Chapter 35
LIZA
Inever made it out of Cloudhaven.
My Uber driver, Katie, pulled over about ten minutes into the drive when my crying escalated from silent tears to full-on ugly sobbing. She turned around in her seat and looked at me with genuine concern.
“Honey, I can’t keep driving with you like this. You’re breaking my heart back there.”
“I’m sorry,” I managed between gasps. “I’ll be fine. Just keep going.”
“Where are we even going? You never gave me a destination.”
I stared at her blankly. She was right. I’d just climbed in her car and said “go” without any actual plan of where I was heading.
“The airport, I guess?”
“Which airport? Portland? Boston?”
“I don’t know.” Fresh tears streamed down my face. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
Katie sighed and pulled into a parking lot. It was some kind of shopping center. She turned off the car and fully faced me. “Okay, spill. What happened?”
“I don’t want to burden you with my problems.”
“Too late. I’m already invested. Plus, my next ride isn’t for another hour. So talk.”
So I did. I told her everything. Well, not everything, but the parts I could talk about without breaking the NDA. I told her everything had seemed perfect until the morning when it all fell apart.
Katie listened without interrupting, occasionally handing me tissues from a box she kept in the center console.
“That’s rough,” she said when I finally finished. “But if you don’t mind me saying, he sounds like an idiot.”
That startled a laugh out of me, though it came out more like a hiccup. “He’s not an idiot. He’s just… scared.”
“Scared idiots are still idiots.” She shrugged.
“Look, I’ve been married twenty-three years.
You know what I’ve learned? Men panic. They get scared of their feelings and they lash out and push away the very thing they need most. It’s like they’re all programmed with the same stupid default setting. ”
“Maybe. But he made it pretty clear he wants me gone.”
“Did he though? Or did he just say a bunch of stuff he didn’t mean because he was freaking out?”
I thought about the coldness in his voice and the way he wouldn’t even look at me. “He meant it.”
Katie studied me for a long moment. “Where are you planning to go?”
“I don’t know. Back to New York, I guess?” I pulled out my phone with shaking hands. “I need to book a flight.”
I opened the airline app and started searching. Portland to New York. One way. Leaving today.
The prices made my stomach drop.
Eight hundred dollars for the cheapest flight. Over a thousand for anything with a reasonable departure. I didn’t have that kind of money.
“Look, I know we just met, but I have a little cabin I rent out during the summer season. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s on the beach and it’s empty right now. You can stay there for a while if you need to. I’ll give you a good rate, whatever you can afford until you get yourself sorted out.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. And before you say no, just know that my daughter went through a bad breakup a few years ago and some stranger helped her out when she needed it. I’m just paying it forward.”
So that was how I ended up in a tiny beach shack on the outskirts of Cloudhaven, living in what was charitably called a cabin but was really just a renovated shed with plumbing.
That had been a week ago.
The cabin was small, basically one room with a kitchenette, a bathroom the size of a closet, and a futon that doubled as a couch during the day.
But it had a little deck that looked out over the ocean, and Katie had been true to her word about the rate.
Fifty dollars a week, which was ridiculously cheap and I knew she was giving me more than a little break.
It was a far cry from the mansion I had left behind. In fact, the walk-in closet was bigger than the entire cabin. I missed the gourmet kitchen and the dock and the boats and the life I thought was going to be mine. But that was a Cinderella story. I was not Cinderella. I was in the real world.
So, while the cabin was pretty shabby, I was grateful for it. I had a place to stay while I figured out what the hell to do next.
I spent most of the week outside on that little deck with my laptop balanced on my knees.
I told myself the peace and quiet was exactly what I needed to cobble together my dissertation notes into something coherent.
It was hard to focus. Every few minutes, my mind would wander back to Darek and Daisie.
I knew their schedule and I found myself thinking about what they would be doing at any given time.
Breakfast. School drop-off. Dinner. TV with pizza.
I checked the time and decided to call Janice. I had been avoiding her calls because I was ashamed of making the mistake of falling for the man.
I took a deep breath and hit call on Janice’s number. She picked up on the second ring.
“Finally! I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Where the hell have you been?”
“Maine. Still in Maine, actually.”
“Wait, you’re still there? I thought the job was supposed to end last week. Did they extend the contract?”
“No. The contract ended. Things just got complicated.”
There was a pause. “Complicated how?”
And then I word-vomited everything. The custody hearing, the whale testimony, the victory, the incredible sex, the morning everything fell apart, Della’s messages, Darek’s accusations, getting kicked out, and lastly Daisie crying as I left.
All of it came pouring out in one long, rambling confession.
When I finally stopped talking, Janice was quiet for a moment.
“Holy shit,” she said finally. “That’s a lot.”
“I know.”
“So let me get this straight. You saved his custody case with your whale knowledge, he made love to you all night, and then the next morning he went through your phone and accused you of already lining up your next fake boyfriend?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“What an asshole.”
“He was hurt. Scared. I get it.”
“Don’t defend him, Liza. He went through your phone without permission and jumped to conclusions. He kicked you out without even giving you a chance to explain. That’s textbook asshole behavior.”
“But I should have told Della I was done with the agency. He was right about that. I was keeping my options open, even if I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
“Bullshit. You weren’t keeping your options open. You were just distracted by falling in love with the guy and his kid. That’s not the same thing as planning your escape route.”
I leaned back against the deck railing. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over.”
“Is it? Because you’re still in Maine. You could have gotten on a plane and come home, but you didn’t. You’re sitting in some beach shack pining for this guy instead.”
“I’m not pining. I’m regrouping.”
“You’re pining. And honestly? I think you should take some time before you come back to New York.”
That surprised me. “Really? I thought you’d tell me to get my ass on a plane immediately.”
“Under normal circumstances, yeah. But you sound exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally. You’ve been running on fumes for months.
The dissertation and your financial worries were bad enough.
And then he added all this bullshit. It’s not cool.
You need to rest and heal before you jump back into the chaos of New York. ”
“I can’t just hide out here forever.”
“I’m not saying forever. I’m saying take another week or two. Stay in your little beach shack. Breathe the ocean air. Work on your dissertation. Reset.”
I knew she was right. And there was nothing waiting for me at home except a tiny apartment.
“Okay,” I murmured. “You’re right. I will. Just another week.”
“Good. You rest and relax and I’ll conjure up some spells to exact revenge on the asshole.”
I laughed. “I’m fine. It was the experience of a lifetime. I’m just going to appreciate what I got to have for a short time. I think I’m going to spend a few days looking for research jobs. I’ll go anywhere. Antarctica. The Caribbean. Wherever. I’m so ready.”
“I won’t cast the spell just yet. I’ll wait for you to get home and then we’ll do it together.”
We ended the call and I felt somewhat better. I supposed I needed her to tell me it was okay to just hide for a while. That was what I was going to do.
I grabbed my sunglasses and walked outside. The beach was beautiful this time of year. It was warm but not hot, the water still too cold for most tourists. I had it mostly to myself, just me and the seabirds and occasionally someone walking their dog.
I looked out at the water and thought about the day Darek had taken us out on his yacht to see the whales. We had all been so happy. It had felt like we were a family.
And then it was just gone. All of that happiness and joy had been stolen away.
No matter how many times I replayed that morning in the boathouse, I couldn’t understand how he had jumped to that conclusion.
Yes, Della had sent me messages about another job.
But I wasn’t even considering doing another job.
I had been planning to tell her I was done with Faux.
I fantasized about telling her that I found something real and I wasn’t interested in fake relationships anymore.
But I hesitated and that hesitation had cost me everything.
I pulled out my phone and made the call.
I was done hesitating. It didn’t matter that my relationship with Darek was over before it began.
I learned a hard lesson. I was not cut out to be a hired date.
I didn’t have the emotional ability to keep things separate.
I didn’t think I would fall for another client, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“Liza! Finally! I’ve been trying to reach you. What’s going on? Should I process the payment for the Sullivan job?”
“No. Don’t process it.”
“What? Why not? You fulfilled the contract.”
“The job ended early. And I don’t want the money.”
There was a long pause. “You don’t want a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“No. Things didn’t work out the way they were supposed to. I wouldn’t feel right taking it.”
“Liza, that doesn’t make any sense. You were there for almost a month. You did everything you were supposed to do. I haven’t received any complaints from the client.”
“I don’t care about the contract. I don’t want it. Please just… close the account. Mark it as complete without payment or however you need to handle it. But I don’t want the money.”
“What about the San Francisco job?”
“I’m not taking that either. Or any other jobs. I’m done with Faux. I’m sorry, Della. You’ve been great, but I can’t do this anymore.”
She tried to talk me out of it, told me I was being irrational and I shouldn’t make decisions when I was emotional.
But I was adamant. I didn’t want Darek’s money.
Taking it would make everything he’d accused me of true, that I was only there for the paycheck and my feelings were fake.
I didn’t want to feel like he paid me to fall in love with him.
If I couldn’t have his love, I at least wanted to keep my integrity.
After I hung up, I walked along the beach and cried. Then I pulled myself together and went back to the cabin to work on my dissertation.
What else was I going to do? If I could just finish my dissertation, I could get my doctorate and maybe find a job that would let me rebuild my life.
A life without Darek and Daisie in it.
The thought made me want to cry again, but I was running out of tears. I had cried so much this week that I felt hollowed out.