by Louise Bay
“Not from you, that’s for damn sure.”
I took the bottle from the counter and unscrewed the top single-handed. “Angie, I don’t have time for this.”
The whiskey glugged into the white cup emblazoned with the logo of a commercial real estate agency on the side.
“Grace told me, you idiot. And speaking of idiocy, why the fuck are you ignoring her calls?”
I took a big gulp, enjoying the burn down my throat as I swallowed. The pain was soothing, distracting.
“Do you have an answer or are you just being a gigantic dick?” Angie asked.
On the surface, not picking up my phone to Grace or Angie looked like a dick move. I’d gone dark on Grace and hadn’t responded to any of her calls or messages. But I needed to pull up the drawbridge, reestablish my defenses. I’d had an ugly reminder of how frail life was and how close to the edge I’d been.
“I’m fine, Angie. Grace is fine. We’re just over. That’s all. It’s no big deal.”
I don’t know how Angie had become some kind of exception to my isolation. I should have cut her loose long ago.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Had I gone too far? Good. Perhaps she’d get the message and leave me the fuck alone.
“Sam,” she said quietly.
I topped up my mug of whiskey and stalked out of the kitchen, clutching my drink only to be hit with the sight of the La Touche on the wall.
Fuck, she was everywhere.
“Sam, I’m worried about you.”
I put my drink down on the coffee table Grace and I had bought. Why the fuck did I have a table to put my fucking whiskey on? Anger boiled up inside me and I flung the table over. My cup of whiskey flew across the room, liquid raining in an amber arc across the couch, the crack of the table leg breaking providing the sound track.
“What was that?” Angie asked.
Now I’d have to pour myself more whiskey. “Nothing. I dropped my drink.” I stooped to collect the white mug. The handle had snapped off but I could still drink out of it. I headed to the kitchen to get the bottle.
“Are you okay, Sam?”
“I told you, I’m fine. Not a scratch on me. And Grace is fine. She’s been discharged.”
“And how would you know that? She said she hasn’t heard from you since she woke up.”
I didn’t respond. I had nothing to say. I couldn’t deny what Angie was saying and I had no reason to try and excuse it. But I had to put my survival above everything else. It was the only way. I’d made a mistake by caring about someone. I couldn’t handle the pain of even the thought of something happening to Grace. It was easier for both of us to walk away now.
I might miss her wide smile and generous heart. I might miss her warm touch and light kisses. I might miss the way she made me feel, but it was better this way.
I may have survived my parents’ deaths, but it had sliced a crack straight through me that constantly threatened to break open.
Walking away now, I had a chance.
This way I was safe.
And alone.
“Come in,” I said to the knock at my door. I’d specifically told my assistant, Rosemary, that I couldn’t be interrupted. I had a lot of people to catch up with after being out for a week.
Rosemary poked her head around the door. “Sorry to disturb you but I thought I should let you know that there’s a woman in reception who wants to see you. When I explained you were busy all day, she just told me she’d wait and took a seat.”
My heart began to pound. I knew exactly who it was. Couldn’t Grace take a hint? Jesus, she was stubborn.
“I don’t know what to do,” Rosemary said with a helpless shrug. “She looks like she might sit there all day. Do you want me to call security?”
“Did you get her name?” I asked, even though I knew damn well.
“Grace Astor. I think she’s been here once before.”
I stared at the screen and nodded, trying to pretend that hearing her name hadn’t affected me. “Show her in and I’ll see why she came.”
“Okay.” She paused. “Can I help in any way? Is she waiting for payment? She wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“I have no idea what she wants, but I’ll deal with her.”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Rosemary went to say something else, then thankfully thought better of it and closed the door behind her.
I closed my eyes.
Breathe, Sam. Breathe.
Being cruel to be kind was in her best interests as much as it was my own. It might hurt to start off with, but it was pain that could be survived.
I opened my eyes at the sound of the door handle turning but I didn’t look away from my computer screen.
“Grace Astor,” Rosemary announced as Grace hobbled in on crutches. Why the hell hadn’t I been the one to take the hit? Why had it had to happen to the only woman I’d ever had any hope of a future with?
I kept my eyes facing the screen but all I could focus on was Grace—so small and fragile.
I could almost hear the ticking of a clock in the fraction of a second I didn’t acknowledge her.
As soon as the door shut behind Rosemary, Grace used her crutches to step toward my desk. I stood, shoving my hands in my pockets, my gaze fixed on the door to her left.
“Sam, look at me.”
I wanted to. I really did. I longed to take in every inch of her, commit her to memory before I’d never see her again. But at the same time, I wanted to go to her, scoop her up in my arms, tell her I was sorry and that everything was going to be okay.
“Why are you here? You should be resting at home,” I said.
“Why am I here?” she asked softly. “Where have you been?” Her voice grew louder. “Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or messages? It’s like you just disappeared.”
I had to do this. I had to make the wound sharp and deep or she’d never accept it was over. I turned my head and looked her straight in the eye. “Things got too heavy too quickly between us.” That much was true. Her love had run me over like a herd of buffalo. “I’ve had a chance to re-evaluate.” My ears began to buzz as if my words were coming from someone else.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, her eyes narrowed in confusion.
I’d tricked myself into thinking that I could be happy. That I could love. That I could live like other people. Grace’s accident had reminded me that could never be my life.
“It’s been a week. What could have changed so much?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe our brief fling was something it wasn’t.” I tried to keep my voice even and detached, as if I were negotiating the purchase of a new building, but what I was saying cut deep, each syllable a separate blow. There was nothing about my love for Grace that was brief or could be described as a fling.
“Sam, don’t talk like that. I know you don’t mean it. You’re just scared.”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t want to get serious with you, so I’m scared?” I snorted. How dare she pretend to know me better than I knew myself? She’d never experienced what I’d been through.
“Yes, Sam. You’re scared of opening yourself up. Scared of loving me. But I’m here, by your side, and we’re going to weather the storms together. Don’t you remember? You said you’d try.”
I wasn’t scared.
I just knew how vicious life could be.
I was a realist.
I took my hands out of my pockets and leaned forward, placing my palms flat on my desk. I looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not scared of anything. I just don’t have feelings for you. You need to accept that.”
Her eyes welled with tears and her knuckles whitened where she gripped her crutches. “Well, I don’t accept that.”
I straightened up and put my hands back in my pockets. “There’s nothing I can help you with. Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
She gasped and it was as if someone had their hands around
my heart and was squeezing and twisting.
The creak and stretch of her crutches filled the room. She shouldn’t be on her feet. I’d offer her a seat, but I needed her to leave. Every moment she was here, beautiful and warm and the woman I’d always love, I could feel myself weakening. “You should go, Grace. Can I call a car for you?”
I walked around her, keeping as much physical distance as I could between us as I made my way to the door. That didn’t stop her scent from filling my lungs. I fisted my hands, digging my nails into my palms, hoping the pain would be enough to distract me from what my heart was telling me to do. Comfort her, soothe her, love her.
My back to her, she screamed, “Sam!”
Fuck, why was she making this so difficult? I’d been mean to her. Cold. Nasty. She should throw me away and get on with her life.
I stopped, facing the door. “You need to leave.”
“I know you’re hurting, and I know that the accident must have been horrible for you,” she said. “But I’m fine. You’re fine.”
I didn’t move. Despite my abandoning her, even though I’d said such awful things to her, she was still trying to give me the benefit of the doubt, trying to see things from my point of view. She was an amazing woman, but I couldn’t be the one who told her so.
“I love you,” she whispered, her voice cracked and small.
My hand went to the door handle. I had nothing I could say. If I looked at her now, I knew I’d go to her because I loved her too, and eventually it would be the destruction of us both.
I turned around to face her for what I knew would be the final time. I needed to deliver a knock-out blow. “I’ve told you I don’t feel the same. You should go.”
“Sam.” Her voice was full of tears and she leaned on her crutches as if they were keeping her afloat. “Please don’t do this. I need you.”
Those final three words gave me the strength I needed to open the door.
She shouldn’t need me.
And I couldn’t need her.
“Good luck, Ms. Astor.” If she wasn’t going to leave, then I would. I walked out of the office and away from the only woman I’d ever love.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grace
“Please just drive,” I said to Harper as I closed the door. Somehow I’d found the strength to leave Sam’s building and met Harper waiting outside.
Harper pulled out and turned north on Madison. “Can we go through the Upper West Side? I just can’t …” There were too many memories on the other side of the park—the Frick, the apartment. I wasn’t up to a look-what-your-life-could-have-been tour.
“No problem,” Harper replied, grabbing my hand with hers and squeezing. “I’m so sorry.”
Her sympathy unleashed the floodgates and I began to sob, deep bellowing sounds I’d never made before.
Harper didn’t pull over, didn’t comfort me. She understood the only thing that would make me feel at all better was to get as far away from Manhattan, from Sam, as I could. She’d agreed to drive me into the city, but from her reaction, she’d known my turning up at his office wouldn’t go well.
How could I have been so wrong? Oh, I knew he loved me. I wasn’t wrong about that. But I’d thought that would be enough. I thought that now that we’d found each other, both of us were committed to doing whatever it took to be together.
We had no strength at all if we’d been blown off course so quickly and so badly.
“Maybe he just needs more time,” I said.
Harper glanced at me. “Did he say he needed more time?” she asked, knowing damn well he hadn’t.
Tears began to roll down my cheeks again. “No, he told me he didn’t love me, but I know that’s not true.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. If he loves me then—”
“It takes more than love,” she said. “If he’s telling you he doesn’t love you, you have to take him at his word.”
“But don’t you see? He’s doing it to protect himself. He doesn’t want to love me—he doesn’t want to love anyone in case he loses them and has to go through what he did when his parents died.” I hadn’t told Harper about Sam’s lack of furniture or social circle, but I understood so clearly now that those things were borne out of a fear of losing something he’d grown attached to. It made perfect sense. Sam had nearly lost me in the accident, and now he was pushing me away to protect himself. I understood.
“Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean? Of course it matters.” He loved me. It was too late to erase that—pretend it wasn’t true. Surely.
“The outcome’s the same. Whatever his reasons, he’s ended it.”
“Don’t say that,” I whined as I tried to catch my breath between sobs. “He’ll come around. I just need to give him time.”
“You need to give you time. And then you should get on with your life.” Harper’s voice was soothing and sympathetic but her words were sharp and jagged. How could she think I had a life to get on with without Sam?
“Now’s not the time for your tough love. I have to believe Sam will come back to me.” Even though we’d been together so little time, I’d waited my whole life for him to come along. “I can’t just give up on him.”
“Look, I believe in the fairytale. I really do. Look at my husband, for crying out loud. But, you’re my best friend and I can’t bear to see you hurting like this. Whether or not he loves you, he’s not with you, showing his love. And if you can’t see it, can’t feel it, then I’m not sure it matters what he feels deep down.”
I didn’t like the fact that her words made sense. I didn’t want to believe what she was saying was exactly what I’d say to her if she were sitting in the passenger seat.
“You don’t know him like I do.” The words sounded weak even as I said them. Had I become one of those women who excused the behavior of their boyfriends and husbands by explaining other people just didn’t know the real him? How pathetic.
“Of course I don’t, but I know what I see—a man who abandoned you when you needed him most. That rejected you when you gave him the benefit of the doubt and went to his office to tell him you loved him.” She sighed. “And that’s the only side of him I need to see.”
I sat, silent and defeated.
“We should make a plan,” she said, forcing some cheer into her voice. “Let’s have a fire in the pit tonight and make s’mores. We’ll put the patio heaters on and wrap up in blankets. What do you say?”
“Does this plan involve wine?”
Harper turned and smiled. “Wouldn’t be a party without the wine.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Have you spoken to Natalie?” Harper asked, blatantly trying to shift my focus from my past to my future, to the gallery and my temporary assistant.
My gut churned. “I messaged her this morning. Everything’s fine. I think she likes being left to her own devices. I’ll probably go back and she won’t let me in.”
Harper laughed but it was a little forced. “Maybe while you’re in Connecticut you should think some more about your plan for the place. I know some of the work you love most you don’t really sell. You know, the more traditional stuff. Have you thought about splitting the gallery in two and doing both?”
I didn’t have head space for this conversation. Seeing Sam but not being able to touch him, the thought of never seeing him again—it was all so exhausting. “It won’t work. I don’t have the right contacts to get the traditional art in the gallery. Or the money.”
“Remember you said you could never have a gallery of your own without your father’s money and look how that turned out.”
“But I had to sell my Renoir.” I started to cry again at the thought of losing that painting to some unknown buyer in the Middle East.
“You sold that painting to get Grace Astor Fine Art. Don’t take your foot off the gas now. If you let it, the gallery could be a great focus.”
Sh
e was talking as if what I was experiencing was a normal breakup, as if I just needed to take my mind off things, channel my energy, and I’d bounce back in no time. Didn’t she understand that I’d always love Sam?
“Don’t you think?” she asked.
I nodded. “Sure.”
“Maybe Max can introduce you to some of his rich clients. In fact, why don’t you start running parties in your gallery? Maybe Max can host something there?”
I shrugged. I understood Harper had my best interests at heart, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than what I’d lost.
I wasn’t ready to move on and I didn’t think I ever would be.
“Yes, bring it in this side,” I said to the two men who were delivering new pieces I’d bought from a couple of Max’s clients. He was happy for me to sell them on his behalf, taking a commission. Being as determined and stubborn as she was, Harper’s idea about Max throwing a client party at Grace Astor Fine Art had come to fruition three weeks after she’d first mentioned it. She’d been right to push me to focus on work. I’d made a ton of contacts and booked three more parties since.
It was keeping me busy, but despite it being seven weeks since I’d seen Sam, I still thought about him every moment.
We had our third business event tonight and I wanted this new work on the wall before people started to arrive. The aim of the parties wasn’t about the art at all. It was just a backdrop for a networking evening combined with a speech by a high-profile person in business or sports. Max had given me some suggested names and with what I was making on the venue hire, I used it all to pay the right person. Tonight it was some baseball player.
I waved at Scarlett as I saw her cross the street toward me, her almost-black hair so dramatic with her red coat. “Hey,” I said. “How are you? You look beautiful.”
“Stop it. You invented beautiful.” She glanced behind me. “I brought you lunch—I figured if I didn’t you wouldn’t eat.” She held up a paper bag.
“You’re good to me,” I said. “But I need to finish up with this delivery first.”
“No problem.”