by Evie Claire
So, this was their goodbye. Imprisoned by pride. Incapable of admitting mistakes they couldn’t see themselves making.
Phebe grabbed her stilettos, picking at a smudge on the heel to stall. She bit her lip, because it hurt to admit the only mistake her anger allowed her to see. “And to think I thought you were something different.”
Turning quickly before she could see the inevitable hurt register on his face, she threw a wave over her shoulder. “I’ll let myself out.”
And with that, Phebe Stark walked out of Brody Cantrell’s life. And he didn’t do a damn thing to stop her.
Chapter 22
Brody
He wouldn’t fucking touch it. Not now. Not tonight. Not ever. The fabric could dry rot into dust and he still wouldn’t touch it.
Stupid, yes. But so was he for thinking they could work.
She’d tried to hide him. To conceal what he really was. Make him acceptable enough to pass muster. Something he couldn’t do, even cloaked in head-to-toe black. Because it wasn’t his tattoos that clashed with her cultured world. It was him.
That wasn’t surprising.
What shocked the hell out of him—what had him kicking himself square in the ass for the millionth time that morning—was that he had allowed her to hide him. Like he was her dirty little secret.
Fuck that. Fuck her. Fuck it all.
Brody bolted out of the bed that hadn’t seen a single second of sleep. One that had also witnessed the hottest make-up sex he’d ever had and the fight that would ensure he never had it again. And good riddance. Because while he had grown comfortable with the idea of loving a woman destined to drive him mad, he would never find peace with her most brutal honesty.
How could he hear it as anything else? Their differences were obvious enough. He’d assumed it mattered as little to her as it did to him.
How could he have been so spectacularly wrong?
In business, Phebe degraded men on the daily. It was what alpha females did. He had no problem with it. It had actually turned him on. Until she’d turned her callous, lashing words on him and, in turn, tainted the love he gave.
There wasn’t a way past that reality. Not that he saw.
Just a fucking bartender. Her words were a rusted-out ax swinging at his chest. Coring out his heart, one blow at a time.
Shoving his legs deep into yesterday’s jeans, he flew down the stairs that led to The Guns. Cast in the predawn shadows of downtown Atlanta, the steps’ dents and gouges felt achingly familiar under his bare feet. It was where he belonged. On the rough side of life. The realness of a world that was neither polished, refined, nor phony. A rough-around-the-edges, weighty kind of life that didn’t have time to be anything other than authentic.
That’s who he was. Original to the core. Take it or leave it.
Hell, yes, he’d overtly flirted with Phebe last night. Had they been in his world, he would’ve smacked her ass for good measure when he asked about the panties. Zero fucks given about the likes of Joel Stewart. The only thing that stayed his hand was the idea that she might object. Not that she wouldn’t have like it. She fucking loved it when he took charge in the bedroom. Last night, maybe he’d overstepped a line she hadn’t clearly defined when he’d taken control outside of the bedroom. They were still learning their way around each other. It was an honest mistake. One that sure as shit didn’t require the level of castigation she’d resorted to.
Well, fuck that. Fuck hiding who he was. Fuck shame. Fuck anything that had to do with her or the stupid mistakes he’d made in loving her.
Love. God, the word roiled his stomach like a cement mixer. How could he ever love a woman so blinded to his reasons by her own? If she couldn’t understand what the donation meant to him, she would never understand him.
He tore through a back door, into the hallway that held the bar on one end, the porch where his current downward spiral had started at the other. There was only one thing he wanted right now, and it damn sure wasn’t more fuzzy memories. It was a bottle. A healthy dose of liquid amnesia.
Scotch. Macallan. Straight from the goddamn bottle. The only way to forget Phebe Stark was with something just as harsh as her. And as he polished off the remaining inches with a bubbles-in-the-bottle chug, his eyes found the end of the bar. The stool where she’d sat that morning he’d thought her troubles were cute.
In one great hefting move that called on every throbbing muscle in his body, he reared back and hurled the empty bottle its way. Clear on a whistling trajectory, it smacked against the tile. Glass shattering to the far corners, the thwack sliced the deafening silence like a razor. As its echoes faded to the upper floors, Brody was left with nothing but the sound of his own gasping breath boring into his ears and an ache in his heart there wasn’t enough liquor in the world to erase.
But he could damn sure try.
Chapter 23
Phebe
She wouldn’t think about it.
She hadn’t thought about it.
Weeks had passed. Life was moving on. Just because the salesman standing in front of her happened to be hiding a bit of ink under his starched white button-down and blazer didn’t mean she had to remember it, either.
Phebe Stark was just fine. She always was.
She could quash the pang that shot through her heart when she teetered on the edge of that memory. Ignoring feelings wasn’t rocket science. It was self-discipline. Few people possessed more of that than she did. And literally having one hundred and three things to do to ensure her successful transition into the role of chief operating officer for Stewart Capital gave her a blissful—and important—distraction.
The morning after the storm she’d sat down, made her list, and started checking shit off. It was the only way to deal with emotions one couldn’t change. And even if, in hindsight, Phebe could possibly see the tiniest, most minute error in her ways, she wasn’t a woman who gave herself second chances. If she fucked it up the first time, she obviously hadn’t tried hard enough. Which in her mind translated into a lack of motivation, because Phebe never fucked up.
“Does it come in red?” she asked the salesman, who’d introduced himself as Henri.
“Let me check.” He disappeared behind a desk.
Phipps Plaza was dead on a Monday morning. She had the entire Louis Vuitton staff and store to herself. While it was nice, Phebe had found it uncomfortable to spend very much time alone lately. Which sucked because she used to cherish her few quiet moments. Now she ran hard all day until she crashed.
A killer new job required a killer new bag. Shopping was another welcome distraction. Instead of sitting quietly with her thoughts when she’d found herself with an hour to kill before a lunch meeting at St. Cecilia’s, she found her way to a nearly deserted mall across the street. Checking off item number ninety-eight would be a much better use of time.
“It would have to be a custom order.” Henri frowned from behind the desk, like he was genuinely sorry she wouldn’t be able to get exactly what she wanted. Phebe examined the bag in her hand. It had the perfect ratio of pockets to zippers and straps. Plus, she liked the weight of it in her hand. She couldn’t always have everything she wanted. This, however, she could.
“That’s fine.” She shrugged like it was no biggie. “Can I see my options?”
Henri jumped to attention, obviously not expecting his current customer to roll so big.
“Absolutely!” He dashed to the back and quickly returned with a binder. “What are we looking for?”
“Dark red,” Phebe said without pausing to think. “Blood red.”
“Blood-of-your-enemies red?” Henri guessed, narrowing his eyes with sly appreciation.
“Now you understand me, Henri.” Phebe took a seat in the swanky lounger he pointed toward.
“Then I suggest our red Vernis. It has a much deeper undertone
than the cherry, which is the color of the folio right there.” Henri pointed to a high shelf.
“There’s a difference?”
“Absolutely. Most people have the cherry because it’s carried in-store. The true red is typically used for smaller leather goods. Or a custom order.”
Exclusivity. While it wasn’t something Phebe had craved before, in that moment, it was all she needed. To have the one thing she wanted most without anyone getting in the way of her having it.
“Then that makes it everything I require.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. This bag in the blood-red Vernis.” Phebe reached into her wallet and produced a credit card. The price didn’t matter. Phebe wanted the bag. She’d been denied too much lately. Well, just one thing, really. But one very big thing added up to a whole lot. If she couldn’t have that—have him—she could certainly have a damn bag.
She swallowed hard against the thought, gripping the bag handle tighter in her hand. It was the first time she’d mentally admitted the reality. And it felt like a loaded freight train barreling right through her core. Damn Henri and his carefully covered tattoos. He was not supposed to be the wrecking ball that crashed into her world this morning. He was just supposed to help her check off item number ninety-eight so she could get on with life. The life she had always thought she wanted.
Distraction. Find a distraction. She picked up her phone, eager to share her new purchase with someone. Holding the bag out, she snapped a pic and thought of who to send it to.
She typed Br into her phone to pull up Lorie Braddock. It was a weird habit of hers, one intended to help her remember people’s full names. For the most part, it worked. Unless days were as determined to screw you over as the current one seemed hell-bent on doing. Because Br also pulled up another name. One that threw the loaded freight train into reverse as if the first pass wasn’t enough.
Brody Cantrell.
Of course she’d seen it before. Why she hadn’t deleted it was beyond her. But something about the day—Henri, maybe—made it impossible to scroll past.
Instead, the phone slid from her hand and to the floor. Phebe’s chest heaved, caving in on itself as a smarting pang slowly grew into a gaping wound at the center of her. Her breath came in short bursts, the exhale as impossible as the inhale. What was happening to her? Instinctively, her hand rose, palm splayed against her breastbone, pushing, rubbing, trying anything to soothe the unrest beneath. It was useless.
Wildly, she searched for a visual anchor, but great inky splotches had taken over her vision, punctuated with bright bursts of light when Henri returned and started talking. She was in some alternate dimension, upside down, one she didn’t have the first hope of controlling.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Henri was right beside her. While his hand was heavy on her shoulder, he seemed miles away, down a dark tunnel with water at the end. Her senses failed her. She placed a hand firmly on either side of the chair and held on tight. “Easy. Just breathe.” Henri had taken her hands and was slowly guiding her torso forward, head between her legs like she, as a child, had watched her mother do. When she was hungover and the world started spinning, her mom would bend over, take a few heavy breaths, and then force the world back into its proper place.
Phebe allowed her body to be manipulated. Wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged herself close. With her head down and the blood rushing back to its proper place, she felt vaguely relieved. Clinging to the solid, comforting wall of her legs, she found that breathing became decidedly less difficult. With an anchor to hold on to, she slowly restored some form of order. Dampness clung to the line of her lashes. Tears she assured herself were from the freight of it all and nothing else. She stayed like that, cocooned into herself until the world stopped spinning.
“Whew.” Phebe slowly sat upright and wiped the tears away. Another face had joined Henri’s. She smiled softly and held out a cup of water. Phebe took it and downed it in one gulp.
“Normally it’s a man buying the bag that has the panic attack,” Henri joked in a soothing voice.
“Panic attack?” Phebe questioned. She didn’t have those.
“Welcome to the club, sister.” Henri nodded like a medical expert. “I take Ativan for mine.”
“No, I don’t have panic attacks. I’m just…ummm…” Phebe’s eyes strayed down Henri’s understanding face, landing again on the dark blue ink peeking over bright starched white. More of it showed after his physical efforts to keep her from hitting the floor. She drew in a shaky breath, closed her eyes, and finally allowed herself to admit the truth she needed to stop running from. “I’m just a fucking idiot.”
And in that moment, she knew it wasn’t a tiny error in judgment she had made. While her anger over Brody’s decisions was hers to have, the words that had lashed out of her mouth like a bullwhip were, without a doubt, the most colossal misstep of her life.
Chapter 24
Phebe
“Enough already!” Lorie screamed in an exasperated way, lifting her face to the ceiling as if she couldn’t bear the sight of Phebe a single second longer.
Phebe sat in a tight ball, legs drawn up to her chest, arms pulling her knees even closer. Her eyes were fixed on a piece of paper, one she’d read a hundred times, hoping to find some sort of answer between its lines. On The Handmaid’s Tale, there was an orgy of epic proportions going down. Lorie’s disruption of her reading jarred Phebe so badly, she sent her wineglass flying, landing with a great purple splash on the wood floor.
“Shit!” Phebe exclaimed. “Why’d you yell at me?” Phebe shot a nasty look her friend’s way and moved to clean it up.
“No way,” Lorie said, placing a hand on Phebe’s shoulder to guide her back to her spot on the couch. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain yourself.” Lorie tossed a nearby kitchen towel over the spilled wine to soak it up. It was a temporary fix until she got what she was after.
“I don’t know what you mean.” If Phebe had proclaimed pigs were flying outside her window, it wouldn’t have been a bigger lie than the one she just told. Of course, she knew exactly what was going on. Or more importantly, who.
“This moping about has got to stop, Pheebs. You fucked up. We all do. Either fix it or forget it. Because this shit”—Lorie waved a hand at the unkempt state Phebe was in, hair greasy, face unwashed, yoga pants she hadn’t removed from her body in forty-eight hours—“isn’t accomplishing a damn thing.”
With a resigned sigh, Phebe dragged a hand down her face and stood. Walking over to her party foul puddle, she stuck a bare foot on the towel and wiped it back and forth. Satisfied it was clean enough, she finally shrugged and said, “You act like I can fix it.”
“Can’t you?”
Phebe shook her head, picking up the miraculously unbroken wineglass. “No, not this time.”
“Have you tried?”
“No, but…” Phebe was going to list all the ways it was futile to even try. How proud Brody was. How awful and insensitive she was. The fact that she had totally castrated the last man she would ever want to meet such a fate.
“Let me stop you right there.” Lorie waved a hand in the air and pointed Phebe back to the couch again. “Whose fault was the breakup?” she asked over her shoulder, walking toward the bar.
“Both of ours…I guess.” Phebe’s answer didn’t change the resolute look on Lorie’s face. She wanted more and she wouldn’t give up until she got it. So Phebe kept going. “I went out on a limb to secure financing for him while he was busy giving away millions of dollars. That was just bad business.”
“And what’d you do?”
“What I normally do when I lose control of a situation—overreact, say a bunch of shit I can’t take back.” Phebe shook her head like it was a lost cause.
“Eesh.” Lorie rolled her eyes. “Girl, that tongue of yours.
”
“Tell me about it.”
“What’d you say? Verbatim.”
“That he was a bartender with daddy issues.” The words flowed out of her. Words she would never forget as long as she lived. They still burned in the fiery pit of her stomach, much like the fiery pit of hell they had certainly doomed the rest of her to burn in.
Lorie cringed so hard, her fist clenched with the effort. “Then I’d say the first peace offering belongs to you. Have you even texted him?”
“Why? So he can tell me to fuck off?”
“You don’t know what he’s thinking. But even if he does tell you to fuck off, you probably deserve it. You aren’t exactly known for your tact.” Lorie refilled the glass in Phebe’s hand.
She had a point. Even if Brody told her to fuck off, at least it would be an answer. A finite end to what had been. Then maybe she’d put it behind her. The way they’d left things had festered inside her. It was the only thing in life Phebe had ever avoided. Maybe that was why she couldn’t get past it.
“You’re right. But what do I say?” Phebe honestly didn’t know how to do contrition. It wasn’t in her wheelhouse.
“Tell him you’re sorry for what you said. Ask if you can talk. Anything, really. Just get the conversation started.”
Phebe nodded and turned back to the paper she’d been studying. Because the paper was his paper. Sort of. An operating agreement she’d drawn up for their partnership that he’d refused to sign because he trusted her to do what she did best. On the one hand, his refusal to sign it reinforced everything they’d argued about—mainly his inability to professionally function as she thought he should. On the other, it proved the thing she admired about him—his inability to let the world convince him of how he had to do life.
Lorie was right. She had to reach out. All this not knowing would surely kill her, drive her to an early grave at least. If she reached out, it would put the ball back in his court. Where it ended would be his call. In a way, she felt she owed him that. He was Brody after all. He knew her better than she knew herself. Surely he, of all people, would know how awkward an olive branch felt in her hand.