Chapter 17
I’D WOKEN UP ALONE IN a hotel room. I had the momentary confusion of waking up in a strange place, followed almost immediately by reaching for the empty spot in the bed next to me.
When I realized Charlotte snuck out in the middle of the night, I got to experience the heady roller coaster ride that was alternating disappointment, heartache, and anger.
I was currently in the anger phase. I didn’t like the way it felt, but after a day and a half of the other bullshit, I hated it a whole lot less than the broken-hearted bits.
Or the ones where I was reminded of how colossally wrong I’d gotten things.
Foolish me had fallen asleep holding the woman I loved—yeah, I said it—believing she was at least interested in trying to work out some kind of relationship.
Instead, she’d bolted like a big chicken.
The problem was I didn’t think Charlotte was afraid of anything.
At least not without good reason. She was one of the most determined people I knew.
I couldn’t imagine her acting on anything less than a well-reasoned opinion, which meant she’d probably thought long and hard before deciding taking a chance on us wasn’t worth it.
The heartache came surging back, and I did my best to tamp the fucker down.
I didn’t have a chance to tell her about my career, so I couldn’t blame her leaving on some long-held preconceived notion she had about gender inequality in relationships.
Not that she was wrong, but I’d hoped for a chance to prove to her—prove to both of us—that it could be different.
Instead, she’d decided taking a chance on us, even without the added complication of my job, wasn’t worth it.
And she’d done it in the dark of night, without so much as acknowledging I was half of the equation. It was a coward’s move.
I shoved open the door to the gym, grateful to have a new direction for my inconvenient emotions.
I’d channel that shit into power cleans.
It might not get me anywhere close to Zen, but at least it would feel productive.
And it would keep my trainer from blowing up my texts with demands for more sessions.
Every time my phone chirped with a text alert, I popped up like Pavlov’s dogs hoping it was Charlotte, none of which helped with the desperate, needy feelings I was working hard to avoid.
My phone rang and I had that heart in the throat feeling, which made no sense. She hadn’t answered any of my texts. I had absolutely no reason to think she’d call, which didn’t stop my mood from taking a nosedive when I saw Erik’s name on the screen.
“What?”
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Erik sounded like he didn’t care either way.
It was exactly the kind of disinterest I needed to get over myself. Feeling lousy about what might have been was one thing. Spreading that shit around to the rest of the world was something else entirely.
“Sorry. What’s up? Something happen with the lease option?” I could throw myself into work. That would be more productive and a hell of a lot less painful than giving my sadistic trainer free rein.
“No. Everything’s still on schedule. I was calling to see if you’d worked things out with Charlotte or if you still wanted my help.”
“I don’t remember asking for your help.” At least not in so many words.
“Fuck off. Do you want me to hook you up or not?”
I was supposed to say yes. I wanted to say yes.
But there was a part of me that wondered what would be different.
If she’d turned away from the possibility of us before, why would ambushing her with a blind date and my career make her change her mind?
I knew the answer without asking the question.
It wouldn’t. If anything, it was more likely to blow up in my face than end up with Charlotte in my arms.
“Yes.” If you wanted something, you took a chance. I wanted Charlotte, so I’d take the chance, tell her everything, and pray she saw the risk was worth taking, too. If not, I could at least walk away knowing I’d been honest and vulnerable and willing to imagine better.
It had all the makings of a disaster.
––––––––
I WANTED TO say I hadn’t spent the past two weeks thinking about Ford, but I didn’t have the energy to lie to myself.
I’d worn myself out with work. My clients were better represented than ever.
I couldn’t get them back the years they’d spent chasing love or unbreak their hearts, but I could get them the best damn settlement possible.
And if not happiness, maybe a little vindication.
It was more than I’d managed for myself.
When Alex bugged me one more time about the blind date, it was easier to say yes than to work up the energy to say no.
The car pulled up in front of the Antoinette Center, and I checked my lipstick and smoothed a hand over the ponytail I’d fastened my hair in.
Alex and Erik offered to pick me up, but I just couldn’t bear playing third wheel to the happy couple.
Going out was bad enough. My heart ached, and I missed Ford.
A half dozen times every day, I thought of something I wanted to text him.
A picture of a recipe we could try or something I wanted to ask him.
The few minutes I wasn’t working, I spent cruising food blogs in some kind of weird culinary version of emotional cutting.
At least getting dressed up and fielding advances from the guy Erik set me up with would be a distraction.
But it was another thing to feel bad about.
It didn’t matter how charming the guy was, or how good on paper; he didn’t stand a chance.
I was one of those baby ducks who imprinted on a golden retriever and then couldn’t transition back to being a duck again.
The ones who followed the object of their affection around, living their best dog life when they should be paddling around in a lake somewhere.
Or maybe it was nothing like that. Regardless, when I imagined kissing someone, it was Ford’s face I saw.
Ford’s voice calling me cher in that way that sounded like sha, telling me to sugar the beignets and don’t hold back.
I didn’t know how long it would be before I could picture someone else in that role, but I knew tonight wasn’t the night.
I made my way up the stairs, careful of my strappy sandals and the skirt of the celadon column dress I’d chosen as armor for the evening.
I couldn’t go out defenseless, and the height of the heels and the low drape of silk baring most of my back projected a confidence I didn’t feel.
This was one situation where I was perfectly comfortable faking it until I made it.
Or until I was safely back home again—whichever came first.
I scanned the room at the top of the stairs and exhaled when I saw Alex and Erik.
Under the premise that ripping off a Band-Aid was better than inching it off, I started toward my friends.
Alex shifted slightly, laughing at something someone said.
Erik followed her like a satellite. My heart softened a little.
The guy clearly adored my friend. It might not change my views on love, but even his unconscious body language was directed at Alex.
He leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek, and I caught a glimpse of a familiar set of shoulders. A familiar jaw and—fuck.
Ford turned to face me. Ford in a tuxedo that fit like it had been made for him.
My heart did a kind of stutter, and I froze in place.
I’d barely been holding it together when he was just a thought in my head, a memory of the things we’d done together.
Faced with the reality of the man in front of me, I didn’t stand a chance.
“What are you doing here?” I grabbed onto the one thought I could actually handle, and given the circumstances, maybe the most important one.
He took a step toward me, his expression shifting from warmth to a heat that had nothing to do with sex. Ford was angry. Justifiable given the way I’d left him and ignored his texts. Anger was fine; that was something I could work with.
“You two know each other? How?” Alex moved into my line of sight, breaking the rage sex web that bound me to Ford the second I saw him.
“Ford is the praline guy I mentioned at Meredith’s.” I couldn’t say I told her about him because I hadn’t told her anything. Maybe if I had, we could have nipped this case of mistaken identity in the bud.
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide in surprise a second before she broke into a grin. “Ohh.” She dragged the word out to two syllables.
“No,” I said, cutting her off before she went tripping too far down the happily ever after path. I didn’t know what was going on, but Ford and I and a two-syllable oh weren’t it.
“Introductions seem redundant at this point, but we might do better if we threw in some last names.” Erik put his hand on Ford’s shoulder and turned to face me. “Charlotte Ellis, I’d like you to meet Ford Landry. He’s a client, a wildly successful restauranteur, and your date for the night.”
I’d been looking for a reason to hate Erik, and he’d finally given it to me.
Either that or he just got caught in the ricochet.
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think of anything beyond the fact that Ford lied to me.
After all the “just be honest with me” bullshit he’d spouted while we were in bed together, he’d lied to me about who he was.
I was walking around nursing a broken heart for a man who’d never really existed.
Which confirmed my reasons for walking out the door of the hotel room in the first place.
At least I didn’t have to deal with the niggling doubt anymore.
The thought that I might have turned away from something real. True love, my ass.
But I could turn away now.
“I’ll talk to you later.” I directed my comment to Alex before I turned to go.
“Charlotte, wait,” Ford called after me.
A smart woman would ignore him, keep going out the door, straight home and out of the uncomfortable heels and dress, not stopping until she was on the couch with a pint of peanut butter cup Halo Top and an e-reader.
But my couch held too many memories of snuggling with Ford, watching Discovery of Witches with his arms around me. His lips pressed to the top of my head.
Apparently, I wasn’t as smart as I liked to think.
I spun around to face him, channeling the full force of my anger without raising my voice.
Years in the courtroom taught me when a woman yells, she’s ignored, but get quiet and they start to get afraid.
“You lied to me. You had weeks to tell me the truth and you didn’t.
We don’t have anything else to say to each other. ”
“Like hell we don’t. You’re the one who snuck out of bed in the middle of the night without so much as a good-bye.
Who didn’t answer my texts. You closed the door and never bothered to look back.
You’re the one who thought you were going on a date with a stranger.
Didn’t take you long to get back on that horse. ”
“Fuck you.” Asshole. He did not get to judge me. Not for that or anything else. I turned away, determined to get the hell out of there, even if it meant leaving one of my heels behind like Cinderella. I harbored no delusions about a prince chasing after me. Ford was the only one there.
“Charlotte, wait. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. Please.”
It was the please that stopped me, but just for a second and just because I needed a place to direct the rage and hurt I didn’t want to carry anymore.
“You know what? You are a stranger to me. I have no idea who you are.” I let everything else go for the moment, including the fact that he seemed to have known I was the one showing up tonight. I’d deal with that and Erik later.
“You know all the important parts. You know I want to be with you. That I wanted to take a chance on us. I still do.” He looked sincere—if you were into that kind of thing. I wasn’t. “I never meant to lie to you. You’re the one who insisted on no last names. You just assumed you knew who I was.”
“You really want to have a spirit of the law versus letter of the law argument with me? You were working behind a fucking bar. I assumed you were a bartender. It wasn’t exactly a stretch.
” I drew in a deep breath, letting my anger push away some of the pain.
“You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. You chose to lie to me instead.”
“You’re right. A lie of omission is still a lie. I’m not going to make excuses. I could have told you the truth—I should have, and I didn’t.”
“So why didn’t you?” I hated myself a little for caring about the reason and hated him even more for making me believe things like love and happily ever after were real, even though I knew better.
“You don’t date men with powerful careers. Hell, you don’t even tell them what you actually do. I was afraid if I came clean about my work, you’d run.”
“That’s not a reason to lie.” His words hit too close to home, and I had less than no desire to face what he was saying.
“You’re right. It wasn’t.”
He had to stop agreeing with me and admitting to his mistakes. It made holding onto my rage and everything else that much harder.
“It doesn’t matter. Really, I should have expected it—just one more lie between lovers.”
Anger flared in his eyes, and I had a feeling he was done blaming himself. Suited me. It made walking away that much easier.
“You were okay with things when you thought I was just a bartender, and you held the power. I didn’t threaten you.
I was someone disposable. Someone you could toss aside when we were over.
You didn’t have to face the possibility that we could be something more to each other.
You walked away from a chance to build something together.
Something that was ours.” He held himself straight, the force of his whole body adding credence to what I’m sure he thought was the truth.
“Tell me I’m wrong, cher. We both know I’m not. ”
“No, you’re wrong. About part of it, anyway. You were never disposable.” Grief hit me in a way that threatened to knock me flat. I braced as if the threat were physical and not just a shattered heart. “You were spectacular, but we are over. You got that part right.”
I turned to leave without bothering to look back.
He didn’t try to stop me.