The guilt would destroy her. Destroy them.
“He did.” Zach met her gaze directly, without any signs of prevarication. “Lauren, from everything Alex has said and everything I’ve seen, you care about him. You want what’s best for him, and I genuinely believe this is his last chance. If he doesn’t take this job, his career is over. And StreamUs wants a decision soon. Tonight, if possible.”
Oh, shit.
At the realization of what this conversation was really about, what Alex’s agent was really asking her, she hunched over on herself and tried to keep breathing through the nausea.
Zach spoke carefully. Clearly. “The role is perfect for him, and with the way he spends, he doesn’t have a ton of savings. He needs the money. For himself, but also his mom and his charity and all the other people he helps.”
I imagine Alex’s agent needs the money too, a spiteful, petty part of her brain added, but she ignored it, because Zach was right. Not being able to support everyone would gut Alex.
It would, in fact, leave him feeling the same way she did right now, as she waited for the inevitable.
Zach didn’t make her wait long.
“If you’re in his life, he won’t take this role.” The agent didn’t sound happy about it, but he didn’t flinch or sugarcoat the issue. “Is what you have with him worth his career?”
The hurt pierced through all those layers of composure, all that calm she’d painstakingly acquired and used to shield her heart for decades, and she couldn’t muffle her sob.
The agent reached out to her, and she flinched back.
He withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry. But I had to say it, because Alex never would.”
Zach had known his client for almost the entirety of their careers, and it showed. He understood Alex, and she did too.
He was all or nothing, always. He wouldn’t accept another cohost while she was theoretically available. And even if she could somehow convince him she had no interest in that role, he wouldn’t tolerate her staying in L.A. while he traveled the country. He’d turn down the deal without a second thought, or even much of a first thought, and there simply wasn’t enough time to make him understand the truth: She wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice.
If they stayed together, he’d willingly cast aside everything for her. Again.
The only way to save him was to leave him.
Her joints ached as if she were febrile, and her chest hitched uncontrollably, but Zach was waiting, so she tried to speak. “I’ll t-talk to Alex before the end of the reception.”
She’d be tearing out her own heart, but she’d do it, because there was no choice.
If his world fell apart again, it wouldn’t be because of her. She refused to be the means of his destruction a second time. Especially since his feelings for her—whatever they were—might not last long outside their little bubble of privacy and constant contact. They’d been friends for months, but lovers for less than a week. A blink of time.
Even if that fleeting moment had felt like an entire life stretched out before her, sunlit and horizonless and hers.
Zach’s head was bowed, his voice thick. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry, Lauren.”
She nodded, and a tear dripped from her chin to her belly, then another and another. The next time she raised her head, eyes blurry and stinging, nose running, he was gone, and she knew what she needed to do.
She couldn’t tell Alex that Zach had spoken to her, or he’d fire his agent on the spot. But he didn’t deserve lies, and she wouldn’t give him any. Telling him she’d changed her mind about being together was true enough. And if he demanded further explanation, her anger at his unilateral decision-making was genuine, and she could play it up as necessary. Use it to cover the real reason she was leaving him.
She’d selectively tell him the truth and … go away inside. She’d draw down over herself all those layers of remove he’d stripped away and make herself inviolate once again. Impenetrable. Distant emotionally, and then distant physically, once she fled the wedding.
If she left him any hope of a future together, he’d hold out for her. He’d turn down or wait to sign the StreamUs deal in case she might come back.
So she wouldn’t allow any hope.
Not even for herself.
28
AFTER FINDING LAUREN’S SEAT EMPTY AND HER TABLEMATES uncertain as to when and why she’d left, Alex strode for the nearest exit, thumbing out a text as he went: Where are you? Are you okay?
When she didn’t respond immediately, he headed for their room, and thank goodness, there she was.