by Virna DePaul
I stare at her. And then I burst into laughter, because that’s the only reaction that comes to mind right this second. The thought of me trying to screw over Heather for someone like Fiona is ludicrous.
“So you think I not only found your designs, but somehow sent them to Fiona so she could use them? Are you out of your damn mind?”
Heather’s cheeks flush, and she’s trembling with anger. “What else could it be? We both know that you were pissed that I told you no. Giving your former girlfriend my designs would be the perfect revenge.”
I can’t listen to this anymore. Standing, I rake my hands through my hair. I’m this close to shaking Heather until her teeth rattle, but I ball my hands into fists and take a deep breath.
“You really think I would do something like that?” I ask in a low voice. I catch her gaze and won’t let her look away. “You really think I would sink that low?”
She bites her lip, but I can see the steel in her spine. “There’s no other explanation. What else could it be?”
“There could be many different explanations!” I practically yell. “It could be anyone who provided Fiona with those designs. How do you know one of your employees isn’t doing it? Huh? Did you ask all of them if they had anything to do with it?”
Heather stands. “My employees are loyal. They would never do something like that to me.”
“But I would. Because you know that I’m such a lowlife—despite everything that’s happened between us so far—to hand over your designs to someone else. To someone, I might add, who has never and will never be my girlfriend.”
“You two had a relationship, though. You can’t deny that. I found that online, too.”
“We slept together once! After that, I discovered how much Fiona was a nutjob and I stayed far away from her.”
“My point exactly.”
I shake my head, because I can’t listen to this. “If I’d known that you were as crazy as Fiona, I would’ve avoided you, too,” I say before I can rethink the words.
Heather blushes, and I can see tears in her eyes. “I’m not crazy,” she chokes. “I didn’t want to believe it. How can you think that I’d want to think that of you? But you’re the most likely suspect. Even you can see that.”
I yank her into my arms, which makes her gasp. “Yes, I might be the one with the most obvious motive,” I growl, “assuming that I’m some piece of shit who forces a woman to be with him. That I would avenge myself on any woman who turned me down.” I grip her by the elbows, trying to make her see sense. “Except that’s the story you’ve made up, haven’t you? Because you’d rather reject what we have out of fear and make up some flimsy reason that it’s the best decision, when we both know you’re just a coward.”
“How dare you.” She pulls backward, but I won’t let her loose. “I am not a coward. You’re the coward for lying to me!”
“I’ve never lied to you!” I shout. “Jesus Christ, Heather, I love you!”
We both stare at each other after my confession. I’d never thought the words in my head, but when now that they’ve fallen from my lips, I know instantly that they’re true. That I’d fallen in love with this insane, beautiful, frustrating woman the moment I’d first met her. That I wanted more than just a fling with her. That I’d never hurt her like she thinks I would.
“I love you,” I say again, pressing closer. “I love you, even though you drive me crazy. Even though you think the worst of me. Even though you believe that I’d betray you to someone like Fiona Taylor, who more than likely found out about your designs using one of her spies, or even to stab me in the back for turning her down.” I cup the back of Heather’s head, my fingers in her hair. “There are so many other explanations, and yet you’d rather not see them. It’s easier for you that way, isn’t it?”
She inhales, her breasts rising and falling, and the flush on her cheeks renders her so beautiful that I can’t help myself: I lean down to kiss her. I capture her mouth and kiss her until she moans that moan I love so much. Holding her in my arms so tightly that I imagine we’re one body, I show her without words how much I love her.
But the kiss ends far too quickly. She pushes away from me and whirls away, panting. I’m hard as iron already.
“You can’t just kiss me to make me forget what you’ve done,” she whispers.
“What you think I’ve done,” I correct. “There’s a big difference there.”
“I’m not doing this. You have nothing to show that you didn’t do it, other than your word. And we both know that’s never been all that trustworthy, considering you refused to tell me your identity when we first met and forced me into a humiliating situation afterward.”
“That wasn’t intentional! How many times do I have to tell you that? I wasn’t thinking.” I want to reach out and touch her, but I know she won’t let me now. She’s closed those walls around herself already.
“So you keep saying. But maybe next time, you’ll think before you mess with people’s lives like this.” Tears fall from her eyes, and it takes everything in me not to brush them away. “Those were my designs, Caleb. Designs that I’ve worked on so hard, that I was going to show Rebecca after the shoot. But now how can I? How can I go against someone like Fiona Taylor? No one will believe that she stole from me. They’ll say it was the other way around. And it’s not like I dated my designs or anything. I hadn’t scanned them into Photoshop yet, so there’s no electronic trail, either.”
I’m at a loss as well. I wish I could find Fiona right now and grab her by her scrawny neck, choking the life out of her. How dare she take this from Heather? I know in my gut that Fiona did this to screw me over just as much as to mess with Heather. Fiona’s way too aware of her own power in this industry, and I’m sure she thought that no one in their right mind would call her out on this.
Too bad she’s wrong. Because I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and prove to Heather that I had nothing to do with it.
“I love you, Heather,” I say again. She flinches. “Does that count for nothing?”
“You’re just saying that,” she mumbles.
“I have never in my entire life told a woman I loved her. Because it’s never happened before. But you—you were different. Are different. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s not something I would just throw out in casual conversation.” I close my eyes, trying to find some kind of balance. I feel like I’m on a sinking ship, watching as the water climbs higher and higher. “But you refuse to give me a chance.”
Tears flow freely down her face now. “The last time a man told me he loved me, he then held that love over my head like a weapon. And now that you’ve betrayed me to Fiona Taylor, why would I let you do the same to me? I’m not going to lose myself because a man told me he loved me.” She wipes the tears from her face, but they keep falling. “I’m not going to be stupid again. It’s over, Caleb. It’s completely over. Don’t contact me again.”
She walks past me and to the front door before I can even respond. This time, I don’t follow her.
19
Heather
It’s been three months since I’ve seen Caleb. Three months since I left his place, crying my eyes out, certain that he’d betrayed me to Fiona. When he didn’t try to contact me or prove his innocence after that, I knew I’d been right. It didn’t make me feel better, though. It made my heartbreak even more painful.
After the days and weeks passed without hearing a word from him, I knew that despite everything, I loved him. I still love him. I never wanted to love him, but it happened.
Now it’s autumn, and I’m trying to put my life back together. I considered going to Rebecca about Fiona stealing my designs, but I knew she wouldn’t believe me. No one would. Ironically, the only person who did believe me was Caleb himself.
“I think I’ve lost weight,” I say to McQueen as I try on an older pair of jeans. I pull at the waist and frown. Although most people in LA would applaud me for my unintentional weight lo
ss, I am aware enough to see that I look rather gaunt. I’ve lost weight from sheer despair, if I’m being honest. Now it definitely shows.
McQueen swishes his tail next to me, watching me with his bright yellow eyes. McQueen and I have been spending a lot of time together lately, as I’ve not wanted to go out with any of my friends in the city. I just want to stay at home and try to mend my broken heart, even though nothing has worked so far.
Tanya has wanted me to go out on a date with a friend of hers, but I keep resisting. What’s the point? I’m still in love with Caleb. Dating another man would be unfair to any guy I go out with.
“I guess it’s just going to be us from now on, huh?” I reach down and scratch McQueen behind the ears. He purrs languidly.
I strip out of the jeans and end up putting some sweats back on. My lack of motivation to do anything is truly pathetic. Maybe by the end of the month I’ll have the energy to get back into gear.
I’m looking for something to watch on Netflix when my phone rings. It’s Rebecca from Bella. After the reshoot, we’ve been in contact somewhat, but once the proofs were approved and then I looked over the pages for the magazine itself, I haven’t heard from her. Not that we were ever best friends, of course.
“This is Heather,” I say when I answer.
“Heather, good, you picked up.” Rebecca’s tone is her usual no-nonsense kind of voice, brisk and efficient. “Have you looked at the latest issue of Bella?”
I’m nonplussed for a moment. The issue with my shoot won’t be out for another month, so I hadn’t gotten around to looking at the Bella issue currently sitting on my kitchen table. “No, I haven’t yet,” I say, wondering if Rebecca has become some kind of phone saleswoman for the magazine.
“Then you should, as soon as possible. Talk to you soon.”
She hangs up before I can respond. I stare at my phone a second, as if it will reveal why Rebecca Harris felt the need to tell me to read her own magazine.
“That was weird,” I say as I get up to get the issue in question.
I don’t expect anything in particular. Maybe there’s a shoot that Rebecca wants me to see, or maybe there’s an interesting article. At this point, I’m halfway convinced that Rebecca has lost it and is just randomly calling people to read Bella. I flip through the issue, getting close to the end, when I gasp.
An apology, the headline reads. But what’s more remarkable is that it’s an apology from Fiona Taylor. Could it be?
Trembling, I start reading the article, my eyes roving the page. I take in the words—“copied” and “Flint” and “apologize”—until I have to set the magazine down to understand whatever it is I’ve just read.
The last line, though, makes me cry: I acted alone, and no one is to blame but me.
He didn’t do it. Caleb didn’t do it. The tears fall harder until I feel like I can’t breathe.
He didn’t betray me.
I betrayed him.
The pain is unbearable, and so is the guilt. I’m about to call Caleb and apologize right then and there, but I know it’s probably no use. Why would he want to talk to me? He would be well within his rights never to speak to me again, and I wouldn’t blame him one bit for it. I accused him of something so awful that I’m surprised there isn’t another article detailing every horrible thing I said to him.
I groan, covering my face with my hands. What have I done?
McQueen meows at my feet. I pick him up and stroke him, hoping his proximity will provide some temporary relief of my anguish. It helps a little, but there’s nothing to stop the guilt from flowing freely through me.
Caleb was right: I rejected him because I was scared. I was so scared that our relationship would turn out like my relationship with Bo that I decided I’d rather end things preemptively. I never considered that Caleb is nothing like Bo, and he’s never acted like my ex, either. Bo was selfish and immature, and I know in my heart that Caleb would never be so childish as to resent me for achieving success.
Caleb would be the one to applaud me; he’d be the one who’d support me no matter what.
“Oh, McQueen, I’ve really screwed up this time,” I say as the tears keep falling. “I’m such an idiot. The biggest, stupidest, most useless idiot.”
The rest of the evening I try to figure out a way to show Caleb how sorry I am, and how much I love him. I know he deserves an apology at the very least, but that doesn’t mean he’ll take me back.
I toss and turn all night, trying to think of something, but my only answer is that I need to go to New York City to see him in person. Which means getting on a plane again.
It’s like a bucket of ice water, the thought of flying for a third time. But for Caleb, it would be worth it. I’d brave anything for him, just to tell him that I love him.
20
Caleb
“Caleb, there’s someone here to see you.”
My assistant stands at my studio door, waiting for me to answer. I frown, as I wasn’t expecting anyone right now.
“I’m busy. Can you tell them to make an appointment and come back later?”
She shakes her head. “She’s persistent. She said she’d wait however long she needed to see you. Should I call security?”
“No, I’ll see her. Did she give a name? It’s probably some pissed-off designer wanting to yell at me.” I get up from the chair I sit in to look over photos. My studio’s in a converted warehouse in New York with huge windows that stream with sunlight. I just finished a shoot with a designer this morning and had been looking over the proofs before I sent them over.
“I’ll talk to her. Thanks, Megan,” I say as I follow her out.
I enter the front, which houses Megan’s desk and a few other desks. My studio is one of more than five in the entire building, although Megan’s only my assistant.
When I see a blond woman sitting at the front, my heart leaps into my throat, just like it does every time I see a woman with blond hair like Heather’s. It’s been three months, and I still haven’t gotten over Heather Flint. Even after she accused me of stealing her designs, you’d think I would’ve learned my lesson. But nothing’s changed.
She’s the only woman I’ll ever love.
I shake off the thought when I get closer to the woman. But when she turns and stares up at me, I can’t breathe.
It’s Heather. She’s here. In New York City.
“Heather?” I don’t know what to say, or how to react. I wonder if I’m hallucinating.
She stands up, wiping her palms on her jeans. She’s nervous, biting her lip and looking around like someone’s about to jump her. I also notice that she seems pale and overly thin with dark circles under her eyes. Has she slept at all in these past months?
“Can we speak in private?” She glances at Megan over my shoulder.
I escort her into my studio and find her a chair, which she collapses into. I can’t sit down, though. Agitated, I start pacing in front of her.
“Why are you here?” My tone is harder than I intended, and she winces.
I’ll admit, after she ran out on me, I was furious. I was hurt, and angry, and part of me wanted to get revenge on her for what she’d thought I’d done. But after a few days of angry drinking, I decided to use that anger for a greater purpose: find Fiona and make her confess.
It hadn’t been easy. Fiona was as slippery as an eel, but I have plenty of my own contacts in the industry. Once I landed on something I could use as leverage, I confronted her. She sobbed and then tried to have me arrested, but it was no use. I told her in no uncertain terms that I would expose her for criminal fraud if she didn’t write an apology to Heather for stealing her designs.
Now, seeing Heather here, I wonder if she’s finally read the article. But the magazine released yesterday. That meant… If Heather was here about the article, she must have flown to get here.
Heather, the woman who’s terrified of flying, got on a plane to see me.
She’s wringing her hands, tears in her
eyes. But she wipes them away and sits up straight, not breaking eye contact with me. “I’m here to apologize.” Her voice is croaky, and she clears her throat. “I’m sorry for saying what I did. For accusing you of helping Fiona. I read the article, and I just…” She trails off, biting her lip. “I had to tell you I was sorry.”
I stare down at her. “You could’ve called or emailed with an apology. Why are you really here?”
“I wanted to apologize. I told you that. You deserved for me to come here in person, because what I accused you of was terrible. I feel so awful about it, and I’ll never forgive myself.” Her voice hitches, like she’s about to burst into sobs.
I finally sit down next to her. “Like I said, you could’ve called to tell me that. But you got on a plane—something that’s completely terrifying to you—to tell me instead.” I lean toward her. “Tell me why you’re really here, Heather.”
A flush darkens her cheeks, which I must admit, looks much better on her than being pale and sickly looking. “What the hell do you want me to say?” she almost yells. “I told you I was sorry, and I am! Truly, deeply sorry. I fucked up, Caleb. I fucked up and I don’t know how to make it up to you.”
“This isn’t about making things up to me, or apologizing, or any of that. I got over what you said to me weeks ago because I know why you said it. You were scared. You lashed out.” I inhale a breath. “So tell me: why are you really here?”
Her bottom lip trembles, and it takes everything in me not to kiss her. She looks away, and I wonder if I’ve pushed her too far.
Finally, she says in a quiet voice, “I love you.”
It’s so quiet I wonder if I imagined it. “What?”
“I said I love you!” She stands up to yell, “I love you, Caleb! What else do you want me to say?”
I can’t help but grin. “That’s what I wanted to hear, sweetheart.” Standing, I grab her and kiss her for all she’s worth. I kiss her with everything I’ve wanted to say to her over the months we’ve been apart. She moans, opening to me, and I lick inside her mouth, tasting her sweetness.