In my Arms Tonight (NYC Singles Book 2)

by Sasha Clinton

  “Love you, dear.” The words were almost inaudible.

  “I love you, too.”

  Then the fragile form tottered into the dark room.

  “Oh, my goodness.” Kat leapt up from the kitchen counter at her house, where she’d been sitting and singing alone to the radio. “Did you cut yourself?”

  Blood leaked out from the tiny slit in Alex’s finger. He drew his hand away from the cutting board, dropping the knife.

  “No big deal.” Alex ran cold water from the faucet over the cut.

  “You should’ve let me do it,” Kat mumbled, tiptoeing to check. When she took his finger in her hands, the cut was still oozing blood. “I’ll go and get a Band-Aid.”

  “Don’t make a fuss over a scratch,” Alex argued, dabbing it against his T-shirt and turning off the faucet. It was clearly an attempt at being macho, because that cut was smearing red all over his skin again.

  Kat gave him the kind of stare mothers gave their petulant children. He didn’t budge, choosing to hide his hand behind his back.

  “Keep washing it.” She forced his hand against the jet of water from the tap then traipsed to her room.

  Searching the drawers of her work desk, Kat tried to recall where she’d put the Band-Aids. She must have kept them in some really safe place, since she was such a paranoid organizer. But sometimes, she was so good at organization that she forgot which of the fifty-five storage spaces in her room she’d put the Band-Aids in.

  A yellow manila folder peeked at her from the drawer. Realizing what it was, she pushed it away, as if physically distancing herself could erase the effect it had on her mind.

  A file labeled ‘Secret.docx’ glared at her from her computer screen. Why was fate so determined to make her fold in?

  Her hands dampened with sweat. Her heart clenched into a tight fist and blood trickled slowly through her arteries.

  The evidence of Alex’s past was in that folder.

  Guilt, anxiety and meaningless fear mixed into a cocktail and washed through her system. The pandemonium of thoughts that were a regular feature of her life now pushed against her waning willpower.

  Once again, Kat tried to quell the chattering by chanting, “I’m okay,” over and over again, though she didn’t feel okay at all.

  Switching to deep breaths, she unsuccessfully attempted to avoid her thoughts.

  According to her psychotherapist (yes, she saw one now), who had a PhD in the subject, disengaging and letting the thoughts pass was the best course of action in case of such obsessive behaviors.

  But these weren’t thoughts. This was her conscience. She couldn’t disengage from her conscience.

  Stop, stop, stop. Kat whipped her head about.

  “I’m okay. The cut stopped bleeding.” Suddenly appearing from behind, Alex put his arms around her stomach.

  When she opened her eyes, everything was blurry through the veil of tears. Alex’s lips nuzzled the nape of her neck.

  The thread of pleasure that wrapped around her groin felt too much like pain. A pain she was inducing on herself.

  Kat shut the drawer decisively.

  One more day.

  She could forget about it for one more day.

  Alex was in a room full of fervent supporters when Kat squeezed into his campaign headquarters. The energy in here was explosive, closing in on her from every angle and bouncing off the walls. Cheers were loud and congratulatory. An emotional Alex basked in the sunshine of smiles and support, elated.

  As she traipsed across the room, past many ‘Summer for Mayor’ posters and boards, he spotted her. Kat waved and let out a shout, joining the chorus of his supporters.

  Whether he knew it or not, she’d given him this. She’d sat on the information and evidence she’d found, dragged her conscience through hell and spent many nights questioning herself so she wouldn’t print the facts that could have snatched this moment from him.

  And it would be a lie if she said it hadn’t been hard on her, because it had been brutal.

  The self-loathing was killing her. Sometimes at night, her conscience rose up and strangled her for being such a coward.

  She’d never wanted to be the kind of woman who chose a man’s affection over her own values and principles, but in trying to protect Alex, she’d become precisely that kind of woman.

  Alex’s shadow falling on her shook Kat out of her self-absorption.

  “Baby, I won.”

  He probably wanted to celebrate the moment with her in private, so he directed her away from the crowded space into an isolated room at the back. It invited a lot of stares from people around them, but Kat trusted that he’d deal with them later.

  “Congratulations.” Clasping her arms around his lower back, she gathered her lips into something that she hoped resembled a smile.

  Alex bent down to her mouth and took it. The kiss was a rush of dizzying emotions. It was barely four months since their relationship had begun, but his taste was so familiar to her, she could have been doing this with him for years.

  Lazily, Kat shook her lips away, indecisive whether to linger or end the kiss. Alex was intoxicating, but she needed to let go.

  “Exactly what I needed to top off my victory.” Alex offered her a smile, dredging up unwanted emotions.

  She tapped on his stomach. “I’ll see you later?”

  Alex was so drunk on happiness his whole face was red. “Can’t make it today. It’ll be crazy all day.”

  Seeing him so happy lessened the feeling of self-betrayal scratching at her. If enduring two more months of unhappiness was the price to pay for his smile, maybe she could do it.

  “That’s okay. We have the weekend.”

  “We’ll go somewhere special,” Alex promised, and his brown eyes were so safe, so warm, they brought unwanted tears to her eyes. She could drown in those eyes and never know that she was drowning.

  “Sure.”

  Looking down, she backed away, cutting across the room and away from him.

  Never in her life had Kat ever cried at work. But she couldn’t stop bawling her eyes out the next afternoon in the bathroom. Pathetic.

  She should be happy. Alex had won. They’d kissed. She’d seen him happier than she’d ever seen him.

  Instead, it felt like someone was slowly drilling a hole through her heart. Her lower belly convulsed and she realized she was about to throw up. She ejected everything out in a single motion.

  As she flushed her vomit away, Kat’s stomach throbbed with fresh pain. She’d never bought the phrase ‘heartache,’ but at this moment, her heart actually, physically hurt.

  This wasn’t her chest. It was her weak, wavering heart; she was sure of it.

  What was wrong with her? Ashley was the emotional one. She was the stable, rational career woman. She knew what she wanted in life. She had focus, priorities, principles, a sense of journalistic integrity… correction, she’d had all that before Alex had thrown her life out of whack.

  “Are you okay?” Someone knocked on the door of her stall in the bathroom. Kat recognized that voice as Min-Jung’s.

  “Mmmm.” Sucking her finger and biting it, she tried to keep the sound of her crying in, scrunching her eyelids to wring out the last of her useless tears.

  “Would you mind coming out some time soon, Kat? All the other stalls are out of order.”

  “Mmmm.” She didn’t have the capability to form words yet. Picking tissues from her purse, she dried her eyes, took a deep breath and tottered on her trembling knees.

  She wasn’t going to break over something like this. Not when she was behind on the draft she had to turn in by two pm.

  Exiting, Kat pulled her shoulders up and painted an unaffected expression. “Sorry. Constipation.”

  That excuse was nowhere near as embarrassing as admitting that she’d been crying over Alex.

  “Hey, I was kidding. Go and, er… finish it.”

  “I was done.” She focused on the splash of cold water and soapiness of h
and wash. Think about the lavender scent. Think about now. Don’t think about the horrible weight in your chest.

  “Your eyes are red,” Min-Jung pointed out.

  It made Kat feel better that Min-Jung still cared about her. Since the day she’d told Min-Jung to hide Alex’s past, they hadn’t talked much. Hostility seemed to pervade every minute they spent in each other’s company. Min-Jung was clearly not forgiving her for what she’d done.

  “I didn’t sleep last night,” Kat bluffed.

  “Were you crying?”

  “No.” Kat wanted to exit with grace, but her mind was so muddled that she couldn’t. She didn’t know where she was going, what she was doing.

  She’d rejected Anderson and his plea to keep his sex scandal a secret, but here she was, religiously safeguarding Alex’s crimes. All because she was in love with him. She’d lost her best work friend over this stupid love. She’d lost her peace of mind. She’d lost her spine. What else did she have to lose?

  Maybe she could talk about this to her therapist on Saturday. Goodness, therapy. She wasn’t sure it helping her feel any better. It was so clear that she was doing the wrong thing.

  “Argh!” She thrust a handful of cold water onto her face. All this was physically, mentally, emotionally draining her.

  The five weeks to the election seemed like an endless road now. How could she hold on that long? She was already teetering on the verge of an emotional meltdown.

  She’d cried in the bathroom today. What if it happened in the newsroom tomorrow? Hell, what if she broke down on the streets?

  “You don’t look good. Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,” Min-Jung suggested, examining her face from every angle, like a good reporter would. On hearing the warm, friendly tone of Min-Jung’s voice, everything came gushing out.

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “Something happened?”

  Kat gave Min-Jung a tearful stare. “I’m breaking down. Fast. It’s that article… I feel awful all day, every day. I’m starting to hate myself. The only time I feel at peace is when I’m with Alex. I don’t want to live like this. But I don’t want to crush his dreams, either. I can’t make up my mind. Why am I so indecisive?”

  Clicking her nails on the basin, Min-Jung whispered, “He isn’t worth it, Kat. He isn’t worth putting yourself through so much. Just run the story, like the Kat I know would. Like the Kat you know would.”

  “But he’ll hate me.”

  “Then let him hate you,” Min-Jung screamed. “Let the whole world hate you. You can distance the haters, ignore them, block them out. But you can’t block yourself out. When you start hating yourself, you know it’s gone too far.”

  “Has it?”

  Min-Jung put the back of her hand against the stall. “Okay. Describe yourself to me in three words.”

  “Independent. Brave. Ethic—no, smart… um… intuitive?”

  “Intuitive? What are you, a tarot card reader?” Min-Jung bunched her lips together. “And hello, none of those words sound like you.”

  No. They sounded like the Kat she’d once been.

  Independent, intelligent, ethical had been how she’d described herself in the very first intern icebreaker session at the New York Times. But she wasn’t that person now. Why not? She wanted to be.

  “But…”

  Be brave, the little voice in her head prompted.

  Wasn’t she in this profession primarily because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut? Hadn’t it been her dream to tell the truth, to write stories that informed people, illuminated people? To do the right thing, even when it scared her?

  And losing Alex scared her. Absolutely shook the life force out of her.

  So had Bobby. Bobby had scared her senseless, too.

  But she’d braved Bobby; she could brave Alex.

  Alex had become a lot to her during the few months they’d known each other—a friend, a lover, a partner, someone she genuinely cared for, someone she imagined a future with.

  So she wouldn’t let him be the man who made her forget her principles, her values. She wouldn’t let his love be the thing that extinguished her inner voice, her conscience. She wouldn’t let it get to the point where she started resenting him for making her into something she wasn’t, like she’d done with Michael.

  Hadn’t she learnt that sacrificing what mattered to her for the sake of love didn’t work? And if something mattered to her so much that it had been causing her weeks of distress, it had to be dealt with.

  There was only one way to deal with it. It was something she should have done a long time ago.

  “C’mon, Kat. You know what you should do,” Min-Jung prodded.

  Whipping out her phone, Kat made her decision.

  She was going to be her own woman. She was going to choose herself again. She was going to live according to her convictions. She was going to be herself and not allow herself to be transformed into someone unrecognizable. And if she lost Alex, well, she was strong enough to stand on her own. As long as she had herself.

  “Kat, what is it?” Bill asked, irate, when the call connected.

  “Bill, do you remember the assignment you gave me a month ago? There’s been an unexpected development.”

  Alex ambled into her house slowly. Haggard, his skin sank into the hollows under his cheekbones.

  “Is everything okay?” Kat asked, squeezing her gritty eyes, which were watery from interrupted sleep. It was four am—not the most social hour for Alex to pay a visit.

  He’d called her five minutes ago asking whether he could see her immediately without telling her why. She’d been trying to avoid seeing him since Bill had told her that her story would be printed the day after tomorrow.

  It was better to keep him at a distance, now that their breakup was inevitable. But when she’d heard his voice over the phone, she’d agreed to see him, afraid it might be something serious.

  “Everything’s great. I just wanted to see you.” He buried his face in the L of her neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply and exhaling shallowly. It felt like he was trying to hold her scent in his lungs. To savor her.

  “You could’ve seen me in the morning.” Kat smacked her lips to suppress a yawn. “I happen to look better without dark circles and red eyes.”

  Alex passed his lips over hers, but didn’t try to kiss her. “Sorry. I know I’m being selfish. Go to sleep. I’ll leave. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Kat grabbed his wrist before he could reach the door handle. “Sleep here. It’ll be morning soon.” She didn’t want to have to worry about him getting mugged on his way back.

  “No.” The wariness on his face grew.

  “Just stay. It’s late.”

  Whatever she’d expected his response to be, she hadn’t expected his hands to tuck under her waist, her back to ram against the wall with dizzying velocity and his lips to engrave into hers with the kind of fierce passion that left her feeling like she was high on something illegal.

  He didn’t move towards her breasts or attempt to deepen this kiss. And after a few totally spellbinding seconds, he let go of her.

  “I should really be going.”

  Flushed, he attempted a hasty exit, but Kat pulled him back.

  “Alex. Tell me what’s happening. Why’re you so agitated?”

  “You’re driving me crazy. That’s what’s happening.” The savageness in his voice snapped her from her half-sleepy state. “I’ve been sleeping alone for decades, Kat, but tonight, I woke up and I wanted you next to me. I wanted to breathe you and hug you and sink into you. I tried everything I could to force myself to go back to sleep. I watched TV and drank five glasses of water. But I couldn’t stop obsessing about you. So I rushed here in the middle of the night just so I could hold you in my arms.”

  Kat flinched. The pain in his eyes was real. Alex looked like a man halfway to hell.

  He sighed. “I knew you wouldn’t take it well.”

  Overcome by the strength of her emoti
ons, Kat loosened her robe. “It might be late, but I can manage sex.”

  Her fingers stilled when his hand closed on her.

  “You don’t understand, do you?” His frustration grazed her ear and made her heart beat faster. “I don’t want sex. I just want to lie beside you, cuddle and sleep.”

  “Then you should’ve told me that.” She pulled him to her bedroom and let their bodies sink into the mattress.

  Undressing, he got to the other side of the bed. Then lay silently, unmoving.

  “Come on, Alex. Put your arms around me.” Kat wrapped him in her embrace.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Alex?”

  “I’m forty-six, Kat. Do you know how crazy it is for me to want a woman so much that I can’t sleep without her? Do you realize how unhealthy that is?” The implication of this being much beyond the scope of a relationship like theirs was obvious, though he didn’t verbalize it. “You’ve possessed me, darling.”

  The moment their bodies melded into each other’s under the sheets, she wanted to tell him that he’d possessed her, too.

  While she didn’t dare admit it, she’d woken up a few nights and wondered what it would be like to hold Alex, instead of a fluffy pillow, between her arms. She’d crushed those useless thoughts immediately, being the focused, sensible woman that she was. To think those thoughts was to doubt the path she’d chosen.

  But how long could she continue to deny that it was Alex’s warmth, his rising chest that she wanted beside her, not a lifeless pillow? And how sad was it that she’d never have that now?

  They read each other’s eyes. Even in the obscuring darkness, the fear was apparent.

  He was probably afraid that he was growing too close to her too soon. She wished she could tell him not to be afraid. But really, he should be terrified, because his worst fears were going to materialize soon.

  Rolling over on her stomach, Kat leaned into him until their breaths fused. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Nothing.” Alex kneaded her lower back.

  “Tell me.”

  “Do you think you could move in with me? Not permanently, but maybe for a while. We don’t get much time together on weekdays.”