Chapter 14
CHARLOTTE
The next Thursday, Charlotte arrived before Dominic for once, arranging her papers, which was mostly about having something to do with her hands. The motivational cat stared at her from the wall. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. She wanted to rip it down.
He walked in at four on the dot. Thermos.
Folder. Charcoal blazer over a white shirt, no tie.
Handsome as sin. Still, he looked tired: faint circles under his eyes, a tightness in his jaw that she recognized from the weeks before their wedding, when the Weston machine had been running at full speed and he'd been caught inside it.
But then he saw her, and something shifted. A softening. The tension in his face relaxing itself into an expression that was glad. Like she was the best part of his day and he couldn't help showing it.
She abruptly looked down at her papers and shuffled them.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
He sat and opened his folder. "The Mercer lighting upgrade is approved. I've got the contractor bid here — they can install the fixtures in the courtyard by—"
"I went on a date," she blurted out.
She hadn't meant to say it. The words just left her mouth, propelled by the anger she'd been carrying since Friday, since the diner, since his thumb on her chin. Since he’d entered the room and looked at her the way she had once looked at him, and it affected her.
Dominic's hand stopped turning the page. He didn't look up. A long, controlled pause, a pause that cost effort.
"With Eric Cho," she added. "The science teacher."
"I know who Eric Cho is."
"He's a good man. He's kind, he listens when I talk, and he doesn't make me feel like I'm—" She faltered. Where was she going with this? What was she doing?
"Like you're what?" His voice was low. He still hadn't looked up. His hand was flat on the page, pressing down.
"Like I'm a project."
Now he looked up. His blue eyes met hers and the impact went through her like a wave: that old, devastating electricity, the thing her body couldn't unlearn no matter how many miles she ran or how many walls she built.
"Is that what he tells you? That I'm treating you like a project?"
"He doesn't tell me anything about you. He doesn't need to. I have eyes."
"And what do your eyes see?"
"A man who's using an education grant to get close to a woman he broke."
The accusation was unfair and she knew it.
She'd watched him work. She'd seen the research, the meetings with Amrita, the hours he'd poured into building a program that would outlast whatever was happening between them.
This wasn't a strategy. She knew that. But knowing it and admitting it were different things, and admitting it meant letting go of the one shield she had left.
"I'm not using the grant," he said. Each word measured. "I'm here because the work matters. I've told you that."
"And the rest of it? The showing up, the remembering, the — the soup?"
A flash in his eyes. "The soup was a mistake. I acknowledged that."
"It wasn't a mistake. Mistakes are accidental. You reached across a table and touched my face, Dominic. That was a choice."
"You're right. It was."
"So don't pretend—"
"I'm not pretending anything." He closed his folder.
The sound was sharp in the quiet room. "You want me to be honest?
Here's honest. Yes, I think about you. Yes, I look forward to these meetings.
Yes, just now, when you told me you went on a date with Eric Cho, my chest felt like it was being pulled apart. Is that what you want to hear?"
"No."
"Too bad. You asked."
They stared at each other across the scarred table.
"You didn't want me when you had me,” she whispered.
The anger was gone from her voice. What replaced it was raw, scraped open.
"You had me, and you didn't want me. You stood next to me for six months and you didn't know my favorite color, my favorite memory, or the name of the kid I cried about every night because his mother was dying.
You texted me a thumbs-up on our wedding day.
A thumbs-up, Dominic. I said I can't wait to marry you and you sent me a thumbs-up.
So don't sit here and tell me you're hurt because I had dinner with someone who actually pays attention to me.
You don't get to hurt. You lost that right. "
“I did want you, Charlie. I just didn’t know what I had. And I know I lost that right.”
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to be different than the man who did those things. And I want—" He stopped himself. Expelled a hard breath. "I want you. All of you. Charlie. I want the parts I never learned. I want the stories I didn't listen to."
"You wanted Jacqueline," she said, the old hurt resurfacing. "At the altar. You wanted her."
He flinched. She watched the flinch move through him and felt nothing triumphant about it.
"I thought I did," he said. "I was wrong. I know that doesn't help. I know it doesn't undo what I did. But I was wrong.”
The conference room was quiet. She could feel her heartbeat in her wrists, in her throat, behind her eyes. The rain from a week ago had left a new stain on the ceiling, adjacent to the old one. She stared at it.
"Knowing why you hurt someone doesn't undo the hurt,” she said.
"I know. And I’ll regret what I did for the rest of my life.”
He stood. She watched, heart hammering, as he came around the table's edge. She didn't move. She should've moved. She should've picked up her folder and walked out.
He stopped a foot away. "Tell me to leave," he said. "Say the word and I'll go. I'll transfer the grant oversight to my team. You'll never have to see me again."
"I don't want you to leave."
The words fell out of her before she could stop them, honest and terrified. She heard herself say them and wanted to shove them back inside where they were safe.
His hand came up. Slowly, so slowly she could've stopped him. He was giving her time to stop him. She didn’t.
His fingers touched her jaw: the same spot as the diner, but different now. Deliberate. A question asked with his hand.
His blue eyes met hers. Held. He leaned over, pressing his lips to hers.
She returned his kiss. He deepened it, and it was as if they were drawn together by a gravity she'd spent months pretending didn't exist. His mouth on hers, warm, steady and desperate all at once.
His hand sliding from her jaw to the back of her neck, into her hair, her unruly brown curls he'd never touched when they were together because she'd always pinned them up.
She grabbed the front of his blazer and pulled him closer, and the sound he made — low, broken, grateful — went through her like an electric current.
This was nothing like the managed kisses of their engagement. This was messy, graceless, two people who'd been holding their breath for months finally exhaling into each other.
She pulled back first. His forehead rested against hers. His breathing was ragged. His hand was still in her hair.
"This doesn't fix anything," she said.
"I know."
"I'm still angry."
"You should be, sweetheart. You absolutely should be.”
She put her hand on his chest. Pushed him back, gently. He went. She picked up her folder, her coffee cup, her pen. Reassembled the pieces. Her lips were swollen. Her hair was a disaster.
"Let me take you to dinner," he said. "Or coffee. Or lunch. Anything. Not a meeting, not a grant review. Just — you and me. A table. Actual food."
"No."
The word came out clearer than she expected. He closed his eyes.
"Not yet," she added. She hadn't planned to say that either. The yet just appeared, slipping past her defenses like a cat through a cracked door. She saw it register on his face, the difference between no and not yet. The distance between a wall and a door.
"Okay," he said, smiling. The smile made him look even more handsome. She looked away and cleared her throat.
"Thursday. Four o'clock. Showcase logistics."
Then she turned and walked out and into the hallway, her lips still tingling, her hands still shaking, her chest full of a feeling she refused to name because naming it would make it undeniable.
But the door was cracked open between them. They both knew it. And she wasn't sure she wanted to close it again.