“Yes.”
“And he used you because…you turned him down when you were younger? Does that make sense to you?”
For the umpteenth time, I rubbed my forehead. “No, it doesn’t make sense. It never did. Which is why I didn’t see it coming. Anyway, he’s in the wind, the development wound up getting approved, and the council member—” My breath hitched.
Finn sat straighter. “What happened to her? I only saw the retraction and your apology. I never did see anything more.”
“The Sun didn’t want anything to do with the whole mess. They were very happy to cut me loose.” I gazed up at the ceiling. “Things…didn’t go well for her.”
“But she was innocent. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sure. But the stress of being accused…that was a lot.”
The moment held.Please don’t ask me. I don’t want to go back to that place. I don’t want to admit the depth of my culpability or my breathtaking stupidity.
Finally, Finn broke the silence. “Can you talk about it?”
“She was pregnant. Miscarriage—” I waved my hand. “It’s not publicly known and obviously, you can’t say anything.”
“I would never.”
“I know. And I don’t know if the stress caused the miscarriage or if she would’ve lost the baby anyway. That’s just something I have to live with. If I’d been less reckless—" I swallowed. “If I’d asked better questions. If I’d taken the time to question motives. If I’d looked at things objectively. If only—”
“You know that’s not productive, right? That overthinking thing?”
“But—”
“Ulysses.”
“Yeah.” Finally, I met his gaze.
“You didn’t set out to cause harm. You didn’t deliberately target her. You did what you thought was best at the time. In retrospect, you can see all the choices you made and how they impacted her. But you didn’t have that knowledge with you at the time and you didn’t calculatingly aim to harm anyone.”
I nodded.
“Have you told her how you feel?”
I shook my head. “The lawyers wouldn’t let me within a mile of her.”
“Would they even know?”
“You mean you think I should write to her now? Share how I’m feeling? How sorry I am for what I put her through?”
Finn nodded.
“That’s just going to make her relive it. There’s no absolution for me. I fucked up. I lost my job—which was only right. I became a pariah in Vancouver. So I left. And in some ways, I don’t think Mission City was far enough.”
“But the publisher offered you a job.”
I shrugged. “Pretty much. But no matter what your mother thinks…I’m not just hanging out here until things blow over back in the city. That’s never going to happen. I’m not getting my old job back. I’m not getting a new and better gig. In the end, I’m just grateful I landed on my feet and relatively unscathed.”
“Relatively.”
“Yeah. That.”
My phone buzzed. I pressed thekeypad. “Pizza’s here.”
“We’re not done with this conversation.”
