Fated (26 page)

“Pull
over.” His voice was low and harsh, and as much as I wanted to disregard his command,
I didn’t trust his mood at the moment. I pulled over onto the shoulder and then
look at him grimly, waiting for him to speak.

“You’re
not quitting.”

This
time I really did laugh, but it was low and ugly and far from being hysterical.

“You
can’t forbid me to quit, Caden. You can’t control what I do outside of the
office.”

“What’s
the point in quitting? Just be honest with me.”

My
control was wavering and I struggled to keep my voice steady. The need to hurt
him as much as he had hurt me clawed at me. “You want me to be honest? Okay,
I’ll be honest. Looking at you right now makes me sick. I can’t imagine having
to see you every day for the next month. I don’t care if you think me leaving
is some big act to get some sort of declaration from you. Get yourself another
Lissa or Michelle to fulfill the role of lovesick idiot. You seem to get some
perverse thrill out of telling women just how little you think of them. Well,
we can just skip those steps because I have no intention of ever trailing after
you like some pathetic loser.”

I
was trembling, and I was angry that I had lost control, but I couldn’t stop the
words from spilling out of me, hoping that each one battered into Caden like an
arrow. His face had whitened and a dozen emotions crossed his face, from
confusion to anger to other emotions I couldn’t read. The last emotion to
settle on his face was panic. He grabbed my hands, his mouth twisting.

“Lauren,
I just wanted to make sure…” He tightened his grip on my hands when I just
stared at him. “I don’t want to hurt you –“

“This
has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt me,” I hissed, interrupting him. I
pulled my hands out of his grasp. “This has everything to do with you being a
coward. You’re so fucking afraid that someone will expect more from you, and
you’ll feel obligated to fulfill their expectations. Don’t worry, Caden. I
don’t expect anything from you. I don’t
want
anything from you. We both knew this
wasn’t going to go anywhere when we started sleeping together. We both knew it
was going to end sooner or later. I’ve just decided on sooner.”

I
didn’t expect Caden to fight for me, but it didn’t make it hurt any less when
he just turned away and stared straight ahead. I angrily pulled the car back
onto the road, determined to ignore his presence. The ride back to New York was
silent. I remembered thinking how much I loved our comfortable silences on the
ride out to Greenwich. It made the tense, angry silence on the way back even
more of a slap in the face.

It
seemed to take forever to get back into the city, and I was relieved when I
spotted a parking spot on Caden’s street and deftly parallel parked. I couldn’t
wait to leave the confines of the car and Caden behind. I didn’t look at him as
I turned off the ignition and threw the keys onto his lap. I opened the car
door and stepped out, ignoring Caden who scrambled out as well. I slammed the
door closed behind me and started to stride away.

“Lauren.”

Caden’s
voice was low and strained and I cursed myself for immediately turning around.
His face looked drawn and pale, but I told myself I didn’t care. Instead, I
raised an eyebrow and made my voice sound bored.

“What
now?”

He
took a step toward me and raised his hand as if to touch me, but he dropped it
when I flinched. He ran his hand through his hair, looking tired and sad.

“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just…I was surprised when you said you
were thinking of leaving. I…I didn’t take it well.”

I
nodded, willing to accept his apology if it meant getting away from him as soon
as possible. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it together.

“Fine,”
I said in a flat voice. “I understand.”

“Then
you’re not quitting?” His hopeful expression made the knife in my stomach twist
even more. All he cared about was losing a warm body in his bed. Even though I
could deal with him not loving me, I couldn’t deal with him not caring about
me. Because despite everything, I had thought he truly cared for me. But his
ugly words earlier had proven otherwise.

“No,
I’m still quitting. I can’t do this anymore. I’ll always be wondering if you’re
worried that I’m asking too much of you, wanting too much.” I took a deep
breath, trying to steady myself. I tried to be as truthful with him as I could,
without telling him I loved him. Ironically, that would probably be the most
effective thing to say to Caden to make him back off, but I wasn’t willing to
humiliate myself. “I don’t feel safe around you. I don’t trust you not to hurt
me. And I can’t be with someone I don’t trust.”

Caden
looked like he had aged in a matter of seconds, his expression haunted. He
looked desolate, but most of all, he looked resigned. He nodded grimly.

“Fine.
I understand.” He paused, a flicker of concern in his eyes. “How are you
getting home?”

“I’ll
be fine. It’s still daylight. I’ll just grab a cab.” Our last words to each
other were so pedestrian, so insignificant, that it made me want to weep. We
had been fire and passion together, and now we were nothing but polite
exchanges between acquaintances.

“Okay.”
Caden hesitated before continuing. “Are you going to stay at Macie’s apartment
until she comes back? If so, I’ll send your last paycheck there.”

“Even
if I’m not there, Macie will forward it to me when she gets back.” I looked at him,
trying to memorize his face although I doubted I could ever forget it. My heart
squeezed painfully. “Goodbye, Caden.”

An
unreadable expression flickered across his face, and then he made an attempt at
a smile, although it looked more like an expression of pain.

“Goodbye,
Lauren.” His voice low and his amber eyes were burning as he stared at me.

I
took a shuddering breath and looked at him one last time. Then I turned around
and walked away.

Chapter Nineteen

I cursed
myself for the tears streaming down my face as I made my escape. Even the cab
driver, who was probably used to women in all sorts of distress, looked at me
with concern when I slid into the backseat. I crawled into bed the minute I got
home, and I stayed there for the rest of the day, only getting up to use the
bathroom.

The
pain had settled into an empty ache by the time Monday morning came. At a
certain point, I had embraced the pain. It was a lesson of what could happen
when I let myself lose control, when I ceded my power to a man who didn’t care
about me. It had helped me to accept what had happened because I could learn
from my foolish mistake.

It
had also been foolish not to demand that Caden burn the pictures he had taken
of me, but they had been the last thing on my mind yesterday. I considered
emailing him to ask him to destroy them, but I had sworn that I would never
contact him again. And despite everything, I believed in his integrity as a
professional and that he would never release them. It would probably go in a
pile of pictures of all the other women whom he had used and discarded in his
life.

As
much as it hurt that he didn’t love me, that wasn’t why I was so angry with
him, because he had been honest about it from the start. It was because he
thought so little of me that he believed I was like all those other women who
plotted and planned on how to ensnare him into something permanent. I had been
willing to hide my love until the bitter end.

For
a while, I wondered whether I really
was
in love with Caden. It was a wholly
unfamiliar feeling, and I began to doubt whether I could have fallen in love
with someone after only two months. I wanted it to be just an infatuation, to
know that the memory of his face, the way he smelled, the feeling of being in
his arms, would fade with time. For most of my life, I had wondered if I was
even capable of love. Those extreme feelings I read about and saw in movies
seemed to be reserved for those who hadn’t been damaged beyond repair. Maybe I
had confused amazing, mind-blowing sex with that elusive emotion because it had
all been so new. It was a cold comfort because it didn’t make the aching pain
inside me lessen.

The
bulk of Monday was spent moping. I considered emailing Macie to tell her I had
quit, but that would involve telling her why, and there was no way I was going
to go into what had happened. I wondered what Caden would tell Millie and
Michael. They would be so disappointed, but they had been mistaken in seeing me
as the solution to Caden’s solitary life. People in love always tried to match
the singles together, but what they didn’t realize was that some people were
meant to be alone. There was nothing wrong with that.

I
went to bed early but it was a long time before I fell asleep, Caden’s last
expression before I had turned away haunting me. It was a blessing when I was
finally able to doze off.

My
restless sleep was interrupted by the sound of ringing. I was disoriented as my
hand blindly searched the bedside table in the dark for the source of the
offending noise.

My
heart dropped and my sleepiness vanished when I saw Caden was calling me on the
cell phone he had given me. I had left it on the bedside table, not expecting
him to call, but it had foolishly made me feel better having something that
reminded me of him close by.

I
hesitated as I debated whether I should answer. I didn’t want to reopen any
wounds. It was almost midnight, and I figured it was either an emergency or
Caden was drunk. I couldn’t dismiss the possibility of the former, so I
reluctantly answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Lauren,
I need you. Michael’s had a heart attack.” Caden’s voice was rough and
panicked.

I
jumped out of bed, my heart racing. “How bad is it? Where are you right now?”

“I’m
at Memorial Hill Hospital. It’s bad. He’s in surgery right now and they don’t
know if he’s going to make it.” The fear in Caden’s voice reached deep inside
me and pulled my guts out.

“I’ll
be right there.”

I
quickly pulled on clothes after I disconnected the call, fear crowding my
thoughts. I didn’t wonder why Caden called me. I didn’t worry about what this
would do to the relationship that we had so cleanly ended. All I knew was that
Caden needed me, and that Michael was in the hospital. It was enough for me to
go to him.

The
cab ride was gratefully quick since there wasn’t much traffic. I was impatient
with the woman at the front desk, who insisted I sign in before letting me
past. The elevator seemed to have a personal vendetta against me as it stopped
on every floor until I reached Michael’s.

I
saw Caden before he saw me. He was hunched over in a chair in the waiting room,
his shoulders slumped as if he was carrying the weight of the world. I rushed
over to him and my heart broke when he looked up. His face was ravaged with
pain, anguish etched into every exhausted line. I didn’t think, I just kneeled
in front of him and immediately embraced him.

He
clung to me like he was afraid I was going to disappear, his face buried in my
neck.

“Lauren,”
he whispered. He said nothing else as I stroked his back and made soothing
noises. I felt him take a deep shuddering breath, and then he pulled back so
that he could see my face.

“What
happened?” I asked in a hushed tone as if we were in a church, although the
waiting room was noisy with anxious family members of other patients.

“Millie
called me from the ambulance. She and Michael were asleep in their apartment in
the city, when he got up saying that he felt like he had heartburn. He was
going to get some water when he collapsed.”

I
rose to sit in the chair next to him, his hands clasped in mine. “What’s the
prognosis?”

Caden
shook his head. “He’s undergoing bypass surgery.
We can’t seem to get any more information
than that.”

I
looked around the waiting room. “Where’s Millie?”

Caden
rubbed his forehead tiredly. “She’s talking to the nurse. We’re taking turns
not getting our questions answered.”

His
hands were ice cold even though it was warm in the waiting room, so I rubbed
them with my own. When I looked up, Caden’s amber eyes were troubled as he
watched me.

“I’m
sorry about what I said yesterday. You didn’t deserve it.”

I
shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. The only important thing right now is
Michael getting better.”

Caden
opened his mouth to speak, but I saw Millie hurrying towards us. Her eyes were
red rimmed and her face was splotchy, but she had a look of determination on
her face that spoke of her strength.

“No
one will tell me anything!” she exclaimed. “I just keep getting the same line
of having to wait and see.” Her expression softened when she saw me. I stood
and she immediately embraced me. Despite her inner strength, she felt frail and
small in my arms.

“I’m
so sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

Millie
pulled back and patted me on the cheek. “Thank you for coming.” She sighed
heavily as she sat down in the chair on the other side of Caden. “Although
there’s nothing to do but wait. I feel so powerless.”