ex-wife.
“But I’ll check, and I’ll get back to you. ”
“Thank you,” Joanna said on a nod. “I’m ever grateful. If you have it, I would really like to get it by next week. If that’s doable.”
Casey stepped in. “We’ll get back to you.
Thank you for stopping by. We have a plane to catch,” she said, then she wrapped her hand protectively around my arm, and the way she touched me made all my anger dissipate.
It was like a pin deflating a balloon, and all I felt now was some kind of calm, some kind of peace.
We walked into the building quietly. Once we stepped into the elevator, I pressed the button for the top floor, leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes.
Her warm body pressed against mine. It wasn’t sexual, and it wasn’t the start of something.
It was simply comforting, and I needed it, so I wrapped my arms around her, resting my chin on her head.
“I’m sorry you had to see her,” she whispered.
“Me too,” I said. “But I’m glad you were here.”
“Do you want me to look for that sculpture? So you don’t have to? I can be the one to return it to her.”
I pulled back momentarily. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. Unless you want to drop it from a window and smash it on the sidewalk. I’m completely fine with that too.”
I grinned briefly. Only Casey could do this for me. Take me in all these directions. Take me through lust and passion, through business and babies, and then from rage to laughter in mere seconds. I didn’t deserve her, but oh, how I wanted to give her what she needed from a man.