by Lauren Layne
Chapter 28
Alex realized his mistake about halfway through his flight from LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale.
There was no reason for the epiphany. No grand gesture, no moment, no strike of lightening. There was no sharp realization that he’d been a complete idiot.
There was only a deep, unshakable sense that something was wrong.
That his life was off course. And that the only way to right it would be to get Emma back. And not just into his bed, or into his life in the peripheral sense of the past couple years.
He wanted Emma as his. And he wanted to be hers.
He loved her. Fiercely.
Perhaps he’d always loved her.
But that wasn’t going to get her back. He needed . . . something.
Not a gesture, because that seemed cheesy, but then, with their past, it would take more than a conversation. He could maybe reach the thirty-one-year-old Emma, but he was also dealing with the twenty-four-year-old Emma who’d waited for him for hours in a white dress.
Christ.
Only when the lady in the seat next to him on the plane gave him a glare did he realize he’d spoken aloud.
Alex didn’t apologize. His frustration had been well earned. The lady could deal with it. Besides, she had her romance novel to read, where people didn’t deal with this kind of bullshit. Or perhaps they did. He’d never read one.
All he knew was that he needed a plan.
Alex spent the next hour trying to figure out how to undo seven years of damage.
By the time the plane landed . . . he had nothing.
The next four days were an odd mix of dodging his mother’s unsubtle demands for grandchildren and letting his father win at golf, all while eating turkey, more turkey, and then turkey leftovers.
He loved his parents. Of course he did. But when they dropped him off at the airport on Sunday afternoon with instructions to call them if he changed his mind about Christmas, he was more than ready to get back to New York.
To get back to Emma.
His plane was delayed. Then delayed again.
And when he got back to his apartment at midnight that evening, it was cold and lonely.
Alex dropped his keys on the table by the door, ditched his computer bag and his suitcase, and then, before he realized what he was doing, leaned against his front door and slid down until he was sitting, elbows propped on his knees, back against the door, realizing that in the span of a week he’d gone from blissfully happy to fucking miserable.
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose and instructed himself to think. He was the most rational person he knew, save Mitchell. He could figure this out. He could write out an action plan, and come up with a nice speech, and—
Fuck it.
He didn’t have a clue. Not a goddamned clue.
Shifting, he pulled his cell out of his back pocket and started a group message.
He might not know what the hell to do . . . but he had something that a lot of dudes didn’t: a set of guy friends who’d been in his shoes. Good men who’d landed great women but had taken a seriously fucked-up path to get there.
Granted, none of them had left their woman at the altar.
But Mitchell had pursued Julie because of a bet. Jake had spent three months trying to publicly best Grace in a battle of the sexes. And Sam . . . well, Alex didn’t know what the hell had gone on between him and Riley except for the fact that it had taken Sam a decade to get his girl.
Maybe he and Emma weren’t so hopeless after all.
Unbidden, the image of her in a poufy white dress, watching the door of the church, waiting for him, popped into his mind.
He dropped his head to his knees and groaned.
Yeah. He was definitely going to need some help.
A minute later, he’d sent an SOS message to the guys, then hauled himself off his ass and into the kitchen for a glass of water and a late-night dinner.
He assumed that nobody would get back to him until the next day, but to his surprise, his phone beeped just as he was pouring his scrambled eggs into a skillet.
It was from Sam. Dude. We’ve seen worst. Sort of. Not really. But we’ll fix it. Drinks tomorrow? We can meet at the distillery. Riley has girls’ night with her sisters, so no witnesses.
Jake’s message came through shortly after. Do NOT show up at work tomorrow. If we’re going to pull this off, we have to control the First Post-Fight Sighting. Don’t let her see you. PS, Grace and I stopped by the office this morning. You now only have one condom left in that box in your office. I owe you.
By the time Alex was grinding pepper onto his eggs, Mitchell had responded as well. Did none of them sleep? Cassidy. Can’t help you. Unless you love her. Do you love her?
Alex frowned, and was starting to reply when a second message from Mitchell came through.
Sorry. Julie stole my phone. I’m there. Tomorrow @ROON? 7pm?
Alex’s eggs grew cold as he contemplated his response to the group, wondering how much to share.
In the end, he decided less was more. After all, all three of them lived with Emma’s best friends.
7 tomorrow. Bring your A game. And for the love of God, keep your women out of this.
Mitchell responded first. I changed my passcode. Julie’s pissed, but . . . I’ve got you covered.
Jake’s response came through next. Honestly? Our A game might include Cole and Mathis. They have moves the rest of us haven’t even thought of. Thoughts?
Alex shoveled a bite of eggs into his mouth, grimacing at the grossness of their cold, gummy texture.
Did he want to let Cole Sharpe and Lincoln Mathis into the inner workings of his personal life? To Jake’s point . . . their reputations with women were legendary, but they were his employees, for God’s sake.
Then he flashed to Emma again, wide-eyed and waiting for him.
His thumbs flew across the screen as he responded to the group. Fuck it. Bring Cole and Lincoln.
He’d probably regret it later. But if they could help him get Emma back, it was worth the risk.
Chapter 29
With the exception of holidays, anniversaries, and gynecologist appointments, Thursday nights were girls’ nights.
Sometimes they stayed in with salad and wine, other times they went out for sushi and martinis, and other times they’d get dressed to the nines for champagne and flirting.
But tonight, just a week after The Worst Thanksgiving Ever, every single one of the girls had cancelled on Emma.
Julie’s mother-in-law had come into town to coo over her wedding china. Fine.
Grace had a head cold and was so stuffed up that Emma’s name had come out as Ebba when she’d called to cancel.
And Riley . . . Riley had a sex date. Which, given Riley’s sexual history . . . Emma was going to give her this one. The girl had earned it.
Still, she could have used the company. She’d gotten home from North Carolina on Saturday; the trip was somehow worst than she’d anticipated. And that was saying something.
Her father had been doting in his overbearing way, but, as usual, he had this annoying habit where any question about her felt like a deliberate segue into something he wanted to talk about. Making matters worse was his new girlfriend, who, true to the cliché, was a full year younger than Emma and Daisy, and loved hot pink lipstick, hot pink nail polish, and hot pink cars.
A direct quote.
And Daisy . . .
Daisy had been the most painful part of the trip. Her sister was a pale shell of her usual self. She smiled at all the right moments and laughed when she was supposed to, but there was none of the vibrancy that had long been her twin’s identity.
For the first time in her life, Emma had felt like she was dragging Daisy toward the light instead of the other way around.
And that wasn’t an easy task when your heart felt like it would never beat again.
Emma’s original itinerary had her returning to New York on Sunday evening, but she hadn’t
been able to last that long. She’d made some pathetic excuse to her father about work, and returned a day early.
On the way home from JFK, Emma had honest-to-God fantasies about stopping by a pet store and getting a cat.
Emma was allergic to cats.
That’s how bad things were.
So, yeah, she’d needed this girls’ night in a big way, but she’d learned over the past couple days that there were other ways to forget about the fact that the only guy you’d ever loved had walked away from you. Again.
All Emma had to say on that was thank God for Netflix.
She’d managed to avoid Cassidy at work for the past few days, but that wouldn’t last forever. And when luck ran out, she was going to need something stronger than wine.
Or, she could get a life, and figure her shit out.
Eventually. Eventually, Emma would do just that. But for now, her evening was looking an awful lot like a nice California wine, sour cream and onion chips, and a Sex and the City marathon.
Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda were women who got what she was going through. When her actual friends were unavailable, at least her HBO ones were always free.
It took Emma longer than usual to hoist herself up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, the venture made more difficult by the bulk toilet paper that had been too good a deal to pass up, as well as the grocery bag stuffed with essentials.
And by essentials, of course, she was talking about the three Cs: Chardonnay, chips, and chocolate.
Perfect.
Emma was struggling to keep the TP under her arm while digging around in her purse for her keys when she saw him.
Somehow she managed not to drop the bag. Or the purse. Or the toilet paper.
Somehow her knees didn’t buckle as she approached the man sitting patiently outside her apartment door.
Somehow she managed not to throw herself at him.
“Cassidy,” she said, coming to stand in front of him. No suit today. He was wearing a navy zipper sweater that brought out the blue of his eyes, jeans, and scruffy looking boots. A brown leather messenger bag was slung crosswise over his body, different than his usual briefcase.
He climbed nimbly to his feet, holding what seemed to be a medium-sized garbage can in front of him.
“Emma.”
She stared at his trash can.
He stared at her toilet paper.
Admittedly, it was a lot for one person.
She held up her key and lifted her eyebrows. He stood to the side, although once her wrist had twisted the lock open he stepped forward to hold the door open for her.
“My toilet paper thanks you,” she said, moving into the apartment.
He followed her inside uninvited, still holding the trash can.
Emma dropped the toilet paper by the door, along with her purse, then heaved the grocery bag onto the counter as she turned to face Cassidy.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s with the trash can?”
Also, what are you doing here?
Also, you look amazing.
Also, please love me. But don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.
He ignored her questions, both the verbal and silent variety, and set the trash can on the ground by his feet as he watched her pull her junk food out of her bag.
“You’ve got the makings of a balanced meal there,” he said, nodding at the chips in her right hand and the M&M’s in her left.
She gave him her best Don’t fuck with me glare and put the food in the cupboard that doubled as her pantry. The wine bottle went into the fridge to be consumed—possibly in its entirety if this interaction went south—after he left.
She stared at him.
He stared back.
Finally she relented. She’d never been any good at moments like this. Whatever this was.
“Okay, seriously, help me out here with the trash can.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay. But I’m no good at this. And I need you to . . . I need you to not say anything until I get it out.”
Her heart began to pound. “Okay.”
This conversation was starting a lot like the horrible one last Tuesday, and yet there was something different about him.
He pulled the strap of his bag over his shoulder, set it on the bar stool at her counter, and dug around until he pulled out . . . a magazine.
The upcoming Stiletto magazine, to be precise.
Emma glanced at the Hollywood starlet on the cover whose name she’d already forgotten. The star of some new vampire TV show, if she remembered correctly.
“That’s not supposed to be out on the shelves until next Monday,” she said.
He gave her a withering look, and she made a waving gesture. “But, of course, you probably have access to an early copy. Camille?”
“Yup.”
“Damn it,” Emma muttered. “Julie did warn me that she’d find a way to interfere in all of this. Did you read my article?”
“Oh, you mean this one?” he said, pointing at her “Twelve Days of Exes” headline had nabbed the prime upper-right corner of the cover.
She nodded.
His hand went back into his bag, this time emerging with a box of matches.
“I didn’t read the article,” he said.
Before she could register what the hell was going on, he’d lit the match with one swift stroke, then touched the lit end to the corner of the magazine.
“Here’s what I think of that article,” he said, moving the match toward the magazine.
“Don’t!” she yelped, reaching out a hand. “Cassidy, what the hell?”
He glanced down at his feet. “I brought a metal trash can to contain it. And sand to put it out. There’s no fire risk.”
Emma’s fingers dug into her hair and she tugged. “Quit being nuts. Just tell me what’s going on.”
He shook out the match and dropped it into the metal can, before tossing the magazine onto the counter. “I told them this was an idiotic idea,” he muttered. “They insisted I needed to get your attention.”
“Yeah, well, fire will do that,” she said, peering around the counter into the trash can to make sure the match was dead.
“Okay, fuck it,” he said, looking enticingly frustrated. “I’m just going to talk.”
Her heart resumed its pounding. Funny how she hadn’t been all that frightened when he’d started to play with fire, but she was terrified now.
“That day when you came into my office and told me that I wasn’t a part of your article . . . I was hurt.”
Emma’s heart clenched. “But you said—”
“I know what I said. And I meant it. As your boss, I absolutely did not want to pressure you into writing about something you didn’t want to write about. But as a man . . . as a man, I wanted to matter enough for you to write about me.”
“Cassidy, that’s not why I didn’t—”
“Emma, sweetie, you have to shut up, just for a second? Okay?”
She pressed her lips together.
He continued. “But I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. And I’m damn glad that I’m not mentioned in those pages.”
Cassidy moved around the counter toward her but stopped just out of arm’s reach. “I don’t want to be in those pages, because those pages are about your exes. Those pages are about your past.”
His eyes roamed over her face, his expression tender. “I don’t want to be your ex, Emma. And I don’t want to be a part of your past. At least, not just your past.”
Her heart stuttered. “Cassidy—”
“Not done. And see, the thing is, Emma, I don’t think you wanted me to be labeled as an ex, either. I think that’s why you couldn’t write about me. I don’t think ‘ex’ was the box you wanted to put me in.”
He moved closer, still not touching her. Giving her space to run away, should she want to. And she did want to. Sort of. But her feet stayed put for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Cassidy held out his hands, then
dropped them. For as long as she’d known him, Emma didn’t think she’d ever seen Cassidy’s expression be completely open.
But it was open now. Every single emotion was written on his face. He wasn’t trying to hide from her. He was putting himself out there.
And then he put his heart all the way on the line. “I love you, Emma.”
She stared at him, torn between immense joy and heart-wrenching pain.
He kept talking. “And you should know that I’ve completely veered off script from the grand plan the guys devised to win you back, but I’m just going with my gut here. I love you. I love you, and I want that to be enough, because my love is so much stronger than the fire display or the poem that Sam wanted me to write or the song that Jake thought I should sing. . . .”
Poem?
She licked her lips but couldn’t respond, and his expression turned slightly desperate. “Wait, there’s more. The night of our rehearsal dinner when you told me you didn’t want to marry me . . . you destroyed me, Emma. Not just in the ‘we’re in a fight’ kind of way, but in the heartbreak kind of way. Real heartbreak. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I . . .”
He scratched his cheek. “I threw my phone away. Actually, I threw it out the window going about eighty miles per hour on the freeway.”
Cassidy reached for her then, slowly, one hand resting against her cheek, the other coming up to join it when she didn’t reject him.
“Emma,” he whispered. “If I’d known you wanted to marry me . . . that you’d changed your mind . . . If I’d gotten even one of your phone calls, I would have moved heaven and earth to be there that day. I wanted to be your husband more than anything, Emma.”
Her fingers lifted to her mouth, stunned with realization. “You didn’t know that I’d called.”
He shook his head. “I went off the grid completely. I fled to San Francisco and didn’t look back. And that’s not an excuse. I’m not letting myself off the hook, because I still should have come home to fight for you, even without knowing you’d called. But I swear to you I never got your messages. I didn’t know you were waiting for me.”
“But surely your parents, your friends—”
“By the time I got in touch with anyone, I forbid them to even mention you. You’d be surprised how respectful people can be about a canceled wedding.”