CHAPTER TWO
Friday, March 24
Andrew
Kathryn snatched her phone from the tile, the screen smashed beyond repair; then, without a word they moved away from the line, a single unit, the space they’d occupied swallowed by the crowd. And just like that, Kathryn led him, as she had all those years ago, and Andrew followed, out the door, now propped open, a braid of confused tourists and harried businesspeople spilling onto the sidewalk. Kathryn stopped halfway down the block beneath a narrow strip of shade provided by a palm tree and turned to face him, her phone clutched to her chest. “Andrew.” It was like his name took all the breath from her.
The years, the distance between them, and everything that had taken place had given Kathryn Moretti a mythical quality. But now she was here ...
Andrew had forgotten how tall Kathryn was; she towered in her heels, her face level with his, so familiar yet so different. She was stunning, maybe even more so than the day he’d spotted her on their college campus, a single moment that had sent their lives spiraling into motion, culminating under this tree, his heartbeat booming.
The boy’s face strobed in his mind. And his age. The possibility notched into place, but he pushed it back. It couldn’t be. The stress of the morning had left him seeing things.
Andrew shoved past the shock of having Kathryn a few inches before him to say something, anything, fumbling the words. “I haven’t seen you in—twenty years?”
Kathryn gave a terse nod. “Twenty years and two months.” Her cheeks flushed. So she’d marked the time that had passed, too.
“Why are you here?” he asked. Another choppy question. A flash of the boy’s face again.
Kathryn stared. “I work for Rowan and Price.”
“Since when?” Andrew demanded. The Rowan and Price offices sat just a few miles from his office. So close.
Kathryn’s jaw tensed as she swallowed. “I’ve worked at the Boca Raton office for almost a decade.” She batted an invisible strand of hair from her face, then flicked her hand toward the end of the street. “But I occasionally come to West Palm to meet clients.”
For eight years, Kathryn had zipped in and out of Palm Beach, a few miles of distance between them. “How have we never crossed paths?”
“I made sure of it.” Her voice was a hard wall. “I usually avoid places like this.” She gestured to Starbucks. “But I had a long night.”
Andrew thrust his hands into his pockets. The few times he’d dared type Kathryn’s name into social media, always when he was racked with insomnia, he’d scanned hundreds of beaming, toothy thumbnail photos. Blond mom with three kids. A Realtor in New Jersey. But it appeared Kathryn had never created any social media profiles, at least none she intended for him to find, and he’d set his phone on the nightstand and rolled over, his mind swimming with disappointment, guilt, and—relief? Now he was slapped with a cold realization: she’d been avoiding him, had successfully camouflaged her secrets against the backdrop of the concrete buildings and glittering sea of cars, until moments ago.
Kathryn’s eyes narrowed. “Nick hasn’t mentioned me to you?”
Andrew’s best friend’s name on Kathryn’s lips sliced through the anesthetic veil of shock that had fallen over him. The hair on the back of his neck spiked. “What? No. Nick and I haven’t discussed you since ... When did you talk to Nick?”
Kathryn’s gaze fell on the blue swath of ocean across the street, her forehead pinched.
The tiny bits of information Andrew had just extracted from Kathryn piled onto his suspicions. The hiding, talking to Nick behind his back. The question—the accusation—boomed in his mind like fireworks. “Kathryn.” He pointed at the phone she still clutched. “The boy—how old is he?”
Kathryn switched her phone to her opposite hand, and when she did, he saw she was trembling. He’d forgotten her intense green-eyed gaze until they locked on to his face. “Nineteen. He’ll be twenty in the fall.”
The gravity of her words settled over him, and something clicked into place. A certainty. Andrew’s equilibrium wobbled, like the ground beneath his feet had quaked. “He’s mine.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Kathryn whispered.
A trembling heat rose inside his body, and Andrew stepped back.
“I’m sorry.” The words erupted from Kathryn like they’d been held behind a dam, ready to burst. “I wasn’t going to keep it—him. At least, that was my first plan. Back then.” Again, she swallowed hard. “And when I didn’t ... do that —I just—it was just easier for me.”
Andrew’s frustration was instantaneous, springing from an almost primal place. “How was it easier for you to hide this from me?”
Kathryn’s eyes rimmed with tears. Andrew drew a deep, forced breath, jerking his shoulders to loosen his sweaty shirt adhered to his back. He didn’t want to scare Kathryn away.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, a whisper.
Andrew held up a hand, a rush of blood beating in his ears. “I need a minute.”
Kathryn nodded and fell silent.
“Why?” The single syllable was all he’d ever wanted to ask, and it held so much more than the need for an answer about the boy. Kathryn knew it, too. Her eyes swept the sky before falling to the ground, her jaw tightening as she swallowed. A single tear broke free, spilling down her cheek.
“Max.” Kathryn cleared her throat. “Maxwell.”
Andrew’s phone buzzed against his thigh, the shock of the movement shooting through him, along with a bolt of irritation. He withdrew the device from his pocket and squinted in the sunlight to make out the screen. One missed call from Amy.
A text message appeared: Call me.
At the thought of his wife—and the helpless look in her eyes that morning—acid rose in Andrew’s throat.
If Amy learned he had a child out in the world, she’d be devastated. Kathryn’s revelation would shatter her. But if she found out about Kathryn ... well, it would change everything his wife thought she knew about him. Amy wouldn’t want the life they’d built together if she found out who he really was.
He couldn’t lose her.
Andrew’s heartbeat doubled. Kathryn standing before him was a reminder—a warning—of the spiraling darkness that awaited him on the other side of heartbreak. His windpipe narrowed, familiar, unwelcome.
An electric tickle coursed down to his fingertips. His sympathetic nervous system was already in overdrive from that morning, he knew. The clinical terms had been explained to him, but he couldn’t let it happen again. Not now. Not here, in front of her .
Andrew forced his focus onto his breathing, the seconds ticking by as he waited for the tablets he’d swallowed that morning to work their magic. Then, with an unsteady hand, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and asked, “Does he know about me?”
There was a flash of something in Kathryn’s eyes, like she was frightened. “No.”
“Does he have a father?” He scanned Kathryn’s fingers for a wedding ring and found none, just a stack of gold bands on her index finger and a ring with a dramatic blue stone on her right hand.
Again, Kathryn shook her head. “I raised him on my own. He’s yours, biologically. But he’s mine .” Her hand tightened around her phone. Kathryn drew a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer, her eyes avoiding his. “I never wanted to tell you this way.”
“Can I meet him?” The question surprised Andrew nearly as much as it did Kathryn, apparent when her eyes widened.
In a harsh whisper she said, “Absolutely not.”
Andrew hadn’t expected her answer to be so swift, and a stubborn defiance slipped out before he had a mind to stop it. “Why not?” If it was true, if this kid, Max, was his, he could answer the millions of tiny, fractured questions that had lurked in the background for Andrew’s entire life.
“It’s not a good idea, Andrew. He’s ... we’re sorting through some personal things at the moment,” she finished curtly, her jaw set with finality. This Kathryn, with her clipped words, was not the woman he remembered. When they were young, Kathryn had been like autumn light filtering through the trees—warm and bright and comforting, like coming home. Andrew allowed the brief indulgence of remembering the feel of her skin, the smell of her neck, the taste of her on his lips, before he pushed it away. This Kathryn’s eyes were deeper, like she concealed a heaviness from the rest of the world. He ached to get past what she kept so carefully hidden and find the brightness he’d once known. He searched her face for a hint of the person he’d loved so fiercely.
Back in his pocket, his phone buzzed insistently, but he ignored it.
They stood for a beat, the morning sun beaming down. Above them, the Worth Avenue clock tower loomed, a pillar of white stone coral. The minute hand moved silently behind its glass dome, and Andrew stood straight. “Fuck. I have a meeting with my boss in five minutes.” But he didn’t move. His feet were rooted in place.
“Okay.” Kathryn’s eyes danced across his face, then traced him up and down. Something shadowed her expression. A longing. Sadness, maybe. “You look good, Drew.” Her brows narrowed, her words almost an accusation. Drew. For a moment he was twenty again, his naked body tangled in hers. His mouth was dry. She straightened. “I mean, you look like you’re doing well.” Kathryn lifted her eyes, looked as if she was about to add something. He watched her recalibrate. “It was good to see you. Take care of yourself.” A beat before she turned to leave.
He reached an arm into the empty air. “Kathryn, wait.”
She turned back to face him.
“Can I—can I reach out to you? I have so many questions.”
Kathryn clutched her phone tighter, seemed to consider his request. She nodded, hesitant. “Okay, I’ll give you my number.” She held up her smashed device, pink flushing her cheeks. “And I’ll buy a new phone today.”
Andrew tapped the number she gave him into his phone. Was it her real number? Would he drum up the courage to contact her? Then he looked up. The hardness in Kathryn’s eyes ebbed and a hint of—what was it, amusement?—played at the corners of her mouth. “You were the last person I expected to see today,” she said. A twitch of a smile.
Kathryn turned, and Andrew watched her hair sway as she strode down the block.
This woman had no idea how she’d once broken him. And if he hadn’t craved coffee, hadn’t run away to fucking Starbucks, she’d still be a ghost teasing him with regret for a life he’d almost had. Now, having Kathryn so close was like having a sweating glass of whiskey set before him on a hot day, dancing the dangerous line of what if only addiction and love could.
The buzz of his phone again hauled him back to the present. A new message from Amy blinked across the screen: Dr. Cassidy had a cancellation. She can get us in on Monday. Call me as soon as you get this.