Chapter Thirty-Four Hunter
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hunter
I’ve been standing outside Stranger than Fiction since eleven forty-five.
Normally, Lucy gets her lunch around twelve thirty.
But it’s nearly two now, and she definitely hasn’t left her building.
I’m really tempted to grab her some lunch and take it up to her building, but I don’t want to get her in trouble.
That’s the last thing I want to do. I want to make things better between us. Not worse.
And then I spot her. She’s wearing that navy dress I last saw her in, but her hair is down. Her hair is never down for work. I stand at the edge of the plaza, watching as she crosses the street and heads toward me.
When she’s about fifteen yards away, she spots me. She smiles, then draws her eyebrows together, like she doesn’t know why I’m standing in the middle of the street watching her.
It probably looks a little creepy.
She has to pass me to get to the sandwich place, so I don’t take my eyes off her as she comes toward me. Her gaze darts between me and whatever is going on around me. She slows as she approaches me.
“Hey,” I say. “You look . . . hungry.” I was going to start with “beautiful,” but I don’t want this to be confusing for her. Although telling her she looks hungry probably wasn’t the best start.
“Yeah, I’m going to get some lunch.”
I hold up the paper bag with the sandwich in it. “I got you lunch. It’s the special. I thought we could try it together.” Her gaze slides from me to what I’m holding up and then back again.
“How long have you been out here?”
“Oh, I only got this fifteen minutes ago.” I’d called my assistant down and gotten them to go get another lunch for us both.
I didn’t want to take my eyes off Lucy’s building.
I couldn’t risk missing her. My assistant thought I’d gone completely nuts.
Just getting me out of the building for ten minutes would usually be almost impossible.
I’d been standing out here for two hours. But it’s worth it.
“Okay,” Lucy says suspiciously. “Thanks. I think.”
“Want to eat together?” I ask. It occurs to me that Lucy’s late for lunch because she’s busy and she’ll need to get back immediately. If that’s the case, I’ll have to wait. She’s worth it, even if every minute without her feels like a month.
She looks around at the tables. “Sure. I’m trying to only have a thirty-minute lunch break so I can spend the other thirty minutes studying.”
“Studying?” I ask. “The LSAT?” I let her lead the way to an empty table.
“Yeah,” she says as she sits down. “I’m at least going to try.”
“Right,” I say. “You have to try. Because if you don’t, you’ll never know if you could have had something.”
She frowns and looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I empty the brown bag onto the table. “‘I am half agony, half hope,’” I mumble to myself.
“What was that?” she asks with a smile. “Did you just quote Jane Austen at me?”
“Might have,” I say. “There was a big Jane Austen display at the airport bookstore yesterday. I remember you saying Persuasion was your favorite. I picked it up. And then there was no internet on the plane on the way back to New York.”
“Where did you go?”
“Boston. Back to the beginning.”
“Back to the beginning?”
“I needed to say a few things to Ed,” I say. “Things that needed to be said face-to-face.”
She takes a bite of her sandwich and watches me as she chews, waiting for more information.
“I wanted to apologize to him. I haven’t been the best business partner.”
Lucy nods like she knows what I’m saying is the truth.
“Because of what happened with me and my dad.” It’s good to say it out loud. Like saying it dilutes the feelings.
She swallows. “You were worried Ed was going to abandon you, betray you, like your father did.”
I nod. Of course, she’s always known. Lucy knows me better than anyone ever has. “One of the lines from the book really stuck with me. I mean, a lot stuck with me, but when Anne is talking to Captain Harville—”
“When Wentworth is writing Anne the letter?”
“Yeah, she says, ‘If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within.’ It stuck with me. Not because of what he’s saying about Benwick, but because it finally made me see that my dad’s never going to admit what he did.
I just need to accept that and know within myself what happened. Trust myself that I know the truth.”
She breaks into a grin. “That’s my favorite scene of any Austen book.”
“Wentworth is half crazy, needing to know if Anne has given up on him,” I say, wondering whether Lucy will give me a sign. “We find out what we’ve always suspected—that he never stopped loving her.”
Our gazes meet, so much unsaid.
“My mom’s not wrong about Austen,” she says, shaking her head. “Just most other things.”
“We both have . . .” I can’t imagine how Lucy turned out like she did, given her mother. “Things we are letting go of. Things inside we’ve had to shift and change.”
“I think you’re right, Hunter Bain.”
“I pulled away from you, and I’m sorry,” I say. “I was scared. I didn’t think I could have a successful business and . . . and you. The woman I love. I didn’t think I deserved it.”
She’s holding the sandwich at her mouth, but doesn’t take a bite. Then she lowers it and sets it back on the paper wrapping. “What was that you said?”
I hold her gaze and swallow. I’ve said it now. There’s no taking it back. “I said I love you. I’ve always loved you. But I understand if you can’t forgive me for pushing you away . . .”
I can’t interpret her expression. I’m not sure if she’s about to laugh in my face or jump into my arms.
“Huh,” she says, sitting back in her chair. “Not what I had on my bingo card for today.”
Okay, so maybe she’s not laughing or jumping.
“I get this is a bit . . . unexpected, maybe . . .”
“Why would you think that? The fact that you called me a demonic witch when we first met? Or maybe it’s the part where you dumped me two weeks ago, just as I realized that I love you?”
The metal of my chair scrapes as I shift my seat so I can lean closer to Lucy. “I was a dick. Running scared. Running from failure, from my father, from my future. But I’m done running. I want to live in the present. With you.”
Lucy breaks my gaze and glances down at her lap.
“If you love me, Lucy, and I love you, then . . .”
“Then the stakes just got really high,” she says.
“You showing up in the plaza with a chicken Caesar on whole grain doesn’t mean we just sail off into the sunset.
What happens if something happens and you want to run again?
What happens if business is bad for a year or two?
I can’t . . . my heart . . . I won’t survive it.
” She looks up into my eyes with such fragility, such vulnerability, that my heart surges in my chest. I don’t want to be the man causing her pain.
I want to be the man who’s making it better.
I want to be her shield against the bad things in this world.
“You won’t have to survive it,” I say softly. “I’m never going to run from you.”
“How can you be sure?” She shakes her head like the entire idea is futile and she’s given up already.
But I won’t let her give up.
“I’ll prove it to you.”
“That’s impossible,” she says. “How could you ever prove to me that you’ll never leave me? You got scared and you ran. But times will get tough at some point, and you’ll get scared again. I don’t want to be worried all the time that you’re going to bolt.”
“You’re right. There will be times when things get difficult. But what I’ve learned since we’ve been apart is I don’t want anything more than I want you.”
Her expression is full of hope and tenderness.
“This isn’t a book, Lucy. This is the real world.
My entire life changed when you walked into it.
I’ve been struggling with the failure of Bain Insurance since it happened.
I’ve been willing my dad to take responsibility, to apologize—something.
I’ve wanted him to do literally anything to tell me it wasn’t my fault.
Guess what?” She searches my face. “It’s never going to happen.
I’ve been circling the runway, in a holding pattern, waiting for someone to tell me to land.
Meanwhile, I’m running outta fuel. I was five seconds away from blowing things up with Ed.
I already blew stuff up with you. And I don’t know if it’s losing something I knew was good—because what we had was so, so good—but I finally realized I would lose everything good in my life if I didn’t make a change within.
I looked my dad in the eye, and I told him what I knew.
That he gave me a failing business. That he tanked Bain Insurance and left me to take the blame.
I told him I don’t want to be the father he was.
” I exhale, sitting back in my chair. “And that’s what it took to change something within me.
I’ve broken out of the holding pattern. I’ve landed.
I have clarity and I know what I want.” I lift her chin.
“‘I have loved none but you.’ From the moment I saw you and forever. There will be no one for me but you.”
She narrows her eyes. “From the moment you saw me? I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”
“You’re wrong. I just didn’t realize it at the beginning. I thought you were a pain in my ass, just like I thought Ed was slacking off. Neither could be further from the truth, but the lens I’d been viewing the world through was muddy. Not anymore.”
She sighs, and I try to think what else I can do to convince her. “There’s no certainty. Life’s about chances,” I say. “What was that thing you said to me about foolish preparation?” I ask.
A smile spreads across her face. “‘How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!’”
“Right. Maybe you don’t need to overthink this.”
Her breath hitches in her chest and she exhales shakily. “We were only a few weeks in and . . .”
“I don’t know about you, but it hurt like hell, losing you only a few weeks in. I get it. I feel exactly the same. I want you back and I won’t let you go again. How can you be sure? Nothing’s ever sure. But you’ll never know if you don’t take a chance.”
“I’ve committed to the scholarship program,” she says. “I might not get it, but if I do, I can’t turn it down . . .”
“I don’t want you to turn it down. What the hell, Lucy? You going to law school would be incredible. You deserve to do that. You’re more than worth it.”
“But it won’t leave much time—”
“You think I’m going to have much time? I told you I don’t think Ed’s about to drop me in it, not that I’m retiring. I’m always going to work hard. It’s who I am. But I’m driven by a desire to succeed now. Not by a fear of failure.”
“So you wouldn’t get grumpy if I’m in bed, studying for my LSAT or the bar exam or something?”
“Grumpy? No. Especially if you wear a really stern, serious look on your face, and maybe wear some glasses.”
She rolls her eyes. “Pervert.”
“You can’t have everything. I can’t promise that I’m not going to want to get you naked every minute of the day. And that’s probably going to last forever. So if that’s a deal-breaker for you . . .” I hold up my hands in mock surrender.
“Three days a month I’m unbearable. Like, I’m a hormonal monster.”
“Only three days a month?”
She grins. “I’m serious. It might be too much for you.”
“You’re entirely too good for me, but never too much. You’re a perfect amount. For me.”
She bites back a smile, but she looks nervous. “I’ve spent my entire life a little bit broken. Mom chipping away bit by bit . . . But I’ve never felt so breakable as I did when you said you wanted to take a step back. I can’t do that again.” She reaches for me.
“I promise you won’t have to.” I cup her face in my hands and bring my forehead to hers. “I’m going to keep you safe for the rest of our lives.”
“Forever?”
“Longer, if possible.” I press a small kiss against her lips.
“Wentworth was always my favorite Austen hero.” She exhales, and the tightness leaves her body. We’re joined. Connected. Back together, forever.