Inside, her heart was breaking.
Maybe this wasn’t what it seemed. Maybe they’d get home, and he’d get some sleep and apologize to her for shouting. Maybe things would go back to the way they’d been before this trip. Breakfasts for two. Watching Netflix on the sofa at night with Gizmo and Gabby. Mind-blowing sex.
God, she hoped so, because she couldn’t imagine her life without him. She loved him. With everything she was, she loved him.
The flight seemed to go on forever, Harrison finally giving up the charade of sleep to stare resolutely at the little TV screen in the seatback in front of him. Afraid he would reject her outright, Kenzie didn’t reach for his hand or rest her head against his shoulder. By the time they landed, she was fighting tears.
He carried her bag to his car despite her insistence that she could handle it. She did have one good hand, after all. She tried to see some hope in this little act of chivalry, but it was dashed when they climbed into his vehicle.
“I’m sorry I raised my voice at you, Kenzie. When we get back to your place, I’m going to get my stuff and get out of your hair. Back when this first started, I told you I wasn’t in a good space. You don’t deserve this.”
She blinked back tears. “Don’t use me as your excuse. If you don’t want to be with me, if you don’t care about me, just say it.”
“Idocare about you. That’s the whole point.”
The drive back to Scarlet was excruciating, the pain behind Kenzie’s breastbone almost unbearable. He carried their bags inside and disappeared upstairs, where he grabbed his things out of the bathroom, her closet, and the laundry, and shoved it all in his duffel. He stopped at the front door, turned to face her.
“You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Thank you for everything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this. If I could… ” He stopped, cleared his throat, a muscle clenching in his jaw. “Tell Gabby… Tell the little scamp I will miss her.”
So he would miss the puppy, but he wouldn’t miss Kenzie.
She wanted to scream at him, to shout in his face, to tell him she loved him, but there was no point in doing that now. She mustered every shred of dignity she had left. “Take care, Harrison. I will miss you.”
Then he turned and walked out of her life.
* * *
There were break-ups.There were broken hearts. And then there were nuclear winter heartbreaks.
Kenzie didn’t know it was possible to hurt this much and still breathe. The dogs got her out of bed every morning, and her job forced her to leave the house. But she was only going through the motions, habit holding her hollow life together when she had shattered into a million pieces.
Every time her phone buzzed, she hoped it was him, but it never was. Every reminder of him made her cry—the few leftover condoms, the pair of socks Gabby had found under her bed, the lingering scent of his skin on her pillow. Every time she went to Food Mart, she thought she would run into him, but she never did.
She couldn’t quit thinking about him, couldn’t quit missing him, couldn’t stand the nights without him.
There was no one she could talk to. She didn’t want to bare her feelings to her friends on the Team, because they were also Harrison’s friends. She couldn’t confide in her employees. She didn’t pay them to give her emotional CPR. After a week of this, she called Esri and made an appointment for the afternoon.
She burst into tears the moment she sat down in Esri’s office. “It’s over. He broke up with me. I suggested he call you, and it all fell apart. Why do I always fall in love with men who don’t want me?”
Esri handed her a tissue. “Let’s start at the beginning, okay?”
Kenzie told Esri the whole story—how the two of them had become lovers, how he’d warned her, how the interview with Wendy had made his nightmares worse, how the trip to New York City had turned into a disaster.
“If there were any man in my life that I thought one hundred percent for sure I could love for the rest of my life, it would be Harrison.” She blew her nose. “But just like the others, he walked out the door and didn’t look back.”
“Why don’t you tell me about them?”
Kenzie spent the next ten minutes giving Esri the condensed version of her love life. “Basically, I’m drawn to climbers, outdoorsy kinds of men, but they prefer rocks and mountains and piles of snow to me. Story of my life right there.”
“What attracts you to them?”
“Well, they’re strong and ripped and good looking. God, that sounds shallow.”
Esri smiled. “I won’t judge. What else?”
“They’re adventurous, driven, exciting. There’s an air of—I don’t know—danger and daring about them. They’re not like me at all. I’m boring.”
“Why do you say that?”
