Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Blaire
Trees whip by the windows as Holt flies down the highway.
I sit, buckled in, and try to summon the shield I use in court when things get emotional. It’s never too far away, and I can always find it when I need it. Yancy says it’s probably an indicator that I’m emotionally detached, but I quite like the ability.
When it works.
It turns out, it’s easier to do when Holt isn’t involved.
He pilots the car onto an exit ramp and winds us through town. It’s a quiet ride, just like brunch.
The absence of communication between us probably wasn’t evident to anyone but us. The stories and laughter from the family made up for the silence between Holt and me.
The tires hit Cobblestone Way, and our speed slows. I remember coming down this street for the first time a few days ago. I was so confident that I could control this situation.
What was I thinking?
Now I’m going to pay the price, and it’s my own damn fault.
A lump settles in my throat as Holt’s words filter through my mind.
“She’s a human being who needs support and time and energy. She deserves that. And unfortunately for all of us, I don’t have that to spare.”
I didn’t mean to hear it. I was just going to tell him and Oliver to come to eat at their mother’s request. But his voice hit my ears before my feet could hit the doorway, and I backed away.
My lips part as I try to drag more oxygen into my lungs.
I need to calm down.
Naturally, as if he knows I need consoling, he chooses this moment to place a hand on my knee. I want to push it away. I want to tell him that despite what he said to Oliver, I’m not needy.
His hand remains on my leg because I don’t have the strength to remove it.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he says.
I hum in agreement instead of using words.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, tearing my eyes away from his hand and staring out the window instead.
“I’m fine. Just a bit overwhelmed,” I say.
It’s not a lie. I am overwhelmed. Just not like he’ll assume I am.
The sound of our voices stirs up my emotions again, and I feel the unwanted sting of tears. So many emotions flood through me.
I’m embarrassed that I was going to talk to him tonight about meeting up in a few weeks.
There’s anger with myself for not sticking to my guns when I told him I didn’t want to go to dinner that first night.
And there’s so much freaking pain from knowing that I told Holt about my ugliest moments and now he’s decided he’s walking away.
Even though that was always the plan—for me to leave—it still feels like he urged me to open up, to be vulnerable, and then he assessed my emotions and bailed.
Like Jack.
He took my greatest weakness and turned it against me.
I laugh quietly at the irony. The sound surprises me. I feel Holt move around in his seat, but I don’t look at him.
We pull through the gate at the end of his driveway. The sun is high in the sky, welcoming us with its full rays. It feels good on my skin and helps dissolve the water droplets gathering in the corners of my eyes.
The car rolls to a stop in front of his house. I grip the door handle.
“I have to head to the office,” he says.
“I know.”
Please want to talk to me. Please care.
“I have a meeting in a couple of hours with an investor that Boone set up. I don’t know how long it will last,” he says.
I turn and look at him over my shoulder. He’s so handsome despite the lines around the corners of his eyes and the bags beneath them. And I realize the truth of the situation: there’s no room for me in his life.
My heart cracks in my chest.
“I understand,” I tell him.
He bites his lip. “I’ll be home late.”
And I’ll be gone.
I have to leave. I have to do it now before my emotions get any more volatile. I was a fool to have let it get this far. Letting it continue would be insanity.
My lips tremble as I lean over and press a kiss to his cheek. This will be the last time I feel his skin against mine and smell the warmth of his cologne. I want to cling to this moment and relish every bit of comfort I can find because as soon as this moment is over, I’ll never have it back.
It will be as close as I’ll ever get to love.
It hurts too damn much.
“Good luck,” I say, hoping he doesn’t hear the frog in my throat. I open the door and hurry out of the car. By the time the door shuts, I’m already on the steps.
I don’t look back. Whether it’s my subconscious telling me to keep going forward or simply because I don’t want to torture myself anymore—and that’s what I’d be doing if I look back—I’m not sure. But I press on and open the door using the code on the keypad and slip inside the house.
Cool air kisses my cheeks, making the drips of my tears cold.
I slide my back against the wall of the foyer—the same wall Holt held me against after the concert.
I was different then. Full of hope. Teased with the taste of having someone who thought I was worth their most valuable commodity: time.
I was fucking stupid.
Tears fall steadily down my face as I look around Holt’s home.
“I’ll be honest—I didn’t really think you being here all the way through before inviting you.”
My hands are smeared black from mascara as I wipe my face. It’s a physical show of what a mess I am. I turn to go up the stairs when the front door opens.
My head spins to the right, and my breath catches in my throat.
Holt stands in the doorway.
He slides his sunglasses off his face and takes in the sight before him.
Shit.
“Blaire …”
I lift my chin and straighten my shoulders. I give him my best unaffected smile.
Clearly, my cheeks are stained with mascara, and my lips are swollen like they always are when I’m upset. But I pretend none of that exists.
“What’s going on?” he asks carefully, silencing his phone as it rings in his hand.
“I’m just getting ready to take a bath.”
He furrows his brow. “That wasn’t what I was asking, and you know it.”
“Did you forget something?”
My heart pounds in my chest as I feel my way through this conversation. I thought I’d have a better handle on myself before I had to speak about this whole mess.
Who am I kidding? I’d hoped to be gone and never have to talk about it at all.
Concern sweeps across his features.
“Cut the crap, Blaire. What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. Things just got the best of me today.”
He steps farther inside the house and closes the door behind him. The latch is loud and crisp.
I start up the steps as though I didn’t just get caught on the cusp of breaking down.
“Blaire. Stop.”
His tone is rough; the edges of his words bristling with irritation. It’s not at all the tenderness I’d hoped to hear. But what it does do is confirm what I overheard at his parents’ house.
He has no intention of giving me any piece of his life.
I’m a distraction to his work, a needy woman who demands too much of his time. And now, after seeing me cry, he’ll think I’m an emotional train wreck just like Jack said too.
I will never, ever share my emotions with a man again.
I place a hand on the rail but don’t move again. Instead, I stand there and gaze up at the landing and wish I’d have gone straight to pack my suitcase instead of stopping in the foyer.
“I need you to go to the office,” I tell him. My words are muddled through the constriction in my throat.
Speaking is hard. My chest burns. A bubble of emotions sits at the base of my throat, and I don’t know what to do with them.
“I don’t want to go to the office,” he says slowly. “I want to talk to you.”
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
“I never left.”
Against my best interests, I turn my head. He’s standing in the middle of the room, framed by the elaborate door behind him. There’s a war happening in his bright green eyes.
“I don’t have time to do this with you right now and get to the office before the investors show up,” he says, blowing out a breath. He looks down as his phone rings again. The lines in his forehead deepen. “I’m worried about you. Will you just talk to me?”
“There’s not a lot to talk about. I got a text from Yancy, and the building is open again,” I tell him. “I’m going to catch a flight tonight.”
He runs a hand down his face. “I have a ton of shit on my plate right now. But I want to talk to you, and I don’t want to leave if you’re upset.”
“I’m fine, Holt.”
It’s a lie. Maybe the biggest lie I’ve ever told because I’m not all right.
My heart is broken. My confidence is wounded. My soul hurts from having been led to paradise but being forbidden to enter.
His phone breaks the silence with its shrill ring. Again. He looks down at the screen and glares as he silences it.
“You better go,” I tell him. So I can go.
He sighs. “I can’t do this right now, Blaire. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything. As a matter of fact, I asked you to leave. Multiple times.”
“No, but you’re a guest in my house, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
The way he says guest in my house sends a rush of cold water through my veins.
What does that even mean? Does it mean while I thought we were forging an emotional connection that he was just toying with me in his free time?
What the fuck?
My jaw sets. “Well, on that note, I’m sorry for being such a distraction and taking up so much of your energy. I’m aware you don’t have any to spare.”
His eyes light up as he puts two-and-two together.
There’s no need to confirm his suspicions. He knows I heard him and Oliver.
“Fuck,” he says under his breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “I’m leaving anyway.”
“Don’t say it like that,” he says.
“Like what?” I swallow hard. “Like you said it?”
I bite my lip as a form of self-protection. I don’t want to cry in front of him any more than I already have. I don’t want to get angry. I want to remain as calm as I can and then extricate myself from this situation.
Hopefully, in one piece.
“That was all …” He looks at the ceiling. His nostrils flare as he pushes out a hasty breath. “That wasn’t for you to hear.”
“Trust me. I didn’t want to hear it.”
His shoulders fall. “Let me explain.”
“You have explained enough.” I fight the tickle in my nose that comes before tears. “I know I’m a time suck and—”
“Blaire.”
“And my emotions are such a burden. It’s been said before,” I say through the rivers streaming down my face.
He starts toward me, but I hold up a hand.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks, holding his arms out at the sides. His phone rings again in his right hand.
“I don’t want you to do anything.”
“No. Clearly, you do. What is it? Do you want me to cancel this meeting? It’s for a project I’ve worked on for months. My family and multitudes of other families who work for us all depend on me. Do you have any idea what that pressure is like?”
“Nope. I just keep people from going to prison for their entire lives when they’re innocent. I have no idea about pressure. Talk to me about it.”
He stares at me as though he’s unsure what to say.
I raise a brow. “Okay. I’ll be honest. You know what I wanted from you? I wanted you to want me, okay?”
My words crack. I grab the railing with all my might.
Holt’s phone rings again. “We don’t have time for this conversation.”
“Of course, we don’t.”
“Dammit, Blaire. I’m trying here. I can’t be everything to everyone. I’ve been telling you that all along. It’s why I don’t bring people here. It’s why I don’t have relationships because this shit happens, and I have to let someone down.”
I get it. He’s right. He has to let someone down. But I would’ve been happy to wait for him to come home later and have a conversation about our future.
Except he doesn’t want one.
“It’s clear that you’re not going to be anything to me and my emotional baggage,” I say.
“Can we just do this later? Please,” he asks as his phone buzzes in his hand. His nostrils flare as he presses the button to silence the noise. “I cannot manage all of this right now.”
“Again, I didn’t ask you to stay. As a matter of fact,” I say, feeling a surge of energy pass through my body, “I didn’t ask for any of this.
Any of it. You asked for my number. You pressed me into dinner.
You invited me to your home, and you took me to meet your family.
And you asked me, implored me to share my feelings with you.
That’s all on you, Holt. Every bit of it. ”
The words strengthen my resolve. The pain turns to anger as I peer down at him from my perch.
“If you didn’t want me to fall in love with you, then you shouldn’t have …” My voice trails off as I realize what I’ve said.
Holt’s eyes go wide.
“I didn’t realize …” He starts toward me but stops. “I didn’t … Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah. Well, now you know.”
He glances so quickly at his watch that I would’ve missed it if I wasn’t paying acute attention.
“Just go on,” I tell him.
“This conversation isn’t over.”
Tears sting my eyes again. “I think it is.”
He throws his hands up and growls into the air.
I can feel his frustration rippling through the room. I want to tell him we’ll talk about this later.
But we won’t. Because there’s nothing left to be said.
Even if there was, I wouldn’t begin to share it with him now.
“It’s fine,” I tell him, my voice softer. “And if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you ever lied to me. I just … hoped.”
His body stills in the doorway. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth as he watches me with an expression I can’t name.
“I’m sorry, Blaire. Just … tell me you’ll be here when I get back. Please.”
He backs away slowly. My heart breaks as I accept his final answer. Whether he wants to admit it or not, this is over.
Maybe it never started.
I’ve never felt smaller. I’ve never felt as vulnerable and raw as I do standing in front of this man.
It won’t happen again.
“Please be here when I get back,” he repeats.
I know he needs to go, and that his decision has already been made, so I nod.
I only hold back the tears long enough for the door to close behind him.