“What?” everyone asks as my heart sinks and I flush red-hot. My stomach churns, and a sticky sweat covers my entire skin. Shaking my head, my feet act before I can even think, and I bolt out of the room.
I rush around the building to her office.
She can’t leave like this!
She can’t think I hired a hooker.
I can’t have her thinking I’d do that to her.
As I continue down the hallway, racing to her room, I’m relieved when my body reacts the closer I get to her door. Out of breath as I look in, she’s wiping her nose with a tissue. Her glasses are off. Her hair is down and sweeping around her face as she packs things slowly into a box. Tears run in rivulets down her cheeks, and the sight breaks my heart. My chest squeezes, and I flare my nostrils.I’ve done this to her.
As if she senses me, her head turns to look right at me. Her breath stops, and her nostrils flare while she throws one hell of a glare my way. She swallows hard, then turns back and continues packing without saying a word.
It cuts me deeper than any knife could have.
“Tillie—”
“Don’t, Ryan.”
“Let me explain—”
“How you hired a hooker on a drunken bender, and thenIhad to cover it up?”
“It’s not like that—”
“Oh, really?” She turns to look at me, picks up a book, and throws it at me. It smacks me right in the center of my chest as she starts to really cry. “Then explain to mehow the fuckit is?”
“I was drunk. She asked me for a light. I said no. I was too drunk. She agreed and then helped me to a cab. When I got to the cab, I was so wasted that I accidentally fell. She fell on top of me. But I swear, Tillie, she got out, and I went home…alone.Ask Danger and Lunar, they can tell you I spent all night in the bathroom by myself.”
She stops packing and stands there looking into the box like she’s thinking about that for a moment. I take a step closer, but she puts her hand up to stop me. “Don’t! You’re the reason I’m like this, Ryan. You’ve ruined me. So don’t try to make it better.”
My stomach sinks, and I wince, wanting to burst into tears myself at seeing her in this state. “Tillie, I never meant to hurt you.”
Her head snaps up, and she glares at me with vicious intent. “You never meant to hurt me? Then why go out of your fucking waytohurt me, Ryan? Explain that! Everything you have done lately feels like some personal jab at me, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I did to make you fucking hate me so fucking much!”
My stomach churns, and I despise that she thinks that. “I don’t hate you, far from it—”
“Funny way of showing it.”
I risk another step closer, and this time, she lets me. “Don’t leave.”
She exhales, shaking her head slowly, and turns away from me, packing more of her stuff into the box. “I have to go.”
“Why?”
She glares at me again. “Because I can’t watch you with other women and continue to clean up your PR messes. Covering your ass is just too painful.”
“So you’re just going to leave?”
She scoffs. “You don’t want me, Ryan, so give me a good reason to stay? You win! You always wanted me gone, so you got it, baby. Now, I’m gone!”
Something inside me clicks.
I see my future without her.
And it’s horrifying.
Devastating.
