In the Likely Event(91)
I only felt that way with Nate. Hadn’t that always been the problem?
An irrational laugh bubbled up through my lips. “And yet he was just my type, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Unavailable in every way that mattered.” I shrugged, stroking my thumb over my naked finger and reveling in the lightness there. “I didn’t even realize just how heavy that obnoxious ring was until I gave it back. How much everything about it weighed me down.”
He took a deep breath and pushed off the counter, walking past me toward the door. “We should both get back to work.”
“You know it wasn’t the infidelity that made me break it off with him.”
He jerked to a stop.
“I mean, if we’re going to get it all out in the open, then let’s get it out,” I said to his back.
“You don’t want to go there with me.”
“I do.”
Slowly, he turned to face me, and my pulse leapt. It wasn’t Sergeant Green staring back at me. No, the war raging in his eyes belonged to my Nate. The Nate I’d had at Georgetown, in Illinois, in Tybee.
“It wasn’t the infidelity,” I repeated, my voice softening. “I knew about it for six weeks before I took Newcastle’s place, and I didn’t do a damn thing. I smiled for the cameras at his campaign rallies and I kicked him out of my bed, but I didn’t break it off. Ask me why I broke it off, Nate.”
He shook his head.
“Ask me.”
“Why?” The word came out strangled.
“Because I didn’t love him in the way I know I’m capable of.” I swallowed as my heart thundered in my ears. “I knew it the second I saw you again.”
His jaw flexed and his shoulders rose as he struggled to maintain his temper, but I didn’t retreat. Nate would never hurt me, and we’d put this off for nine days too long.
“Say it.” I moved toward him, and he backed away, keeping the distance between us as he walked into the kitchenette. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.” Hadn’t he demanded the same that first night at the embassy?
“If you knew that you didn’t love him enough, then why did you say yes in the first place?” His tone rose, bordering on a shout as his legendary self-control finally slipped. “You know what? No. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know why. God!” His hands slammed down on the counter, and he hung his head. “Three fucking years, and we’re right back here.”
“I never left here!” My chest squeezed down like a vise as I tapped above my heart. “I’m stuck, Nate. I’m eternally twenty-five years old, frozen in place, in time, standing in that hallway, waiting for you to come back.”
“That’s bullshit and we both know it.” He lifted his head, and the pain I saw etched into every line of his face somehow compounded with the agony I felt. “You never wanted us. Not really. Not when push came to shove. You may have been the one arguing for us to take our shot back in Fiji, but when I pulled the trigger, you didn’t. Fucking. Want. Me.” Hurt dripped from every word.
“That’s not what happened in New York. How can you even say that?” My mouth hung open in shock.
“How can I say that?” He yanked the knife out of the sheath at his thigh with one hand and pulled his necklace from under his shirt with the other, revealing the taped silver tag. He glanced down as he made a clean slice through the tape, and then sheathed the knife before prying something from beneath the tape. “This is how I can say that.” A click sounded as he set something on the counter between us.
He shoved the remains of the tag beneath his shirt and withdrew his hand from the counter.
Revealing a diamond ring.
The diamond ring.
Oh God. I couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill my lungs, to oxygenate the blood that my heart refused to pump.
“I’m the one who carried you with me every goddamned day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NATHANIEL
New York
October 2018
I barely felt the rain as I walked down the sidewalk of the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Dumbo, my fist clenching the most important box I’d ever carried.
Or maybe that had been the one I’d carried earlier this morning.
Was it this morning? The days had been a seamless blur. It was evening, and I’d driven all afternoon, so I was pretty sure it was the same day.
I slipped through the crowd, my strides quickening like a New Yorker’s, blending in like I’d been trained to for the last year. Finally finding the right building, I caught the door as one of the residents was leaving and headed inside, avoiding the buzzer.
God only knew if she’d let me in.
I climbed the stairs, my fingers flexing around the box. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my mind to stop spinning, stop replaying the way things should have gone, stop forecasting every way these next few minutes could go.
She’d know what to do. She was the only person in this world who loved me unconditionally, the only person I’d been able to count on since Mom died. She’d know which path we should choose.
2214. Her apartment.
I pushed the doorbell and bounced back on my heels. When she didn’t immediately appear, I started pacing. If I stopped moving, I wasn’t sure I’d start again.