Running the Numbers (21 page)

It was like he’d hit a hidden red trigger button he hadn’t known existed. Except, he
had
known, because he’d seen the same manic, spastic expression on Amanda’s face when she’d stormed his office two weeks ago and blasted Sadie into pieces.

His fuse burned lower still. And as it burned down, something else built up—anger, frustration with trying to do the right thing, and failing. He couldn’t put a name to the force gathering in his chest, but he was nearing the end of his rope with Kira.

Kira.

A mountain crumbled inside him.

He hadn’t been working up to an explosion—only a painfully obvious conclusion that had been dancing before his eyes—hell, his heart—for weeks and weeks. He’d been too stupid and stubborn to see it. Or maybe he’d seen it and looked the other way, because if he was tired, tired,
tired
of anything, it was making mistakes.

Amanda
was Kira. Amanda was controlling and thoughtless. Amanda had no empathy. Petty and unkind, which were all things he’d say were the total opposite of Quinn. In fact, Quinn would despise her.

His whole life seemed to revolve around screwing up. Every major event in his life came preceded by some terrible decision he’d made. And he was probably about to do it again.

“Amanda, I think we should break up.” He didn’t wait for her reply but stood. “I’m sorry. Everything about this was wrong. From start to finish. You deserve better than someone who wishes you were someone else.” He actually believed that. He stalked toward the door and grabbed for his coat.

He glanced back once before stepping over the threshold and wished he hadn’t.

Amanda Avery, the girl who couldn’t emote, had a pair of tears running down her otherwise expressionless face.

* * * *

Monday morning rolled around, and Blake found a million and one excuses to spend most of the day in his office, avoiding Amanda, who shot him nasty looks every time they were within eyesight of one another, and Sadie, who had his insides knotted like a pretzel. Did the right words exist to explain how he’d gone home with Amanda on Friday but was in love with Sadie on Monday? Luckily, he had paperwork galore to distract him. Personnel files were stacked neatly on his desk, awaiting his attention.

At ten after five, he braved the bookkeeping parlor, peeking out his doorway. Amanda was nowhere in sight. Nor was Sadie.

Kennedy glanced over from her desk. “You’re safe, Blake. Amanda’s gone home for the day. Left early, which is most unlike her.” She stapled together a stack of papers. “You two having problems?”

If only she knew. Blake pressed his lips together. It’d get around eventually. “I sort of broke up with her over the weekend.”

He’d expected surprise at the very least, but his secretary only sighed and shook her head sadly. “It was Sadie all along, wasn’t it? One day, I won’t hate her for being the pretty one.”

Blake scratched his ear. “It’s uncanny how you do that.”

She gave a little one-shouldered nonchalant shrug. “I’m not privy to any special information. The lines are there for everyone to see. Try reading between them sometime, Blake. You and Sadie have been caught like charged ions since you met. The air snaps and crackles. It’s infuriating, to be honest. When’s it my turn for a hot office romance? Wes is totally off the market now that I know the truth about why they broke up. Clearly, you’re unavailable.” She combined the statement with an eye roll that made it seem like it was all Blake’s fault.

“Um… I’m sorry. I guess?” He shuffled closer to her desk. “Listen, maybe you can help me out. I think I’m in love with Sadie—”

Her hand shot out, and her golden eyebrows snapped together. “Whoa, buddy.
Ahem
, I mean, Mr. Cobb, sir. What’s this you
think
business? What’s really going on in that handsome head of yours?”

Duncan had magically popped up at Blake’s side from thin air. “Did someone say handsome? Talking about me behind my back, huh?”

The joke fell flat as Blake took in a deep breath, but Kennedy’s mouth fired like a shotgun before he could assure Duncan it was nothing, nothing at all, and make his escape to find Sadie and tell her everything.

“Actually, I was talking about Blake.” She relaxed into her chair, balancing the stapler between her palms. “He thinks he’s in love with Sadie. From the wild look in his eyes and his nervous shuffling, I’m guessing he’s going to say something to her. Which he’s free to do, since he dumped Amanda this weekend.”

Duncan stared at the floor, hands in his pockets, and seemed to deeply consider the matter. Finally, he smiled jovially at Blake. “Why don’t you let me buy you a beer, Blake?” He turned to Kennedy and winked. “I owe you one.”

As though in a daze, Blake followed Duncan through the town square to The Silver Dollar Bar. He was quickly learning it was a local favorite as well as a tourist attraction. Settled at the famous bar for the third time with the third coworker to bring him here, he was vaguely tempted to count the silver dollars himself.

He sipped his local brew and tried to curb the anxiety racing through his system. It pulsed through his veins and pounded in his temples. With each minute that ticked by, he grew more certain he had to tell Sadie. He had to tell her everything, right now.

Duncan sighed deeply. “So. You’re in love with Sadie now?”

Blake nodded. “Probably since she showed up at the airport in a dirty ball cap and mud-crusted hiking boots and smoothly put me in my place. But I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to go.”

“Done what?”

“You know.” Blake gestured aimlessly, unsure of how to explain himself. “Storm the castle. Get the girl.”

Duncan pushed his drink aside. “You’re a mess, man. A real mess.” He dropped his hands on the bar, like they weighed a ton, and looked at Blake with weary exasperation. “How do you go from Amanda to Sadie in the space of a few days? Have you thought about what Mrs. Avery said to you? You’re fooling around with your career, buddy.”

“Don’t worry about Mrs. Avery.” Blake had that aspect figured out. “Instead, why don’t you help me work out how I explain myself to Sadie? Look, I know it’s crazy, but I got in my own way. I tried too hard and made a mistake, which is something I have to do before I can get things right, apparently. But now I see what I refused to look at. You were right about Amanda, and I was blind to it.”

“If I was right about her, why don’t you trust I’m right about everything else? Tell me, Blake, why do you
have
to be in love with someone? You’re saying it has to be Sadie, because it wasn’t Amanda. What’s if it’s neither? And I’m not saying this as your boss. I’m out of here soon, and this will end up being someone else’s problem.”

Blake took a careful sip. He still had to drive to Sadie’s after this. “I don’t, but I am. I’m telling you this is nothing like Amanda. Visually, Sadie made me want to run for the hills the second we met. I made the mistake of seeing with my eyes instead of looking with my heart. But now I
see.
And Sadie’s basically perfect, isn’t she?”

“Hey.” Duncan’s hands shot up defensively. “Don’t come at a married man with a question like that.”

“Sadie is fun. She’s honest and kind and hardworking. She can take care of herself. She’s a great friend, someone you can rely on. She’s everything you’d want in a partner.”

Duncan’s pitying expression made Blake doubt himself like nothing else could have. “Blake, I can’t help you, man. I want to, but you’re flying off the edge here. Stop and think this through. Call a lifeline. Someone who knows you and can help you figure out what you should do next. Because I get a sense of you rushing headlong into a brick wall. The impact is going to hurt, and the reverberations will be felt far and wide.”

Blake considered Duncan’s advice as he dropped a twenty onto the bar and saluted. “Chances are I won’t change my mind before I pull into Sadie’s driveway.”

Duncan shook his head. “Whatever happens, just remember I live for the words, ‘I told you so.’”

* * * *

Sadie peeked through the curtains and groaned at Blake’s form standing in the shadow cast by the eaves. Her body defied her mind as her pulse picked up speed.

She flipped on the porch light and swung the door open. “Didn’t we decide this had to stop? Really, we have to stop meeting like this. You know, all clandestine and deliberate.” She crossed her arms and rested her hip against the doorjamb, barring him entry.

She’d had enough of the head games, the teasing, the hinting, the little looks that meant everything and nothing. It all led to Blake headed home with Amanda on his arm, so what did they matter? What did
any
of it matter?

“You should go, Blake.”

He had the old deer-in-the-headlights expression. “But… I love you.” His gaze dropped.

The floor could’ve come out from under her. “I’m sorry,
what?
When did you figure this out?” That wasn’t the question she should’ve asked. She stood erect and massaged her temples to keep her brain from leaking out. “Blake, what are you doing?”

He rubbed his neck and seemed to want to stare at everything but her. “I had it wrong. Amanda isn’t anything like Quinn.”

“And you think I
am?”

He nodded. Barely. Just the slightest nod, but enough to shoot her temper straight to red.

God, she wanted to punch him. She stepped forward and settled for a hard jab at his chest. “What is your malfunction? Amanda is not Quinn. I am not Quinn. No one but
Quinn
can be Quinn!” Her voice rose on its own accord. The shortsightedness, the ignorance… More than anything, the insult that she should only be worthy as long as she existed in the outline of another woman sketched by Blake’s skewed memory. “You need a therapist, okay? There’s something off about a man who wants to remake every woman he meets into someone else.”

“It’s not that!” Blake’s hair stood on end as he ran his hands through it like a man in desperate need of a rope, but Sadie would give up accounting for waitressing before she’d throw him one. “It’s—I only mean there are certain traits, that’s all. Things you have in common. Things I admire.”

“You don’t love someone because of their traits,” Sadie snapped. “We are more than the whole of our parts. I add up to more than my idiosyncrasies, more than the mere characteristics of my personality. I’m a human being with faults and fears. I make mistakes. I can be ugly, Blake. As ugly as Amanda, and far uglier than Quinn. So, no, you don’t love me. You don’t even
know
me.” She went to slam the door in his face.

His hand shot out, catching it and holding it. “Sadie, please.” Hardly a whisper.

Why was he doing this? With one hand, he offered her everything she wanted. With the other, he shaped it into something meaningless and lamentable.

“Please,” he said again. His expression begged her. His eyes squeezed shut and popped open again, and a whole world of bewilderment and grief opened up to her.

He seemed so lost. She wanted to help him find his way, but not like this—not as the second-place runner-up for Quinn’s stand-in.

Blake cast his gaze on the ground like it hurt to look at her. “Sadie, it’s not supposed to go like this, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Damn it.” He grabbed at his hair and pushed off from the porch. He halted in the small patch of grass that was her yard, hands on hips, head hanging, hair wild. “I don’t understand. For Quinn and Emily, it happened all so perfectly. They met someone, they fought it, they realized the error of their ways, and then… And then, that was it. They found their soulmates and lived happily ever after.” He shook his head and regarded her again. This time his expression was guarded. “I know how I feel about you. I know that you’re what I’ve been looking for. Whether you like the sound of it or not, the qualities I appreciate are those you share with my ex-wife, yes. That doesn’t mean it’s not about you, though. I don’t want you to be Quinn, but I also can’t help wanting you for the same reasons I still want her.”

Sadie couldn’t believe her ears. “
Still?
Do you hear yourself?”

“No! I didn’t mean—”

“I’ve got it bad for you, Blake.
You
.” She took a long stride to stand in front of him and drive it home. “Not someone like you, not a suitable substitute, not someone who happens to remind me of you. I’m not settling for someone similar to you, or someone who has the same sense of humor, or the right clothes, or an interchangeable personality, or who laughs at the right jokes or cries on cue. I deserve better than that.” She clenched her jaw and ground out the last words through a sieve of iron, because it pissed her off that she needed to say them. “I am Sadie Darling Felix, and I am worth a thousand Quinns. And any man who thinks he’s going to waltz into my home and tell me I’m good
enough
doesn’t deserve me.”

It was as though she’d slapped him. His face opened up as light dawned, eyes wide, mouth agape. He blinked stupidly. “You’re right. You aren’t Quinn.”

Sadie didn’t need this. Wes, Blake, Duncan—they’d all let her down, and she was tired of giving them the power to do the job. “Screw you, Blake. Leave and take that chauvinistic, unrealistic, degrading fantasy of some other poor woman squashing herself into the mold of your ex-wife with you.”

This time when she slammed the door, it crashed against the frame without any resistance. She fell against it. Her breaths came harsh and heavy, weighed by the realization that Blake was just another psychopath, after all. So, why did it hurt to turn him away? She clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking. One bone. She’d throw him
one
bone, but if he screwed this up, she was done.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. Turning around, she pulled the door open a few inches and peeked out at Blake.

Motionless, he stood where she’d left him.

She licked her lips and spoke quietly into the shadows. “This is it, okay? The only lifeline you’re gonna get, so listen carefully. You’re not in love with me, but you aren’t in love with Quinn, either. You idolize her. You idolize your marriage before your affair, because it’s the last time you can remember feeling good about yourself or feeling whole. Before you became cheating slime. But you can’t move forward by going back. Quinn is the past. I can be your future, but not like this.”