Chapter 19
SEBASTIAN
“This sort of thing happens all the time, unfortunately.” Aiden sighed unhappily, giving me a sympathetic look. “Everything seems fine until it’s not.”
I stared at the fire chief’s final analysis of last week’s fire. The cause—faulty wiring in the new walk-in. The sort of thing the manufacturer would be held accountable for. It wasn’t Kristoff, after all.
It occurred to me that I wanted it to be, and was disappointed after reviewing the report. If Kristoff had been behind the fire, there might be something I could control. I could stop him, send him to prison for the rest of his life for nearly killing Claudia, among many other things.
Instead, I’d only been reminded of how unpredictable life was. There were certain things that could not be controlled. Fate could be a fickle bitch.
“Look at it this way,” Vaughn offered. “I know you. You had everything insured to the hilt, right?”
“Of course.” I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. Naturally, it was important that we settle the cause of the fire, and I recoup my investment.
“Do you know how long it will take before all the damage is cleaned up?” Jackson asked, polishing off his drink.
“Well, they can finally get started now since there’s no longer an investigation pending.” There was an uneasiness churning in me, and I couldn’t hide it. I didn’t have the strength. Frankly, I didn’t care, either. “I don’t know if I want to.”
“What?” Aiden burst out laughing, but the sound died when he realized I wasn’t joking.
“What are you talking about?” Grayson asked. “You’re not giving up. That’s not you.”
“I’m not giving up,” I insisted, looking around the table.
We had met at one of Vaughn’s lounges tonight on the first floor of his casino, but I was anything but laid-back the way his other guests seemed to be on a Friday night.
Suddenly, my suit was too tight, along with my skin. I wanted to burst out of it.
“Because of her?” Vaughn asked. There was that knowing tone in his voice again. He was the expert all because he was married now.
“She has a name,” I reminded him.
“Claudia,” he murmured. “Is she why?”
“It’s not as simple as that.” Nothing was simple. It had only been a few days since she left. I didn’t know if she was still in town, if she had flown to New York, or if she was in Peru. Regardless, it didn’t matter.
“There are other pastry chefs in the world,” Jackson reminded me. Because as far as they knew, that was all she was—an employee of mine with whom I’d had a falling out.
“Yeah, you can open a second restaurant with another baker,” Grayson agreed.
It was Vaughn who merely gazed at me from across the table, his drink in his hand, a gleam in his eye. “But she’s more than that, isn’t she?” he asked, raising the glass to his lips. It did nothing to hide a faint smirk.
“Wait. What?” Aiden’s head snapped around, his eyes getting wide. “Since when? When the fuck were you going to tell us?”
“I wasn’t aware I had to check in with you guys on things like this. Should we stay up late and do each other’s nails too?” I countered. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s over. She’s going back to New York to work for some hotshot chef out there so she could finally get what she wanted.”
“And you know that how?” Vaughn was not willing to let this go, and I was about to walk away if he didn’t stop pushing me.
“It’s a simple question,” Grayson pointed out when all I could do was glare.
There was nothing to do but come clean. “That asshole ex of hers came around, and I heard them talking about it, and she practically jumped at the idea.”
“So she said yes,” Aiden concluded. “Was it even his job to offer her?”
“You’re not getting it.” I looked around the table and found four blank expressions. “She didn’t say no, dammit. She didn’t tell him she had something here that she wanted to hold onto. What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Did you try asking her what she wanted?” Vaughn asked. When I glared at him, he wouldn’t back down. “Or did you assume what she wanted?”
“Oh, that’s a bad one,” Aiden said, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “Women don’t like it when you assume shit.”
“Yeah? What, did you read that on a bathroom stall?” Jackson snorted.
“I know I did the right thing, and that’s all I need to know. All right? Let’s drop it.” I had a feeling my words fell on deaf ears.
“Listen. I’m only going to say this once, and I’m going to let it go.
” Setting the glass down, Vaughn leaned in.
“If you want her to stay, you should tell her that. Don’t let this go without at least clearing the air.
For all you know, she could still be in town, wishing there was a way through this.
Don’t be an asshole,” he warned. “You’ll regret it.
If she matters to you, clear the air so you can at least say you did everything you could to make it work. ”
Motherfucker.
I never asked what she wanted.
Looking back, I couldn’t believe my stupidity.
I was hurt, wounded, so close to telling her how much she meant to me before that smirking asshole showed up and brought all of my deepest fears to the surface.
The fear that she would decide staying with me wasn’t enough.
Working with me, being with me. That her ambition could never be fulfilled with me.
That she would decide she had made a mistake.
That I had held her back. I couldn’t have lived with that, so I decided to tank us before she could.
And look where it got me—miserable, directionless, unable to think about the next steps when I was stuck on her.
“I’ve got to go,” I decided, bolting back the rest of my drink, my phone in hand, before I left the table.
“Thank God,” Aiden muttered. “You’re about as fun as watching paint dry when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Fuck you,” I fired back, and their laughter ran out behind me as I headed for the door.
No big surprise, Claudia sending my call to voicemail. I tried a second time on my way to the car. What to do? Track her down at her apartment? I had never been there, but I still had the address on file.
On second thought, I took a chance, knowing it might save me time. I could only hope she would answer, that she hadn’t blocked my number after our disastrous date.
She hadn’t. “Make it quick,” Hadley whispered while I slid behind the wheel. “I’m hiding in the bathroom.”
A strange way to begin a conversation, but I put it all together quickly enough. “She’s there, isn’t she?”
“No, I enjoy hiding in the bathroom,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. She would skin me alive.”
“I made a mistake.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Funny. I liked her a lot more this way when she wasn’t trying to awkwardly seduce me.
“What do I do? I’m serious,” I insisted when she scoffed.
What was the point of pride? The girl had damn near thrown up on me.
“I fucked up. I need to make it up to her. I want us to be a team. I lashed out… acted before I thought. And I see now what a terrible mistake that was. I just want her to come back. If that’s what she wants. ”
A few moments passed when all I heard was her breathing. “She didn’t want to leave in the first place,” she muttered. “God, I am being such a bad friend right now, but it’s true. She wanted to stay with you, but you never gave her a chance to explain.”
“I know.” I touched my head to the seat behind it, closing my eyes as a sense of regret bordering on grief settled over me like a shroud. I had caused all of this by forcing her hand. There was no one to blame but myself. “Did she take the new job?”
“She’s been in limbo since she got here.
Listen, she can work anywhere she wants.
” Fierce pride rang out in her voice. “That’s not the point.
She left New York mostly to get far away from Brandon and make a new start.
She came back because she has nobody out there now that you fucked everything up.
Your line of work doesn’t exactly allow a person to develop a social life. ”
“I know that.”
“So I’m all she’s got. I don’t know whether she plans on staying or if she’s only here to lick her wounds,” she concluded, softer now. Concerned.
“What do I do?” I asked, pride be damned. “How do I make this right?”
Snorting, she asked, “Honestly? You want to make it right? Or is this all about getting back what you think belongs to you?”
Brutal but fair. I liked her more. She was protective of somebody we both loved. “I want to make it right.”
“At this point, nothing short of showing up in person and getting on your knees would do.”
Of all times for one of my sister’s favorite sayings to come to mind. I had rolled my eyes at it more times than I could count, but it was the only thing that fit now. “Say less.”
She wanted somebody on their knees? I could do that.
I had no choice because I needed her.
When the cab rolled up in front of Hadley’s apartment building, it was five in the morning Manhattan time. People were already out and about, heading to the gym or work, or walking their dogs. The city was truly a whole other world.
Hadley had assured me Claudia would be up.
“She’s still on Vegas time,” she told me when I confirmed my plans to charter a private jet and fly out.
“I swear, she haunts this apartment all night long. I love her, but you’re costing me sleep,” she concluded.
I would have to find a way to pay her back, just as I would have to pay her back for colluding with me.
At the moment, nothing mattered as much as getting the hell out of the cab and upstairs after spending hours ready to burst out of my skin with desperation.
Hadley had told the front desk staff that I would be arriving.
I appreciated the fact that I had to show ID before they would let me onto the elevator, which took me up to the sixth floor.