Chapter Nine #2
The honesty lifted her gaze.
Pain moved beneath his expression now.
Not accusation.
Not anger.
Something more difficult to face because she had caused it and he was refusing to make her fix it.
“I kissed you last night,” Meagan said.
“I remember.”
“I told you I wanted you.”
“Yes.”
“And this morning, everything still exists.”
“Of course it does.”
“New York did not disappear.”
“I never expected it to.”
“My career did not become less important.”
“I never said it should.”
“Then what are we doing?”
Aaron looked at her.
“We were finding out.”
The past tense struck.
Meagan’s chest tightened.
“And now?”
“That depends on why you came here.”
She had arrived prepared to end the arrangement.
To remove the temporary excuse before it demanded a permanent answer.
“I came to say the gala is over.”
Aaron nodded once.
“All right.”
“That’s all?”
His eyes held hers.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask you to stay?”
Meagan looked down.
“I already told you I want you here,” he said. “I am not going to turn that into a test you have to pass.”
“You make it very difficult to leave.”
“I could make it easier.”
The words landed harder than she expected.
Meagan’s throat tightened.
“That may be best.”
Silence filled the office.
Aaron looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
Her heart gave one painful beat.
He stepped back.
The distance between them widened.
No dramatic ending. No argument. No kiss she could use as proof that leaving was impossible.
Aaron was giving her exactly what she had requested.
An easier exit.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said.
“That is unnecessary.”
“I know.”
The answer no longer warmed her.
It hurt.
They walked through the empty office side by side.
Not touching.
At the entrance, Meagan stopped beside the photograph of the first youth clinic.
“You added joy.”
Aaron followed her gaze.
“It needed it.”
“I thought it was sentimental.”
“You did.”
“You were right.”
He looked at her.
The tenderness in his expression was worse than disappointment.
“I hope you choose some,” he said.
Meagan’s eyes burned.
“Aaron.”
He opened the door.
Sunlight spread across the sidewalk.
“I’ll see you before you leave.”
It was not a question.
Meagan nodded.
“Yes.”
He did not ask when.
She stepped outside.
The door closed gently behind her.
Meagan sat in her rental car for eleven minutes without starting the engine.
At minute twelve, her phone buzzed.
Daniel.
She almost ignored it.
Instead, she opened the message.
Daniel: I owe you an apology for the walkthrough and last night. I kept speaking as though I still knew what you wanted. I didn’t. I’m sorry.
A second message followed.
Daniel: For what it’s worth, Martin is still interested, but you should speak to him only if the role is what you want—not because I decided it should be.
Meagan stared at the screen.
The apology didn’t hurt. It didn’t heal anything either.
Daniel had finally asked what she wanted.
Aaron had been asking from the beginning.
The difference should have made the answer obvious.
Instead, Meagan started the car and drove back to Hailey’s house.
***
The email to her supervisor remained open on Hailey’s laptop.
Meagan sat alone at the kitchen table.
Hailey and Tyler had gone to lunch with his mother. Amanda had sent six messages, then apparently exercised extraordinary restraint by not arriving.
Meagan read the draft she had written that morning.
Thank you for the opportunity. I will return to New York tonight and be in the office Monday morning to begin the Halston account.
The words were professional. Responsible. Expected.
They also made her feel tired.
Not the ordinary tiredness of a delayed flight or a late gala.
A deeper exhaustion.
The exhaustion of maintaining a life because it looked too successful to question.
Meagan placed her hands flat against the table.
She thought of Daniel’s message.
You should speak to him only if the role is what you want.
She thought of Aaron standing in the foundation office.
Do you want it?
The answer had never been Halston.
The answer had never been director.
The answer had never even been New York or California.
The answer was that Meagan did not know.
And she had been treating uncertainty as evidence that she should return to the last decision she had already made.
Her gaze moved toward the notepad near the fruit bowl.
The rules remained beneath a grocery list. Amanda had drawn red hearts around rule six.
No feelings.
Failed completely.
Meagan pulled the page free.
She looked at the six carefully written rules and understood what she had actually created.
A system with an ending.
A way to experience wanting without becoming responsible for choosing it.
The arrangement had allowed her to accept Aaron’s attention temporarily.
She could hold his hand because the gala required it.
She could kiss him because Daniel needed convincing.
She could stand beside him because the evening had terms.
Without the arrangement, Aaron’s affection belonged to her.
And Meagan did not know how to receive love that was not payment for something she had provided.
Daniel had appreciated her.
She had made reservations, remembered deadlines, bought gifts for his family, and rearranged her life until being with her required almost nothing from him.
She had called that love because he had been grateful.
She had made herself easy to keep.
Then he had left anyway.
The realization came without drama.
Clean.
Painful.
Meagan had spent eighteen months believing Daniel’s departure proved she was not exciting enough.
The truth was worse and kinder.
Daniel had never known what she wanted because Meagan had made certain her wants never inconvenienced him.
She had accepted half-love and called it enough because asking for more might have made her difficult to keep.
Now Aaron had offered something fuller.
Attention. Desire. Room.
And Meagan had almost rejected it because he refused to need her before choosing her.
She looked toward the closed front door.
She had done the same thing to Aaron that she had done to herself for years.
Reduced something real to its practical purpose.
The gala is over.
The arrangement served its purpose.
She had ended the only version of them she was willing to name.
Not because she did not want more. Because more could not be controlled.
Meagan closed the draft email.
She opened a new one.