Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
LAUREL
F irst thing on Wednesday morning, I headed for the airport in Nashville and got on my flight to Denver, stoked to see Leif and more grateful than ever to have someone like Grace in my life. The girl was a godsend. She had been massively excited that I trusted her with the store for a few weekdays at this time of year, and she’d gushed about her gratitude for the opportunity.
I chuckled as I buckled up in my seat, wondering how I had gotten so lucky to have found the one teenager in town who got excited about working harder. Vowing to give her an amazing Christmas present, as well as a hefty holiday bonus, I turned my thoughts from Franklin to Denver and, more specifically, to who was waiting for me there.
Butterflies took flight in my stomach when the plane started moving. Part of me still couldn’t believe that I was doing this, but I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to see him. These last few days had been brutal. I knew it was something I had to get used to, but I’d pushed myself as far as I could for this round.
As we taxied down the runway, I pulled out my phone and started surfing Instagram, desperately needing to kill the time until I got there. I scrolled through my feed while we waited for our turn to take off, pausing when I saw a post from one of my favorite nonprofits.
They had national reach and were involved in all things kid related. I’d worked with them on occasion when they were promoting youth literacy, donating children’s books and even signed copies of my own books for older teenagers.
What had made me pause at their post, however, wasn’t another call for authors to support reading or literacy programs. It was a familiar face, smiling as he shook hands with a guy I recognized as an organizer.
Quickly placing two fingers on the screen, I zoomed in, wondering if I was imagining things, but I wasn’t. My head wasn’t playing tricks on me just because I missed him so much.
The picture truly was of Leif, volunteering with a team at a Christmas toy drive. I smiled as I stared at his face, noticing the genuine excitement and joy on his features. I hadn’t known he was involved with this organization too, but I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Leif had always been philanthropic. Both of us used to help out at various nonprofits in and around Austin when they needed an extra pair of hands, and we’d done our fair share of fundraising together back in high school.
Of course, he’s also still at it. It’s just another amazing thing we have in common, ending up working with the same organization even as adults, living over a thousand miles apart.
Tapping my thumb on the post, I scrolled through pictures of the drive, truly excited by how many gifts had been donated this year. There were piles everywhere, toys still to be wrapped in big black bins and already wrapped presents neatly stacked on tables lining the walls.
Leif didn’t appear in many of the pictures, but as I scrolled through, I spotted him in the background of some, laughing with a guy at his station and another of him admiring a bright red package wrapped in too much gold ribbon and with five bows on it.
The next photograph made my stomach clench. It was of him and an incredibly beautiful woman, standing close together and obviously talking. I couldn’t see Leif’s face, but I did see hers.
Not only did she look like a porcelain doll, with delicate features and pale, smooth skin, but she also looked like one who admired the person she was staring at. Her eyes were locked on his, round and open in that way that tended to happen when you were intently listening to someone you liked. Maybe even loved.
A foreboding feeling crept into my veins as I zoomed in on the picture, but I forced myself to shake it off. They weren’t touching or anything else that should’ve given me a reason to feel the way I was. From what I could see, they were really just talking.
From the other pictures, it was clear that he’d taken people over there to volunteer and I knew that he oversaw many staff. In all likelihood, this woman was from his office and the photographer had simply captured a moment in which they’d been saying something to each other.
From really close by, but it might also just be the angle making them seem closer together than they had actually been. I squinted at the picture in the hopes that it would provide further answers or information, but ultimately, it was just a picture. It couldn’t give me anything more than it already had, and I closed it out, not wanting to go to the place my mind had been flung to as soon as I’d seen it.
I hadn’t been able to help that immediate suspicion that there was something more going on, but I could control whether I dwelled on it. Being cheated on was a traumatic experience for anyone, as it had been for me.
It wasn’t something I wanted to have shaping my life or my relationship with Leif, though. I knew that I couldn’t allow it to dominate my thoughts, or else my paranoia and constant suspicion would drive away any other man who tried to get close to me. Leif included.
Therapy had taught me that not every man was my ex, and Leif certainly wasn’t. Neil had never been as open or as vulnerable with me as Leif had been since the moment he’d walked back into my life. He also had tiptoed around discussions about our potential future together, walking on egg shells about it, but stringing me along by saying just enough to make me believe that was where we were headed.
What had happened with him in the end had definitely left a scar—not because I’d been hopelessly in love with him, but because it’d made me hesitant to truly allow myself to believe in a man. To place my faith and my trust in him for a happily ever after.
I set my phone to airplane mode and we took off. Leaning back in my comfortable seat, I turned toward the window, watching the clouds drifting by outside and wondering if surprising Leif had been such a good idea. Do I really want to drop in on him? Am I ready for what I might find?
It was too late to turn back now, but for the rest of the flight, I was a lot more nervous than I had been when I’d boarded. When we finally touched down in Colorado, my stomach flipped, my heart fluttering at the thought that I was officially on his turf now.
Late yesterday afternoon, I’d reached out to Jack, coordinating with him to collect me from the airport and take me to their firm to surprise Leif. He’d promised he’d be there, and mercifully, his was the first face as I saw after I’d collected my bag.
Waiting for me as close as he could get to the doors, a wide grin spread on his lips when I emerged. “Lulu! Over here!”
I smiled, the wheels of my carry-on practically whirring on the ground behind me as I raced over to him. “Jack! Hi. Thanks for coming to get me.”
“Of course, kiddo,” he said, wrapping me up in his arms for a tight hug. “It’s great to see you. Leif is going to be so stoked that you’re here. I can’t wait to see his face when you walk into the office. He’s going to cream his jeans. He hasn’t shut up about you since you got back.”
A frisson of relief worked its way through me. See? You have nothing to worry about.
Smiling as I released him, I took a step back and looked up in his eyes. “Alright then, it’s great to see you too, but I’d really like to see your brother now.”
He laughed. “Follow me, sis. Shit, it’s good to have you here. I will admit that I was surprised when you told me you were coming and that he doesn’t know. You really have changed.”
I shrugged, sending him a playful smile as we left the airport terminal. “I’m going to take that as a compliment. I don’t think I’ve changed that much. I think I’m just… growing. Learning how to let loose a little.”
“Whatever it is, I like it.” He grinned, tossing his arm around my shoulders for a sideways squeeze as he led me to his car.
The lights of a super fancy, overpriced sports car flashed as we approached, and I turned my head to arch an eyebrow at him. “Is that really yours?”
He smirked. “My first purchase as soon as we started making the big bucks. What do you think?”
“I think you’re overcompensating for something.”
“Gee, thanks.” He laughed as he took my luggage from me and crammed it into the car’s tiny trunk. “Maybe I simply happen to enjoy speed and power.”
“Uh huh,” I joked as I opened the passenger door, surprised when it moved up instead of just opening. “Just don’t get too fast and furious on the way out of the airport.”
Jack guffawed with laughter, shaking his head at me. He climbed in too, turning over his engine and racing out of the parking area while I was still buckling up. Leaving me to admire the unfamiliar landscape, he focused on navigating our way through the mid-afternoon traffic. We pulled up in front of a large, fancy, glass-sided building before he turned into a parking garage underneath it.
“Here we are,” he said. “Office, sweet office.”
“This is yours?” I asked, finally turning to face him as I tried not to gape. “Seriously?”
He winked at me. “Not all of it, but yes. This is HQ. Has my brother neglected to brag excessively about how awesome our firm is?”
“Yes.”
“Pity,” he said teasingly. “You’d have flown out here weeks ago if he’d told you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Not true. He hasn’t had to brag excessively because I happen to love him for who he is. His bank account has nothing to do with it.”
Jack grinned and came to an abrupt stop in a huge parking space right next to the elevator doors. As I stepped out, I saw a navy blue truck parked in the space on the other side of the doors and I smiled, assuming it belonged to Leif.
It was new but not flashy or pretentious. Gosh, I love that man.
He seemed to have managed to stay grounded despite owning a jet, and I adored him for remaining true to himself. Jack grabbed my attention when he strode past me, nodding toward the elevator.
“Are you coming?”
“Yep.” Nerves and excitement mingled in my belly as I followed after him, my hands trembling slightly.
As we ascended, I dragged in a deep breath, then followed him out when the doors slid open in front of us. I really wanted to take a look around the space, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than Jack’s back right then.
Maybe later, once I’ve seen Leif, I’ll feel better and he can give me a tour.
When we reached the far end of a corridor, Jack flicked a finger toward a glass wall beside us. “There he is. Your guy. I’ll go grab your things from the car. I have a feeling he’s going to want to take you straight to his place.”
Jack doubled back, leaving me alone. My eyes widened as they darted to the side and I realized that we’d made it to his office, but then my stomach sank when I saw what was happening inside. A woman was in there with him, facing in my direction while Leif had his back to me.
She was holding something in her hands and he slowly leaned down, bending over to kiss her? Disbelief smacked me right in the heart, but it sure looked like that was what he was doing.
As I blinked repeatedly, I saw wrapping paper and fabric on his desk. Tears burned the backs of my eyes as I focused on it. Is that lingerie?
Whatever it was, it was small and made of red lace. So lingerie, then.
It was in that moment that I realized this was way more than I’d thought on the plane. The woman in there with him was the same girl who had been in that picture I’d seen, and it was pretty obvious she wasn’t just someone he oversaw at work.
My heart broke into ten million pieces, my thoughts racing even as I struggled to comprehend how this could be happening again. After Neil had cheated on me, infidelity in a relationship had become my greatest fear.
Leif knew that. I’d told him about it and he’d sworn to me that he would never, ever do that. And yet…
In the space between one of my shredded heart’s beats and the next, I spun and took off down the corridor, flat-out running back to the elevator. I heard footsteps pounding behind me and the sound of Leif’s voice calling my name, but it was distant.
Far away.
My entire body, mind, and soul were focused on only one thing, and that was getting the hell out of there. Coming to Denver had been a mistake, but not nearly as big a mistake as fooling myself into believing that I could trust my high school sweetheart.
Clearly, he wasn’t the guy he had been back then. He was another dick in search of any hole to shove himself into.
“Take me back to the airport,” I said to Jack as soon as I flew out of the elevator back in the parking garage, grateful that Leif had been too late to catch it above.
Jack frowned, but after taking a single look at my face, he nodded and tossed my things back into his trunk, sliding into the driver’s seat when he was done. “What happened?”
All I could do was shake my head. My insides felt like they were being torn apart, my heart in smoking shambles, and my brain still unable to process what I’d seen—let alone to believe it. But I’d been here once before.
It hurt so much worse this time and it cut so much deeper because this was Leif , but ultimately, I knew that, as hard as it could be to believe, people cheated. That was what I’d walked in on up there, even if part of me was desperately trying to come up with any other alternative explanation.
My hands were shaking like leaves as I pulled my phone out of my purse, fighting my sobs and tears. I booked the first flight back home. Thankfully, it left in only ninety minutes. I didn’t want to fall apart in front of Leif’s brother, but I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it all in. Hopefully, it would be long enough that I could call Gemma or Mariam to cry it out with them instead of Jack.
When he dropped me off at the airport, I took my things and gave him a sad nod, still unable to say a word as I took my shit and left, determined to leave Denver and never come back. It’d seemed like a nice enough city, but it would now forever be the place where I’d had my heart broken by the only person I’d ever given it to completely.