25. Cooper
TWENTY-FIVE
Cooper
I ’m out at dinner with a new client and the restaurant he’s chosen is abuzz with chatter and the occasional sound of cutlery scraping across plates and glasses being clinked.
I’ve never dined here before and it wouldn’t have been my first choice for a client meeting, but I’d definitely bring Meghan for a romantic dinner.
I’ve missed her while she’s been away and just thinking of breaking rule number four— no dates— brings a smile to my lips.
Admittedly, I haven’t spoken to her as much as I should since she’s been away, but she seemed preoccupied with helping her dad and I’ve had a couple of big cases come in since she left.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and although I would normally leave it until after my meeting, Mr. Kincaid is in the bathroom and I haven’t heard from Meghan for a few days .
I need my fix of her .
Pulling my phone out of my suit pocket, I check the screen—it’s blank. My brow pulls into a frown as I stare down at my phone. Going to put it back in my pocket, I pause before I do, instead opening the mail app. I find an email from Meghan at the top.
She hasn’t sent me an email the whole time she’s been gone. Something isn’t right about this. I open her email and my eyes scan the screen as my stomach drops.
To: C Jackson [email protected]
CC: HR [email protected]
From: M Taylor [email protected]
Subject: Resignation
Dear Mr. Jackson,
Please take this email as my resignation, effective immediately. It has been a pleasure working with you and I have learned a great deal in my short time at the firm. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Kind regards,
Meghan Taylor
Something is definitely wrong.
Has something happened to her dad?
Opening the phone app, I’m about to press her name when my client returns to the table. I exhale a silent sigh of frustration as I pocket my phone and return my attention to Mr. Kincaid and what I can do for his case.
Meghan remains in the back of my mind throughout discussions and I want nothing more than to leave this restaurant and track her down.
To demand some answers .
My dinner with Mr. Kincaid lasted much longer than I would have liked, which means it’s after ten when I leave the restaurant and can try and reach out to Meghan.
Climbing into the back of the town car, I pull my phone out and dial her number—it goes to voicemail. Hanging up, I try again before deciding to send a text message.
Cooper
Call me, Meghan. I’m worried about you.
It remains undelivered, and I barely resist the urge to throw my phone out of the car window as my anger builds. How could she just up and resign like that? No conversation, nothing.
I call her again and for a moment I contemplate going to her place, before I realize it’s redundant because she’s in Sacramento. The car pulls up to my building and as I climb out, I wish Christopher a goodnight.
With my phone clenched in my hand, I ride the elevator to my floor, my eyes watching the numbers, willing it to go faster.
The doors have barely opened when I rush through them, making my way down the corridor to my door.
I'm still in the doorway when I try to call her again and am greeted by the sound of her voicemail. Again.
Fuck.
What is going on?
I need to know that everything is okay. I don’t understand why this is happening, but I want to make whatever is wrong, right.
Cooper
Answer the fucking phone, Meghan.
I’m about to dial her number again, but a text comes through that causes me to pause. At least I know her phone is on and working now.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I press her name to open the message, but it’s short lived as I read the message. My chest constricts and I feel like I’m drowning except I’m making no effort to swim to the surface. I drop onto the couch as a another message comes through.
Meghan
Please don’t call me again, Cooper. I have nothing to say to you right now.
I text her back almost immediately.
Cooper
I don’t understand. What’s happened ?
She doesn’t respond and the bubbles don’t move to show she’s replying. Reading her message again, it dawns on me that she’s broken up with me—in a fucking text message.
How could she do this?
A strangled sound of pain that I’ve never heard myself make before escapes me, and I throw my phone at the wall in frustration. I listen to it smash as my head tips back and I get choked up by the tears welling in my eyes.
This is what it feels like to have your heart broken.
She’s broken my heart, and she didn’t even know she had it.
Standing from the couch I head to the kitchen, pouring myself a generous glass of whiskey, downing the contents before pouring another one. I don’t understand what’s happened, what’s gone so wrong.
She’s left me, in all the ways she possibly could’ve—she’s quit her job and ended what we had.
My heart is telling me something must have happened and I should find out what it is but my logical head is telling me to walk away and leave her alone .
Maybe I should listen to my heart for once. I could track down her friend tomorrow and see if she knows what’s going on. Maybe.
Tonight, I’m getting drunk .
A banging sound in the distance rouses me from my sleep. Maybe they’ll go away, if I ignore them. I’m not in the mood for company. Rolling over onto my back, I throw an arm over my eyes to ward off the daylight. Why didn’t I close the curtains last night? Dammit, my head is pounding.
When the banging continues, I roll out of bed with a groan, throwing on a pair of sweatpants as I move toward the front door. Not caring who could be on the other side, I swing open the door without checking the peephole. Nobody can get up that isn’t on my list anyway.
My list currently consists of my mom, Jamison, Sebastian, and Meghan… Ah, Meghan. Fuck . I’m hungover, but not enough to forget that I’ve lost her.
“Oh, thank God.” Jamison breathes a sigh of relief. “Yeah, he’s answered the door. I’ll call you later,” he says into the phone and some of the worry that was etched across his face dissipates as he takes in my disheveled appearance.
Letting go of the door in his face, I stalk toward the kitchen with Jamison hot on my heels. Last night I drank far too much, tried to call Meghan, with my smashed up phone, a bunch more and eventually vowed to follow my head and leave her alone.
“Are you okay? You missed our two o’clock meeting, and they said you hadn’t been in all day. I, uh… heard about Meghan.”
I turn to him and narrow my eyes in suspicion. “How did you hear about Meghan?” I ask, my gaze intent on him. He looks to the floor sheepishly before straightening his shoulders and facing me, coughing into his hand before he replies.
“I saw her yesterday when she was leaving your office.”
“What do you mean you saw her? She was in New York?” I ask, desperate for information.
His brows pull into a frown as he replies. “Yeah. I had my driver give her a lift back to her place.”
Fuck . She was here, and at the office. I should have gone to her place.
“What did she say?” I practically beg.
“Nothing, just that you’d hurt her and I couldn’t help.”
She was at my office and didn’t come and see me, instead choosing to send in her resignation? And tell me to stop contacting her.
There’s no point in trying to figure out what this all means. She wants nothing to do with me.
I busy myself with getting some water because my tongue feels like I’ve spent the night licking a carpet. Gulping down the water, I turn back to Jamison, eyeing him over the rim of the glass.
“You want to talk about it?”
“I’m not sure what there is to talk about. She resigned, I tried to call her, and she said she didn’t want me to contact her again.” I lift one shoulder in a shrug as I turn away from him and bring a hand up to rub my chest.
It hurts that she cared so little to tell me to my face that she was leaving me—especially when she was in the city. And it hurts that she didn’t give me a chance to make right whatever was wrong. It will continue to hurt until she comes back.
Or I can move on.
The thought of moving on makes my stomach turn in protest and I rest my hands on the counter top as I will away the bile threatening to rise in my throat.
“What’s the plan for the rest of the day?” Jamison asks, oblivious to my state.
“I’m going to work… I need to find a new assistant,” I reply, making my way back upstairs to my bedroom.
Jamison follows me like a puppy, wanting to comfort his owner in his time of need. I don’t need this right now. I don’t need him hovering because he thinks I’m hurt.
I am hurt. I’m fucking broken.
“You don’t want to maybe go out, get drunk and talk about it?” His voice sounds almost hopeful, which causes me to huff out a laugh and shake my head.
“Some of us work during the day,” I snap, moving toward my bathroom where I turn on the shower before going back to my room.
“Right… but it’s like three in the afternoon and the work day is almost over, right?” he calls to my back.
My stride falters at his statement before I continue to my closet to select a suit. I didn’t realize that was the time. Thankfully, I didn’t have court this morning and my day would have been spent preparing for my upcoming trial.
Or, more aptly, sitting at my desk staring at hers, going over everything that possibly could have happened to have us end like this.
“Well, I guess my day’s just starting… I’m serious Jamison, I’m going to work. I don’t want to talk about her, so just drop it. We fucked, and she left… That’s the end of it.”
“You forget I know you, Cooper, and I saw the way you were looking at her in Miami.”
“You’re full of shit,” I reply with an emotion rising in me I can’t quite identify.
She’s gone and I’m never getting her back. I love her and I need her, but deep down I know I can’t force her to want or love me back.
“Keep telling yourself that, but you practically dragged her out of that restaurant,” he replies.
I hate that he knows me so well.
“Did you gossip with Seb about that?” I ask angrily, because how dare he use my feelings for her to goad me.
I’m frustrated with him, and I haven’t ever been before, but I don’t want to talk about how she left me and broke my heart. I don’t want to admit to someone else that I love her and that she was it for me—that nobody compares to her.
Nobody will ever compare to her.
Maybe somebody said something to her? I scrap that idea when I realize that she would have talked to me about it, she wouldn’t have run away and cut all contact with me.
This is something else, maybe something she thinks I’ve done, and as much as I want to find out what it is and fix it for her, I’m going to respect her and leave her alone like she’s asked me to.
“It changes nothing,” I affirm with as much conviction in my voice as I can possibly inject, before walking into my bathroom and shutting the door on him.
Why does it have to hurt this much?
Tears well in my eyes and I blink them back, refusing to let them out over someone who could walk away so easily.
In the end, it doesn’t mean shit to love someone when they don’t love you back.
“I think you should fight for her,” Jamison calls through the door.
“I don’t take on cases I know I won’t win, and I’ve already lost her,” I whisper to my reflection in the mirror before dropping my chin down to my chest, leaning against the bowl of the sink.
She made her choice and I’m going to have to live with that as best I can.