God, this was hard. No, hard wasn’t even the word. Her heart was ripping, one slow tear at a time.
“I just . . .” She swallowed on a wave of pain. “Look, this was fun, but let’s be honest. It was never going to last.”
His gaze was like a brand as he stared down at her. “Where the hell is this coming from?”
She indicated herself and him with a hand that trembled. “You’re a spontaneous, fun-loving guy. I’m an organized-freak wedding planner. Nobody would put us together.”
“Who cares what anyone thinks?” He took her hands. “Has someone said something to you? Tell me who and I’ll make them sorry.”
She couldn’t do this with him touching her. Already her resolve was folding like a cheap table. She tugged her hands away.
“What is it?” She heard traces of panic in his voice as he obviously realized she was serious. “Is it the women last night? I never thought of any of them, Hailey.”
“I know.”
“Then what? The press?”
“No.” Another breath, another rip in her heart as she opened her eyes and found his full of pain. “It’s not about you, Ryder. It’s about me.”
Shadows blanked his gaze. “Really? You’re going to go with ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”
“It is me.” She looked upward for strength, then back with resolution. “You’re a Genie,” she repeated.
“Last I checked.”
The memory of their first meeting slapped her in the face, her stammering, his wry tone.
Except this time his tone wasn’t wry, it bordered on angry. And no wonder. The lump in her throat continued to rise to the height of Mount Fuji as she gestured at herself. “I’m mortal.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. What the hell does it matter that I’m a Genie and you’re a mortal?”
She took his anger. It was better than his pain. “Mortal, Ryder. Not a mortal, but mortal.”
“And?”
“I’m going to die.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe not now, not tomorrow, but some day, my heart will stop.”
It made him falter, but only for a second. He shook his head. “Some day. Why should that matter now?”
“It’ll hurt less now.” She licked her lips and tasted salt. “You’ve already lost so much. I don’t want to be the next person you watch die.”
“This is a really lousy way of dumping someone. Putting it all on me.” He backed away from her to pace. His feet sank into the sand.
“I’m not putting it on you.” She dragged her hands through her hair. “Do you think I want to do this?”
“Yes,” he challenged, whirling.
She stared, dumbfounded. “What?”
“You always do what you want to, Hailey. You’re right—this is all about you.”
Her laugh was a crack. “You think I wanted to plan my ex’s wedding?”
“Why else would you?”
“To get the promotion!”
“Really? Is that really why you did it?”
She stared at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I think on some level, it suited you to have that reminder.” His eyes were burning as an automatic refusal leapt to her lips. “Like holding on to the bullshit reasons he fed you for the breakup. All to protect yourself from giving away control and getting hurt again. Guess what, Hailey: when you care for someone, you’ve already lost control.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” This wasn’t going how she’d thought it would. Hurt shaded her as she swallowed. “Go ahead, attack. Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”
“You know what I think?” He stormed forward, a towering wall of hurt Genie. “I think you’re running scared.”
Tackled in the dark. She shook her head. Then again. “No, that’s not what this is.”
“Sure it is.” He laughed, but it wasn’t amused. He combed a hand through his hair. “Unbelievable. I thought I was the one who had issues, but you’re as screwed up as I am.”
It was too much. “I’m leaving,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’ll have Leo take me back to New York.”
“Running?” he taunted.
“Why would I be running?” she threw back at him, her own temper on the boil.
“Because you feel too much, too fast, and it scares you.” He caught her arm and reeled her in. “You think feeling too much this soon is an invitation to have someone walk all over you.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He shook her. “Don’t lump me in with your ex. I wouldn’t ever do to you what he did.”
“It’s not about Ethan,” she cried, refusing to hear any more. She tugged at his hold until she slid free. “It’s about saving us both pain down the line. We were never going to work.”
“You don’t have a lot of faith, do you?”
“Why should I?” She ran a hand over her face, gave her head a shake. “Enough. I’m going.”
“Don’t you want to know how I feel?” he shouted to her back as she walked toward the house.
“No.” Because if he said anything right now, she’d tip over the edge.
“Stop walking away.” He flashed in front of her and held up his hands to stay her. “Let me say how I feel.”
“No.” She held her hands over her ears as she dodged around him.
“Oh, that’s mature,” she heard him say as if underwater.
She spun. “It’s too damn hard, Ryder. Leave it alone. We’re done.”
“You’re a coward, Hailey.” His angry words slapped her in the face. “You got so burned with Ethan you’re refusing to give us a chance. You’re terrified of giving yourself over to me, giving up your heart. Of letting go.”
She went to retort, but what was the point? Nothing he said could change her mind.
She’d almost made it to the deck when his voice stopped her. “What about the wish?”
Hailey braced a hand against the French door. “You think I care about that right now?”
“Care about it or don’t, we have an oral contract.” His voice was harder than she’d ever heard it. “Make a wish.”
The kitchen was fuzzy through the tears that threatened to break through. She only wanted one thing and that was impossible.
So she did the next best thing. “I wish that New York General gets all the funding required to outfit the children’s wing with whatever they want. Toys, books, food. New research methods. Anything that will help them.”
She didn’t know whether that would help any survive, but at least what little life they had would be filled with magic.
“It’s done.” There was no indication in his voice if he approved or disapproved of her wish.
And so went their last need for contact.
Her shoulders squared for the final steps.
“Be sure, Hailey.” A final warning reverberated in his voice before she could move.
She closed her eyes, locked tight all the pain. And took the final step.
32.
The next days passed in a blur.
Ryder didn’t call.
Leo had argued with her as she’d convinced him to take her back to New York, but he couldn’t make her budge. She’d done the right thing, saved them both hurt.
She wasn’t a coward. Ryder was wrong.
The first night she’d barely slept, her pillow sodden with tears as she’d sobbed until she thought she would be sick. Flashes of Ryder’s face whirled around her like a carousel until she was dizzy with him. But she held firm.
She’d done the right thing.
Quentin and Max had flocked around her, each giving their own specific pep talks, trying to talk her off the Aunt Mabel’s cookie ledge (which hadn’t worked; she must’ve eaten six packets by now). She’d even broken contract and admitted in a dead voice how Ryder and she had really got going, how she’d really earned her wish. Let WFY sue her. Like she gave much of a damn.
Her friends hadn’t said anything, just hushed her, hugged her, an
d told her everything was going to be all right. She knew they were worried about how lackluster she was, but she couldn’t drum up enthusiasm right now for anything but work.
The papers were the worst bit. Headlines screamed about the obvious split, speculating wildly about the cause. It ranged from Hailey being a workaholic, to Ryder being a workaholic, to Ryder cheating on her, to Hailey cheating on Ryder with his brother—that one had been Genie Gossip’s, a little bitter because they’d never got an exclusive. Some reporters had even staked out her workplace, cameras thrust in her face every time she came and went.
The only funny bit was when Max asked which orifice the reporter would like his microphone shoved into.
Ryder seemingly had no comment, like her, except for his one appearance on Lisette’s Hour. Hailey had caught a clip of it, drinking in his face, those brown eyes now dull, his mouth permanently flat.
“Give us the inside scoop,” Lisette had said coyly, her cards in her hands, that stupid silver anklet glinting under the studio lights. “What really happened with you and Hailey? It seemed like you were a match.”
“We wanted different things.” His voice had been as lifeless as his eyes, implacable even as Lisette attempted to pry more out of him.
As soon as the interview had aired, her dad had flown up from Florida, where he was based. It was the only time she’d let herself cry after the first night, curled up on her couch in her dad’s arms, various threats to Ryder’s body parts rumbling in her ear. He’d stayed two nights before her mom had convinced him that Hailey could cope, leaving with big hugs and promises they would come back if she needed them.
She threw herself into work, into Ethan’s wedding. Strange to think how once it had brought angry tears to her eyes and now it was the only thing keeping her going. Not for Ethan or Serena, but out of professional pride. She had this if nothing else, this she was good at.
Their wedding day was spectacular, as she’d always known it would be. She stayed out of sight mostly, dressed in a black pantsuit and low heels, hair pulled out of her face. She was staff and she meant to look like it, having no interest in being recognized as Ryder’s ex.
Max hovered near her side, scowling at any society lady who looked as if she might come over. It was only when she’d left to organize the gift boxes for the guests that Serena struck.
“Hailey!” She swanned over in an ivory stunner of a dress, its back completely lace with a slim skirt and—naturally—Choos the same shade. She air-kissed Hailey’s cheeks. “Why are you hiding? So many of my friends want to meet the planner who designed all of this.” Her cheeks flushed, she looked the essence of bridal beauty.
“It’s your day. You take the compliments.” Hailey stretched her lips into a smile.
Serena’s lips made a moue. “I heard about you and Ryder.” A pat on the shoulder as insincere as the sympathetic smile. “Some things are too good to last. You want to be careful—you keep running them off and you might have to apply to the spinster club.” She laughed and headed off into Ethan’s arms for another dance.
“Vicious bitch,” Quentin muttered as he appeared from the kitchens.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, eyes on the dancing couple.
“For support.” He touched her waist, both facing the dancers. “You know I’m always here.”
Everyone was there for her. Quentin, Max, her parents, Megan, who’d been distraught to hear the news, Kate, who’d she’d met for coffee and who had kindly refrained from saying any words in the I-told-you-so family. Everyone wanted to help.
But they couldn’t. A gaping hole had been torn in her life and stitched up so the pattern didn’t match.
Late at night, when she was alone and the apartment was so quiet she could scream, she’d go over everything, every little detail as if she could prove herself wrong. But she couldn’t. He was wrong.
She’d done the right thing.
* * *
“Hailey. The Duchess requests your presence.” Megan rolled her eyes as she delivered the message.
Hailey glanced up from staring at her computer screen. It took her a moment to focus, as it always seemed to these days. “Okay.”
She trudged to Erica’s office, already knowing what the meeting was about. She’d failed to bring Jax Michaels in, and now she and Ryder were over; it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce she wouldn’t ever be getting that connection.
June fingered the pearl necklace she wore around her spindly neck as Hailey approached.
“She’s not happy with you,” she announced with relish.
“Bite me,” Hailey said. She knocked on the door and let herself in.
Erica was behind her desk, standing, facing the door. Her no-shit expression was firmly on as she waved Hailey silently into a seat.
Hailey sat.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Hailey,” Erica began. She braced her hands on the back of her chair. Her manicure was the lightest shade of pink this week. “I asked you weeks ago to nurture a very important connection. An important connection for you and for this company.”
“I know.”
“But do I have this meeting? No. What I want to know is why?”
Hailey stared hard at the carpet. She was so tired of it all. “I couldn’t ask him. It wasn’t right.”
Erica waved that away with an inelegant snort. “Forget niceties. This business is built on who you know, and everybody expects to be used for their connections. Now, not only do I not have a meeting with Jax Michaels to pitch why my company would serve his bride-to-be the best, you may have irreparably damaged my chances by being linked unfavorably with one of his colleagues.” She raised her chin. “What do you have to say?”
Hailey lifted her gaze to stare Erica dead-on. “I quit.”
33.
It was strange how someone’s life could go from spectacular to shit in the space of a week.
It happened to other people, of course. Colleagues, friends. Not him, because he’d never cared before if a woman walked away.
But Hailey . . .
A vicious pain caught Ryder’s chest until he thought he was going to die.
Coward, he thought with an inner snarl. Lumping him in with her ex, as if he would ever, ever hurt her like he had.
Had Ryder ever capped her fire? No, he’d damn well encouraged it.
Had Ryder ever lied to her, apart from the whole bidding thing? No.
And she had the nerve to claim she was doing it for him?
Goddamn coward.
Luka had ordered him on a week’s vacation time, uncomfortable in the extreme, hands in his pockets as he explained that Ryder was upsetting some of the admin staff with his snapping comments and snarls.
“So, fire me,” Ryder had snapped and snarled.
Surprisingly, his Handler hadn’t responded with a low voltage fireball as a joke. In fact he’d looked downright guilty as he’d shrugged and said it was Ryder’s call but he wasn’t getting any assignments.
Didn’t Luka know he was losing his mind mooching around his empty apartment, an apartment now crammed with memories of Hailey? Of her in his shirt, making him eggs so disgusting a dog would turn up its nose. Teasing him about being her boyfriend, squealing as he’d chased her around the kitchen table. Out on the balcony as she’d pointed out how even the gods must love him because, like the ancient Greeks, his image could be seen in the stars there . . . and there, she pointed . . . and there . . . until he’d shut her up with a string of kisses.
A taxi horn blared as Ryder went to cross the street, yanking him out of his downward spiral. The driver yelled profanities as he leaned out his window, horn still going.
Ryder stared at him, unblinking, until the window wound back up and the taxi weaved around him.
He continued his aimless walk. Thankfully there weren’t many people out on the streets, whether because it was Halloween or because rain had been teeming down for the past two hours and puddles were now great lakes that co
uld swallow a person up to his calves.
Ryder could manipulate the air around himself so he didn’t feel it, but he wanted to feel it, the wet, the cold. Better than feeling nothing.
Leo had put up with him for the past week before losing it and arguing if Ryder was this mopey, he should try to win Hailey back. Then when that hadn’t gotten a response, his twin had switched tactics and insulted Hailey, calling her a bitch, a psycho, a slut.
He’d gotten a response, if Ryder throwing Leo off his balcony was a response. Good thing Leo could flash.
Ryder knew he was being dramatic and moody and a pain in the ass, but he couldn’t give a shit. Misery damn well loved company and he was ever the socializer.
Coward. Who needs her? Words he told himself fifteen thousand times a day. Soon he’d start to believe them.
A mom and her kid, dressed as Peter Pan and Wendy, splashed past him, laughing in great whoops as they hit all the puddles.
Peter Pan’s all grown up.
Ryder tipped his head back to the rain and let it run down his face. His hair was a sheet that stuck to his neck, his eyes stung. Strange how the rain was warm in October.
He carried on at an aimless pace. After all, he had eternity, what use was rushing?
But . . . what was she thinking? She thought it was easier now? Bullshit. He’d committed to her. The first time he’d ever held on to a woman because he couldn’t bear for her to slip away—and she had anyway because she was too fucking scared to take a chance on him. To trust in him enough to give up her precious control. And God, that fucking tore him apart.
Ryder ducked into the nearest shop, hoping to escape his thoughts as easily as the rain. A bell jangled, announcing his presence.
He shook off the droplets on the mat at the door, running a hand down his hair to sluice off the worst. The store was quiet, except for the low murmur of some girl band he’d heard Hailey sing along to once.
His jaw hardened. At some point he’d stop likening everything to a memory of her. He was sure of it.
Books, he realized, as he wandered in. Maybe he should get Leo one as a sorry-I-tossed-you-off-the-balcony gift. God knew, Hallmark hadn’t made a card for it. Yet.
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