I stepped aside and let him in, signing the slip without really looking at it. The smell of coffee helped a little, so I poured a cup. I’d just taken the first sip when her door opened.
Kate came out of her room looking entirely too gorgeous and ready for the day. Her gleaming red hair was brushed, but still not blown out, her makeup light but perfect. She was dressed in a simple, olive green shirt and jeans, but somehow, she still looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine.
It did strange things to my concentration.
“Morning,” she said, her cheeks flushing slightly as she met my gaze.
I tried not to think about the reason she might be blushing and offered her a faint smile instead. “Morning.”
She nodded toward the cart. “I ordered coffee.”
“I figured.”
“I thought you might need it.”
“You weren’t wrong.” I took another sip, watching her over the rim of the cup. “Alex has taken Jane back home.”
“Yeah, she messaged me this morning, saying she was feeling much better, but that the doctor had recommended plenty of rest, so they were heading back.”
While I was a little surprised that Kate and Jane were getting so close that my sister-in-law had felt compelled to keep her updated, I didn’t say anything about it. “Our flight leaves at six p.m. I have a few things I need to get done here before we leave, but I’ll pick you up from here and we can head to the airport together?”
She nodded. “I have a meeting this morning too and I need to stop by my old apartment to pick up a few things.”
Her gaze dropped away from mine then, her hands winding together in front of her before she started fidgeting with her fingernails. I poured her a cup of coffee and pushed it across the table to her.
“I could come to your apartment with you,” I offered. “If you’d like and you need help packing.”
This woman was moving to Chicago, albeit perhaps only temporarily, to be with me. To give us a chance at having a real marriage. The absolute fucking least I could do was help her pack what she needed to feel more at home there.
Still, she looked at me like she hadn’t expected me to offer, her eyebrows lifting a little as she held my gaze. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.” I looked back at her just a little too deeply for it to be comfortable, so I cleared my throat and averted my gaze. “We can have the driver take your things straight to the airport along with our bags from here. It will save us some time later.”
She studied me for a second like she was trying to figure out if there was an angle, but there wasn’t. This was simply the right thing to do, and for once, I could actually do it. It felt good after all the screwed-up things I’d done recently, like getting it on—twice—with my fiancée.
“Okay,” she said finally. “That works.”
I smiled when she joined me and dished up a plate of fruit for breakfast. It was nice, being with her like this, eating together without any hostility crackling between us, but all the while, noon sat in the back of my mind like a countdown clock I couldn’t turn off.
Because before I could fully commit to her, I needed to go out there and break my own heart along with the heart of someone I truly cared about. Then after that, I would have to meet back upwith Kate, taking her back to Chicago so she and I could start our lives together.
Talk about a fucking day, huh?
CHAPTER 30
KATE
My apartment was on the west side, in a building with a doorman and a fully functioning elevator. It wasn’t huge. A one bedroom that was barely anything at all, but it was mine.
I owned it. At thirty years old, in Manhattan, that was a victory. While most would assume my dad had bought it for me, that wasn’t true. I’d worked, saved up, and bought it without taking a dime from my parents.
As I unlocked the door and stepped inside, the familiar scent of clean linen and the lemony cleaning spray I used every Sunday lingered in the air. Everything was exactly where I’d left it, the pale gray couch in the living room, the glass coffee table, and the neatly folded throw blanket draped over the arm.
It was modern and minimal, and I was so proud of it that I smiled when I turned to face Nate, who was following me in. “It’s not much.”
He looked around without offering an answer or a platitude, taking it in like it meant something more to him than just square footage and furniture. Finally, he looked back at me with a faint grin appearing on his lips.
“It’s nice,” he said, sounding like he meant it. “I like it.”
