by Bec Linder
Friday would change everything, one way or another.
On Friday morning, I sequestered myself in my office with a pot of coffee and tore through a pile of paperwork I had been avoiding. I hated paperwork so much that my rage propelled me clear through until lunch, and occupied my attention so thoroughly that I had no time to fret over my impending meeting with Regan. When my phone beeped at a quarter to 12, I emerged from my fugue state with a sense of dim panic, as if I had forgotten something vital. But I hadn’t; I would be on time.
I told Nancy that I would be back in an hour, and walked the few blocks to the sandwich shop. It was a nice day, sunny and not too cold, and I tucked my hands in my pockets and felt—hopeful. Maybe it was premature, and maybe Regan would crush all of my dreams and leave me a miserable wreck of a man, but I was all in. All of my cards were on the table.
Regan was in line at the counter when I walked in, staring up at the menu board. I recognized her even from behind: the long sweep of her hair, her navy coat, the way she cocked her hip to one side as she thought.
My heart rolled over in my chest, just from seeing her.
I walked up behind her and, gently, not wanting to startle her, placed one hand on her shoulder.
She turned and looked at me, and gave me a smile so shy and sweet that I ached to hold her against me. “Hi, Carter,” she said.
“Regan,” I said, and then simply stood there, gazing at her, every word I wanted to say turning to dust in my mouth. I swallowed. “If you need help choosing a sandwich, I can give you a recommendation.”
“I was thinking about the hummus wrap,” she said, tucking her hair behind one ear, and I stared down at her, numb, joyful, and said, “That’s a good choice.”
“What are you getting?” she asked. Such a mundane question, when my universe was in the midst of expanding from a single point of white heat.
I pretended to consider the menu board. I ordered the same thing every time I came here—dull and predictable, maybe, but I knew what I liked. “Oh, maybe the pastrami.”
“Yuck,” Regan said, wrinkling her nose adorably.
Christ. I didn’t stand a chance.
We ordered our sandwiches and took our trays to a table by a window, overlooking the lunchtime foot traffic outside. I watched as Regan shed her coat and arranged it over the back of her chair, along with her purse and scarf. She wore a green blouse in a shade that my mother probably would have described as “emerald,” and silver earrings that dangled toward her shoulders.
She looked beautiful.
I didn’t know where to begin. “So,” I said.
She smiled at me. “This is kind of weird, isn’t it? I feel like I haven’t seen you in a million years, but also like I saw you yesterday. And I have so many things I want to say, but I don’t know where to start.”
“I feel exactly the same way,” I said, grateful that she had expressed the sentiment and spared me the task.
She unwrapped her sandwich, her hair falling in her eyes and concealing her face. She seemed—calm. Older. Like she had grown up, somehow, in the two months since I had seen her last. “So, um. How have you been?”
She wanted to play this game, then: polite phrases that meant nothing, changed nothing. Maybe lunch had been a mistake. “Fine,” I said. “Staying busy. Business as usual. What about you? Germaine told me that you aren’t working at the club anymore.” Was that a tactical error, admitting that I had spoken to Germaine about her? Surely she expected that I would, or at least considered it as a possibility.
“Yeah, I’m—I got a new job. I’m working as a legal secretary now.” She shrugged, still looking down at her tray. “And I started back at school. I’m taking two night classes this semester. It’s not a lot, but, you know. Baby steps.”
“A legal secretary,” I repeated. “That’s wonderful, Regan.” I was selfishly glad that she hadn’t taken another job that involved men viewing her as a sexual object—even though I had, at one point, been one of those men.
She glanced up at me, shy as a wild animal. “I thought about—you know. What you said, about how there had to be something I wanted to do with my life, instead of just working at the club. And I decided that you were right, that I’ve been hiding from—from life, I guess, and so I sent my resume around to a bunch of law offices, and I got a job. Somehow.”
“What type of law firm?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Finance stuff. They do a lot of things.”
There was no doubt in my mind that Regan knew exactly what type of practice she was working for, and could have listed every major client and case. For whatever reason, she always seemed to find it easier to play dumb. I didn’t understand the impulse, and didn’t like it. I didn’t want her to hide her intellect around me. I unwrapped my sandwich and opened my bottle of iced tea. “What sorts of cases are you working on?”
“Well,” she said, and hesitated. “Right now I’m helping with some intellectual property stuff. Just doing some basic research and filing paperwork, basically. It’s not anything very complicated. But I’m—I like the lawyer I’m working for. A woman. She’s nice to me. She told me that—I did good work on the last case, and so she’s going to give me more responsibilities now.”
I was proud of her, and still hurt, and angry that she underestimated her own potential so severely. “Of course she’s going to,” I said. “Why wouldn’t she?”
“I was really afraid I would screw it up,” she said. “I mean, maybe I still will. I hope I won’t. I really like the job.”
“You’ll be running the place within a year,” I said. “And you’re back in school, too?”
She nodded. “I’d like to finish my degree. It’s going to take me a while, but. I think it’s worth it.”
“That’s great,” I said again, and sounded like such a babbling fool, even to myself, that I forced myself to shut up and eat my sandwich for a little while.
We sat in silence, eating our sandwiches. Regan stared out the window, jaw working. I wondered what she was thinking about. I felt too far removed from her to ask. She was only on the other side of the table, but it might as well have been a thousand miles.
Lunch was definitely a mistake. I was glad that Regan was doing well, but I didn’t want to sit here and make awkward small talk with her. This wasn’t what I expected. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, though. Closure? Some type of explanation? For her to throw herself at me, sobbing, and beg me to take her back?
Whatever it was, it seemed that it wasn’t going to happen.
But then she turned back to face me and set her sandwich on her tray. She had a set to her chin that I recognized, a stubborn determination that was quintessentially Regan. “I want to say that I’m sorry,” she said. “For how I ended things.” She drew in a deep breath. “It was really—unkind of me, and cowardly, to break up with you over the phone. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”
Was that what I wanted? Maybe. With her words, I felt something hard and cold inside my chest begin to unravel. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She closed her eyes. “It was just—being home again. Seeing my mom. Seeing all my relatives. Nothing’s changed there. It’s all exactly the same as it was when I left. It was like going back into my past, and I started feeling like maybe I hadn’t ever left. Not really. Some part of me was still there, living in San Bernardino like a ghost. And I didn’t know how to reconcile that part with all the rest of me. So I guess I got scared. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared.” She opened her eyes again and shrugged. “Have you ever been scared like that? Like no matter what you do, you can’t change anything. You’re powerless.”
My whole life, I had been able to do anything I wanted, get anything I wanted, simply by being who I was. I could change everything. I had never been powerless.
Maybe I understood, finally, what Sadie meant when she said that Regan thought she wasn’t good enough for me. It wasn’t about inadequacy; it was about
the sheer, insurmountable difference in our experiences.
Insurmountable wasn’t the right word. If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here. I would have given up already.
With absolutely no premeditation whatsoever, I said, “Why didn’t you tell me that you were a virgin?”
Regan moaned and covered her face with both hands. “Oh, God. Did Sadie tell you that? I didn’t think she knew.”
“She deduced,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to bring that up. It’s probably not something we need to talk about right now.”
“No, it’s okay,” Regan said. Hands still hiding her face, she said, “I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed, and I thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t have sex with me, and I was probably right about that. And I really wanted to have sex with you, so I didn’t say anything.”
“I wish you had told me,” I said. “I would have been—”
“What, gentle?” she asked dryly, finally dropping her hands. “Tender? I don’t think so. I didn’t want you to be.”
“Well. Maybe not gentle. But—slower.” I shook my head. I couldn’t think about making love with Regan. It was far too distracting, those memories of her body moving against mine. “This isn’t the right venue.”
She grinned at me. “Carter Sutton, embarrassed by talking about sex in public? I can’t believe it.”
“Mm, I wouldn’t say embarrassed,” I said. “More like unable to control myself in the face of temptation.”
“Oh,” Regan said, and touched her face the way she always did when she was nervous, her fingers pressed to her cheek. I wondered if she was aware that she did it. “Well. Never mind, then.”
I changed the subject. “Why did you agree to have lunch with me?”
She sighed. “Because—because Sadie told me that I’m an idiot, and that I never should have broken up with you, and that—if I didn’t at least meet with you, she would smack me silly.”
“So it was only that you’re afraid of Sadie,” I said, disappointed.
“No,” Regan said, shaking her head. “I’m—this is coming out all wrong. It’s because I missed you, so much, every day, and I—regretted it. Constantly. Breaking up with you, I mean. I don’t know why I did it. I mean, I know why, but it was for stupid reasons, and I shouldn’t have. I really am sorry.”
“Come over for dinner,” I said impulsively. “Tomorrow night. Do you want to? I’ll cook for you, and we can talk more.” That was all I was willing to commit to, at this point: dinner, and some talking. I wasn’t about to jump back in with both feet.
I ignored the inner voice that told me that having Regan in my apartment, mere steps away from the bedroom, was a temptation that I wouldn’t be able to resist.
“Dinner sounds, yeah. Really great,” she said. “What time?”
“7:00,” I said. “Bring some dessert, if you’d like any. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling at me. She glanced at her watch. “I need to get going. My lunch hour is almost over.”
“Mine, too,” I said, although of course I had no set schedule. We wrapped up our sandwiches and went out to the sidewalk.
“I’m that way,” Regan said, pointing uptown, away from my office.
The urge to take her in my arms was almost overwhelming. I shoved my hands into my pockets, fighting the impulse. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I said.
“See you then,” she said, and turned to walk away from me.
I watched her go, admiring the way her body moved, and thinking what an idiot I was to get involved with her again.
I would be a happy idiot, though.
I went back to my office and spent entirely too long gazing out the window, trying to decide how screwed I was. Regan seemed interested, but I couldn’t say how long that would last. If only dating were as straightforward as negotiating mergers.
When it came to business, I considered the available evidence, weighed my options, and made a decision; and once I decided, I never looked back. There was no room for second-guessing. But when it came to relationships, I doubted myself at every turn. I disliked the unpredictability, the margin of error. It was possible to do everything right and still fail to close the deal.
God. I needed a hobby.
I was wasting my time. In lieu of accomplishing anything work-related, I decided to head downstairs to the company gym. A good workout would provide me with a distraction, and maybe I would be able to focus on work for a few hours afterward. It was worth a shot. I grabbed my gym bag and left my office.
Nancy, seated at her desk outside my office door, raised her head from the paperwork in front of her. “Heading out early, Mr. Sutton?”
“Just downstairs for a workout,” I said. “I’ll be back later. I don’t have a meeting that I forgot about, do I?”
“Nothing of the sort,” she said, shaking her head. “Enjoy your workout.”
I shouldered my gym bag, preparing to head for the elevator. Then I hesitated. “Nancy... how long have you and your husband been married?”
She raised her eyebrows at me, reminding me very much of my terrifying sixth grade math teacher. I had hired Nancy in part due to that resemblance. “Nineteen years next month,” she said. “Are you taking a poll?”
“An informal poll of one,” I said. “Feel free to tell me to buzz off if you prefer not to answer. But you seem to be happily married, and I’m wondering how you knew that your husband was the right person for you.”
“Well,” Nancy said. She looked up and to the left, visibly thinking. “You’re right that it isn’t any of your business, but I’ll tell you anyway. We met at a time when I was, for various reasons, very dedicated to the idea of dating around and not getting too serious with any particular man. I had a different boyfriend for every day of the week, and it was delightful. Well, then I got the flu, and Jack came over every day to bring me supplies and check in on me, and none of the rest of them so much as called. So I figured, any man who still wanted to see me when I was feverish and hadn’t showered in three days was a man worth sticking with. And I think I was right.”
“After nineteen years, I would say so,” I said. “Thank you, Nancy.”
“I’m glad I could help,” she said, still looking a bit puzzled.
I took the elevator downstairs, thinking about what Nancy said, and about Regan. I was sure that she would bring me soup and orange juice if I were sick, check on me every day until I felt better. She was endlessly affectionate and attentive—as long as we were alone. In public, she froze up. I’d seen it at the charity ball, and at the museum, and told myself that she was just shy, that she would get over it.
I wasn’t sure that she would, though. Or could. My life was inescapably public, lived fully in the limelight. If the only solution was to walk away from my company, to abandon everything and plunge myself into anonymous mediocrity, I wasn’t sure I could do it. I knew myself to be a citizen of the earth, and I felt an obligation to everyone I shared the planet with, from ditch-digger to emperor. The good that I could do, as the head of Sutton Industries—well. It would be incredibly difficult to walk away from that.
I hoped Regan wouldn’t ask me to.
Chapter 16
I slept for ten hours that night, deep and dreamless, and it cleared the dark thoughts from my head. I woke feeling well-rested for the first time in several weeks, and easily banged out a few hours of work, sitting at the table in my bathrobe, coffee mug at my side. Only when I had cleared my inbox did I allow myself to consider the fact that Regan would be arriving for dinner in less than twelve hours.
Shit. I should have scheduled the housekeeper to come that morning, but it hadn’t occurred to me in time. I took a quick inventory of the apartment. Not dirty, certainly, but not as tidy as I would have liked. I spent some time loading the dishwasher and tossing dirty socks in the hamper.
I realized that I was nervous. How absurd. I made grown men cry on a daily basis. Well, not daily. Once a mo
nth, perhaps. And it was usually some incompetent executive who more than deserved it.
Disgusted with myself, I put a stop to my ridiculous fussing around and settled into my armchair with a novel I had been meaning to read since the summer. After a few false starts, I was finally able to lose myself in the narrative, to the point that I lost track of time and only realized the afternoon was drawing to a close when the room grew too dark to continue reading.
I set my book aside and looked at my phone. Already after 5:00. Shit. I needed to get a start on the kaldereta.
I turned on some music and got to work.
It was a fairly labor-intensive recipe, but I had it simmering on the range by the time my intercom buzzed a few minutes after 7:00.
I checked my reflection in the mirror in the foyer while I waited for the elevator. I had never been able to accurately evaluate my own appearance, but my hair wasn’t sticking out strangely, and I hadn’t dripped any food on my shirt. Good enough.
The elevator doors slid open, and Regan stepped out.
Her face was flushed from the cold, and she had a scarf wrapped around her neck that she began to unwind. “Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“You’re hardly late,” I said. “Let me take your coat.”
She shrugged out of it and handed it to me. She was wearing a low-cut white t-shirt and jeans, the most informal clothing I had ever seen her in, and she looked, frankly, incredible. She had never seemed very comfortable in the clothes she wore to work at the club, but dressed like this, she was relaxed in a way that I didn’t associate with her.
“You look great,” I said, stowing her coat in the closet.
She laughed. “I was going to dress up, but then I decided we’re probably past the stage where I can impress you with fancy clothes. I mean, I already freaked out and dumped you, so it’s not like I can just lure you back in with a nice dress.” She kicked off her shoes and stood on my carpet in her bare feet.