Fifty-three
Peter stumbled blindly out of Anastasia’s office, ashamed of the trouble he’d caused and furious that he was powerless to rectify it.
No one—not the lowest brute—deserves what I’ve wrought.
He’d devised the plan with the sangfroid of a spider, dictating the wording to Van Dyck and placing the letter in his pocket sketchbook before going to Mertons’s workshop.
He’d regretted the plan as blackguardly almost as soon as he’d begun it and changed his mind about going through with it before arriving on Cam’s doorstep, but that carried no weight with him in the moral calculation now.
If the letter hadn’t been in his sketchbook, Anastasia would not have had the opportunity to steal it that day at the coffee shop.
His selfish maneuvering had deprived Cam of a future and her profession.
Mertons had been right when he’d said traveling to his future was akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.
Peter had destroyed her happiness, and she didn’t even know the extent or the cause—that is, until he could tell her and beg her forgiveness.
He stopped, unsurprised even in his distracted state to find himself at Cam’s office door.
His breath caught. Jacket had Cam in his arms. It was not a lover’s embrace, but it was filled with an abiding affection, and Peter tried to convince himself to be glad. This, after all, was the man who would care for her when he was gone.
He pulled himself away from the door. One thing settled. But there was more he needed to do for her. He turned and headed for the stairs.