Chapter 27
Theo
The next few weeks pass in a blur of activity. My days are spent mostly finishing off my final reports and meeting new potential board members. My evenings are spent ravaging Whitney all over my apartment—soon to be our apartment.
Ever since she agreed to move in with me, the weekends have suddenly filled up with assisting her in packing all of her stuff into boxes and slowly starting to move things from her place over to mine.
She’s been sleeping in my bed every night and waking up next to me every morning since saying she’d move in, and I can’t say I’ll ever get tired of seeing her bright eyes first thing in the morning.
It seems that the more time I spend with her, the more I just get greedier and greedier. I want my life to be consumed with everything Whitney Palmer. And for the most part, I think she feels the same way.
Everything seems to be falling into place perfectly.
Honestly, that should be my first clue that something would go haywire. But I was so blissed out in my perfect addiction for her that I never saw it coming.
Until I got blindsided by something so inconsequential, yet still entirely disarming.
“Whitney?” I call out as I walk into our bedroom. I hear her rustling around in the bathroom, and then she emerges with a toothbrush stuck in her mouth.
“Yeah?” she asks, her voice muffled as she brushes her teeth.
The penthouse has been a mess since she officially moved in.
All of her items and special memories haven’t all found their home amongst my things, either.
While she was getting ready for the day, I had been going through a box of some of her desk things, hoping to find a way to turn my office into a shared office space for the two of us.
On accident, I swung around too quickly and knocked the box over.
It crashed to the floor and I hurried to pick everything up.
But as I was doing that, I came across something entirely too coincidental.
I didn’t mean to stumble across it or invade her privacy, but when the notebook fell on the floor, it landed halfway open.
When I picked it up caught sight of my own name listed on the top, curiosity got the best of me.
I stared at it blankly for a few minutes, flipping between the pages with different names at the top then down to the same list over and over, but each having different boxes checked off.
I hold up the small, pink, leather-bound notebook and look at her with a raised eyebrow. Whitney stops mid-brush, her face morphing into an expression of alarm. She spins around and spits out her toothpaste in the sink before stepping back into my bedroom.
“Where did you find that?”
I let a long silence fall between us before admitting, “I was trying to set up your office things and it fell out and landed open on my page, conveniently. Want to explain what this is?”
Panic is evident in her blue eyes as she steps closer and holds out her hand like she plans to take it from me. I yank it away, keeping a firm grip on it. “It’s nothing, Theo. Just something silly.”
“Number one,” I start, and Whitney looks like she’s about to throw up. “Trustworthy. Number two—”
“Theo, stop,” she protests and takes another step forward.
But I don’t, too riled up to stop.
“Honesty and integrity. Oh, or my favorite, Number Eight: Attentive in the bedroom. It looks like I’ve checked off more boxes than just about anyone.
Good for me, I guess.” I laugh dryly. “Except for this one guy, Daniel. He’s got just one or two less than me.
So what, did he just not meet your expectations and you eventually said enough was enough?
” I look up at Whitney standing over me, her face flushed red.
Dropping my arm, I stare at her, feeling hopeless, the worst parts of myself raging to the surface and reminding me just how worthless I am. “What is this, Whitney?”
“It’s just some dumb thing that I made forever ago,” she says.
“Forever ago, huh? Then why do you still have it? Why am I in it? From what it looks like to me, it seems like you’re meticulously waiting for me to satisfy your requirements so you can check it off in your little notebook.”
She presses her lips together and slowly shakes her head.
I push myself up off the mattress and start to pace the room.
With a frustrated growl, I turn on her. “I don’t want to be measured up to some unattainable expectation.
I don’t want to go through this relationship with you wondering how I’m ranking against your idea of a ‘perfect boyfriend’.
How do I know I’m not the next Daniel? Are you just going to wake up one day and realize I haven’t met enough boxes and then you’ll just be done with me like that too? ”
“Theo, just listen—”
I hold up a hand and stop her. I’m quickly losing the battle against my irritation and the last thing I want to do is say something to her that I regret.
“No. No, we’re going to have to do this later.
” She looks as though I’ve just slapped her.
“You know, I have a board meeting in an hour, and didn’t you say something about a dentist appointment this morning?
I don’t have time to dig into this with you right now. ”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Then why did you even bring it up?”
I raise an eyebrow at her in response. I did go back and forth, mulling over whether to let it lie or to bring it up. But ultimately, I knew I couldn’t just ignore it without knowing what her motive was. “How could I not?”
Now, her expression morphs into one that’s pleading. “Theo,” she says my name, hesitating as if waiting for me to stop her again. When I don’t, she says, “It’s just some stupid thing I’ve always done. It means nothing.”
That sparks a small flame of irritation inside of me, and I can’t help but frown at her.
“Somehow, that makes it worse. So you’re saying I’ve checked off almost every single thing on this stupid list, and I’m supposed to believe it means nothing?
This makes me feel cheap, Whitney, to see my name stacked up against these guys of your past. As if everything we’ve done so far is only to meet the requirements of your expectations. ”
Her eyes widen again, and she shakes her head. “It’s not.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m just not really sure what to do with this right now. So please just—Let’s just get through the day, and we can talk about this later, alright?”
When I open my eyes, I note that Whitney looks the complete opposite of alright with my suggestion, but she nods her head anyway, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle in some sort of show of defense.
It makes me grit my teeth that she’s feeling so vulnerable about this, but I can’t find it in me to comfort her just yet.
I will.
I swear I will. I’ll spend my whole life doing exactly that.
I just need to stew over this for a minute.
Am I allowed that much?
Closing the distance between us, I lean down and press a kiss on her cheek. When I pull away, she’s looking up at me with wide eyes that seem to rip my heart right out of my chest. I have to turn away from her before she brings me to my knees.
“We’ll talk later, okay?” I tell her, my voice softening.
I grab my suit jacket off the edge of the bed and swing it over my arm, moving to leave the bedroom.
I hear her quiet “Okay” from behind me, and it takes everything in me to keep walking.
But I need some space. I need to figure out what the hell she’s been doing all this time that we’ve been together.
The insecurities are raging strong deep inside of me. I mean, how could they not? I’m a thirty-six-year-old millionaire who still hasn’t found the right person to settle down with. And it’s not for lack of trying. Of course, that makes me feel as though I’m deficient in one way or another.
Then I find Whitney, and everything realigns in my life. Everything feels right.
Only for me to find out that she’s been grading me against every other man she’s been with to find that potentially perfect match. And this Daniel fellow, he only had one box less than me, but obviously that also wasn’t enough for her. So what did that mean for me?
The tiny voice in my head that I hate is rampantly whispering that maybe that’s the only reason she’s put up with me this long. Maybe she’s only with me because I check off her damn boxes. That I’m going to be her first ‘perfect ten.’
My thoughts fly to my past relationship with Lauren Farthington, and instantly I remember the unworthiness I felt when she told me over and over again that I wasn’t enough for her. That was what ultimately drove her to cheat on me. I didn’t give her enough, I wasn’t enough.
And now it seems that, yet again, I’m being gauged on my ability to deliver on expectations. Such is my luck.
As soon as I’m downstairs and in my car, I pull out my phone, dialing my brother.
He answers right away, but he doesn’t sound happy about it. “What do you need? I’m kind of busy right now.”
In the distance, I can hear a female voice asking him who’s on the phone. I jump to the conclusion that he spent the night with Leila. Again.
At some point, I’ll need to grill my brother about what the heck he’s doing with Leila. She seems to be able to match him in his wild child ways, and I suspect that anything between them could be perfect or catastrophic. But he doesn’t seem to be worried about any of that.
But at this moment, I’m too frazzled by the road bump in my own relationship to care about whatever he’s doing.
“Whitney’s apparently been keeping track of all of my good qualities,” I spit out. It sounds so comical when I say it out loud. And again, a part of me wonders why I’m so bothered by this, and another part reassures me that I should be bothered.
Chase laughs on the other end of the line. “That’s weird.”
I want to roll my eyes. Weird doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about this newfound information. “That’s one way to put it.”