by Zante, Lily
Later, he returned to his office to finish up on some paperwork and saw that he had a couple of calls to return, including one from the hospital. It was too late to make the calls now, so after tending to some urgent emails, he freshened up, and changed into a clean pair of clothes.
The conversation with Xavier was still fresh in his mind. His friend had surprised him. He’d done the impossible and had managed to win the heart of a sensible college student. Of course, he’d lost her just as quickly, by the sounds of it.
People changed. The impossible became possible. Rules were not set in stone. He and Kay weren’t complete opposites—they were similar in more ways than not. He used women for comfort, the same way she used men.
Women like Kay could deal with the type of relationship he was willing to have, for he didn’t only screw women physically, he knew that he probably screwed with their minds. Despite what some women said, they couldn’t handle a meaningless fling—not one that lasted more than a couple of nights. And unless you were a hooker charging by the hour, no woman was willing to be someone’s fuck buddy, and be happy with it long-term.
But now things were changing even for him, and that was a problem he needed to take care of. Something had changed between him and Kay that night, and he’d reacted the only way he’d known how to afterwards, he’d ignored her completely. He’d been condescending to her over breakfast when he could have been genuine. He could have asked her to spend the day with him, tried harder when she’d made excuses about having to go to work.
Maybe she was confused with the way he was being around her all of a sudden. He could have told her he enjoyed her company, maybe even told her that it meant something having her with him at the wedding. But he’d gone and spoiled it all by playing up the sex part of their arrangement.
It wasn’t love. Absolutely, definitely not. But it no longer felt like just a hookup, either.
He hadn’t called her since that night after the wedding, but not a day had passed that he didn’t think of her. He’d purposely stopped himself from getting in touch because the feeling of getting used to having her around scared him.
But he didn’t want to end up like Xavier, not realizing what he had until he risked losing her. And now, the idea of seeing her, or making it up to her, made his heart beat faster.
He opened the drawer and saw the gifts he’d decided to give her for Valentine’s Day. He didn’t do Valentine’s Day, ordinarily. But he could mention that he’d bought them just after Christmas, confess that he’d felt like a real douchebag that he hadn’t gotten her anything. Whatever. He’d used it to try and put things right.
He slipped the jewelry box into his jacket pocket, and picked up the dainty gift bag. Grabbing his keys, he considered texting her to see where she was, then decided against it. She had avoided coming to the bar, and he hadn’t been in touch. Things between them were probably a little icy. It would be best to turn up unannounced at her place, and unless she had found another watering hole, he assumed she’d be at home.
Twenty minutes later, he was at her door with a gift bag and a bottle of the best champagne.
But no flowers.
Damn.
He’d forgotten the flowers.
This looked like a typical booty call, and today of all days. Just as he was about to turn around and leave to get the flowers, she opened the door. Her face was a picture of surprise and shock, but she seemed to compose herself quickly. He was starting to wonder if this had been as great as idea as he had first envisioned.
“Hey?” She said it like a question, and stared at him with a what-the hell-are-you-doing-here expression.
“Hi.” He smiled, tilting his head slightly, trying to gauge at which end of the in-deep-shit scale he was at. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, it seemed he was at a 10.
“You should have called,” she remarked, stiffly, reminding him that their hookups had never been spontaneous.
“I wanted to surprise you.” He handed her the gift bag. “For you,” he said, noting her hesitation in taking it.
“What is it?”
“Take it and you’ll see,” he insisted, dangling the bag in front of her. She was cold, and understandably so, but he had plans to fix that.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I wanted to.”
She shrugged as she took the bag. “Thanks, but you shouldn’t have…”
He followed her in and briefly wondered if he’d caught her at a busy time, that she might have been working, but there was no obvious paperwork or laptop in sight. She placed the gift bag on the table, and walked away without looking through it.
Things were not looking good.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should have called, first. Is this a bad time?”
Her faced turned slightly pink. “I can’t,” she said looking away, “It’s my…I’m on…my period.”
He remained rooted to where he stood, her words confusing him and derailing his thoughts completely. The whole moment was steeped in awkwardness, as they stood a foot apart, in her living room.
“I…I…” He didn’t know what to say, especially since his motive for coming here tonight hadn’t been to have sex. “That’s too bad.”
Her brows knotted together, and he realized too late that it had been the wrong thing to say. “I mean,” he said, fumbling around trying to find a way to redeem himself. “It’s okay, it’s not why I’m here.”
She folded her arms, and stared back at him and he wished she would say something but she didn’t. She seemed to be waiting for him to speak.
“Do you need anything?” he asked, hating the silence, and for once feeling as though he didn’t have control of the conversation. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m on my period, Luke. I’m not sick.”
“I know.” He coughed lightly. “I know that.” What was he supposed to say? Get better? She’d only bite his head off. “I’ll—uh, I’ll see you around. Call me.” What an idiot. Why had he gone and said that? She seemed so hostile, and so unwilling to even give him a shred of a smile, that he couldn’t find a way of salvaging the visit.
She clearly didn’t think anything of the gifts. Escape was his best option.
“Call you? When I’m able to have sex again, you mean?”
Her words hit him like an axe slicing clean through him, and he couldn’t work out if she was mad because of her time of month, or because she was just generally annoyed at him.
“That’s not…that’s not what…”
“But you’ve come here for a reason, for sex,” she said, spitting the words out as if they tasted bitter. “Why else do we see one another? What else do we have?”
Goddamnit. Talk about walking into the eye of a hurricane. A sinking feeling collected in his stomach. This was the last thing he needed, after the kind of week he’d had. Who the hell needed this shit? Not him, that’s for sure. Not when he’d done the decent thing and come to see her, with gifts and with the intention of making it up to her.
She hadn’t even given him a chance.
Every instinct in his body told him to turn and run, but her standing there, looking so miserable and pitiful, made him feel sorry for her again.
Why couldn’t she be like the others? Playful and laughing.
A tease.
Why couldn’t she be the way she had been on the island, and in the earlier days when she had come to the bar looking for him?
“What else do we have?” he asked, incredulous, his anger beginning to rise. “You knew what this was going in,” he flung back at her.
“Yes I did, and, like I said, I’ll call you when I’m fuckable again.”
He jerked his head up in surprise, his eyes settling on her face. She never usually swore, and right now, she looked pretty pissed. This wasn’t at all how he had expected this evening to go. Gritting his teeth together, he considered going over to her, and comforting her. And then he wondered if women routinely turned into banshees when it was th
eir time of the month, or if they merely showed their true colors.
“You do that.”
He left, closing the door behind him and walking away as fast as he could, even though it didn’t feel right to be walking away when she was obviously hurting about something.
Turn around, make it better. Don’t leave her like this.
But if he turned back and apologized, and tried to be there for her, she would think of a happily-ever-after future, and that was not in his life plan.
Christ, it was difficult enough acknowledging that his feelings had changed, but too many moments like this, full of conflict and headache, made him wonder if he could go the distance.
He wasn’t ready for the emotional landmines. Couldn’t suffer more of the explosions blowing up his world all over again.
Emotional involvement? It had always been a no-no, it should have been a no-no even now. He didn’t need this level of complication in his life, and he should have walked away. Even after that first pity-fuck.
~ ~
She wasn’t pregnant. She’d come on last night, and the hope she had been carrying around with her had died at the sight of her blood. She hadn’t realized the depth of her sadness until now; hadn’t realized how deep her desire had been that she might be pregnant. It didn’t matter that it would have been Luke’s—given how she felt about him now, but the idea that she could be pregnant had given her an inner strength she had started to cling to.
And just like that, her hopes had crashed and burned. She’d been in a dark mood even before Luke had arrived at her door.
She should have ended it. If she’d had her wits about her, she would have, but the truth was, she couldn’t think straight. Luke arriving at her place had made things difficult. Complicated. Unbearable. If he’d had any regard for her feelings, he would have stayed with her, and it was clear that he had no feelings for her at all.
He’d come here to have sex. Nothing more.
She had been so wrong to think he was changing, that he was starting to feel something for her. The wedding had hit a nerve, and weakened his defenses. That glimpse into the type of man she liked to think he was, was just a glimpse, nothing more. The real Luke was this man—callous, and selfish, and inconsiderate.
She wanted intimacy, but he wanted sex.
A gargantuan void stood between them, and the gap would never close.
Maybe it was just as well that she wasn’t pregnant.
What sort of toxic foundation would that child have? It was hardly the fairytale world of the Stones.
How could she have ever believed that their loveless relationship, based purely on need and desire, could ever end well?
If he had stayed, if he had even given her half an hour of his time, it would have given her hope, especially now, in the wake of her wretched sadness.
But he hadn’t even given her that.
It had been exactly what they had agreed to. Two people getting together for a physical connection. She had been stupid to ever think it could be something more. The gift bag on her coffee table caught her eye. Inside was a flimsy parcel wrapped in thin tissue paper. She unwrapped it and lifted up the black and peach-colored bustier. The lace was so wispy and thin, it felt like gossamer against her skin.
This was how he saw her.
This was what came to his mind.
This told her exactly how he saw her as. A sex object. And he expected her to put that on, and spend the night with him. The old Kay might have done that in a heartbeat.
But now?
She wanted more, because she was a woman, and not a whore. She wanted a man to love her, for her, and because he wanted to be with her, not for his release, but because she was so much more than that.
She tossed the flimsy garment carelessly to the floor, not caring that it was a designer label, or that it had cost a ridiculous amount of money.
This was what he wanted to see her in, because this, and everything that followed once she put it on, was the basis of their relationship.
Chapter 28
“It’s the best cancer to have.”
That’s what the doctor had told him. He remembered looking at the man, waiting for the punchline of what was definitely a god awful joke.
Seriously?
“Then I’m a lucky son-of-a-bitch,” he’d replied, in a sarcastic voice. “What do I get at the end of it? A fucking ticket to Hawaii?”
“It’s natural to be upset, Luke, but trust me on this. Papillary thyroid cancer is one of the most curable of all cancers. And, after the treatment, there’s a 95-99% chance that it can be treated without recurrence.”
“Aren’t I the lucky one?”
The recent biopsy had confirmed his doctor’s suspicions, and he now needed surgery quickly to remove part of his thyroid. He’d then have to stay in the hospital for a few days, followed by home rest for a few more weeks, where he had to avoid strenuous activity. Later, he’d have to undergo more treatment, and would be left with a small scar on his neck.
Life was a bastard. Or a bitch. Didn’t matter, since it didn’t have a gender, but fuck. This news was shittier than shit.
Should he have felt grateful that he had ‘the best cancer’? Because returning home later that day, he surfed the internet, and read up for hours, soaking up everything he could find on it. Getting sucked up into the dark vortex of cancer survivor stories left him feeling scared shitless, and he went to bed feeling as if he’d been hit by a train.
Cancer was cancer, regardless of whether it was the best cancer or not, and this shock, this bolt straight out of the nowhere, hit him hard.
He was so numb that he couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t think. One moment his mind was pre-occupied with Canal Street, and then next, he was making plans to visit Miami.
He called Marie and told her he would be working from home for a few days, and left it at that, while he moped around, trying to sort himself out.
How the fuck could he, a healthy twenty-seven year old who watched his diet, ate well, exercised and had always been well, how the fuck could he be diagnosed with cancer?
The best fucking cancer.
The day before his surgery, he returned to work, and told Marie.
She took the news well, especially when he told her not to tell anyone, not even the bar staff. He also didn’t want Kay to know.
He needed to get through this himself. No emotional baggage, no other person to rely on. While moping around at home a few days ago, he’d pulled out the jewelry box from his jacket pocket, realizing that he’d forgotten to give her the bracelet. The gift bag he’d handed her only had the lingerie.
He had no time to worry about any of that now.
Given the circumstances, and how things had been between them that day, maybe it was time to let her go.
As with most of his life, being a closed book had served him well. He had learned his lesson about people a long time ago. Even those who had once cared and loved you let you down.
So it was better to avoid it all in the first place.
“You should tell Kay,” Marie said again, trying to convince him, but he refused to give in. “She doesn’t need to know. I don’t want her to know.”
“You can’t go through this alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have you. It’s the best fucking cancer, Marie,” he snarled viciously. “I can handle it.”
She stared at him, her mouth twisting, and he could see she was fighting the urge to tell him off, that she was holding back because of the news he’d just revealed.
“Don’t you want someone with you at the hospital?”
“No.”
“Have you told Amanda?”
“She’s on her honeymoon.”
“And what about the rest of your family?”
“No.”
“You’re making a mistake. At times like this you need your family around you.”
“No, I don’t.” Christ. That was the last thing he needed. It didn’t matter if he had b
een dying, even if he’d had the worst type of cancer, there was no way he would tell his old man or his brother. In those circumstances, he probably wouldn’t even tell Amanda.
According to the doctor, he’d be fine to return to work after three weeks, and then have regular check-ups. This was a minor glitch in his life. The last thing he wanted was for someone to profess their undying support and loyalty to him and then fuck off. It had happened before, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Cancer or no cancer.
Chapter 29
“You’re not fun anymore. How does your boyfriend put up with you?”
He doesn’t. “I’ve had a two hour meeting with the client,” Kay explained, trying not to sound as irritated as she felt. “I’m up to my eye balls in work and I wouldn’t be good company.”
“Are you avoiding that place?” Erin asked.
“No!” The woman had too much time on her hands. Not a day went by when Erin didn’t suggest they go to The Oasis. Kay regretted introducing her work colleagues to a place she was now desperate to forget about, like its owner.
“One drink.”
Kay put down her pen and massaged her temples, slowly thinking about it. “Remington’s on my back, the client’s on my back. Geoffrey’s being a jerk—”
“What’s his problem now?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Just look at you, Kay. You’re so stressed out you’re going to have a breakdown if you’re not careful. I bet your boyfriend isn’t too happy that you spend so much time working.”
“He knows the score.” She wasn’t about to let Erin know of her personal troubles.
“Why’s Geoffrey being a jerk?”
“Because he’s Geoffrey.” The more she thought about it, she saw that Geoffrey had been distant with her ever since she’d landed the Pembroke deal. At first she had thought that he was just being a dickhead because she’d snubbed his advances at the club, but as time went on, she was starting to think otherwise. He hadn’t hidden his displeasure when Remington gave her the account, but she was used to it; used to having to fight harder to get ahead in the corporate world.