Chapter Seventeen
“What do you need to tell me?” I asked, after a long pause. He was just sitting there, staring in to space, like he was trying to hide from whatever it was that was in his head right now. I knew how he felt all too well. It was what I’d been trying to do since the first time we hooked up, in this very apartment, when I had felt that click of want for him deep inside of me that I had never been able to fully shake once it had taken effect.
“There’s a lot,” he shook his head. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning?” I suggested, and he finished his drink in one more gulp like he would need the Dutch courage to get through this, and finally, he began.
“Okay, so,” He sighed heavily, as though he was dredging up memories he had long since buried down deep inside him, never to be looked at again. “Six years ago, I met this woman. Maya.”
“Right,” I nodded. Was he going to tell me about another kid he had? A bunch of girlfriends on the side?
“She was working as a model and she featured in one of our ad campaigns,” he explained, and I could hear a softness to his voice that made my heart tighten with jealousy. I tried to ignore it.
“And the two of us, we started dating and I was just head over heels for this woman,” he shook his head as he spoke, as though he didn’t even recognize himself in the story any more.
“We were together for a few months before I proposed,” he went on and I tried to keep the shock from my face. I had done so much research on the company in general and Nate in particular when I had first landed the volunteer position there – how had I not heard about this?
“And she said yes, and so the two of us went off and got married in this private little ceremony,” he went on, his eyes misting over as though he was back there right now as he spoke. “And it was really good for a while. We were both doing well in our careers, both making good money, both keeping the marriage on the down-low so the press wouldn’t find out about it and drag it up every time either of us had an interview anywhere.”
He paused again, tracing his finger around the rim of his glass a few times like he would find the rest of his story in there.
“But then things started to take a turn,” he sighed. “I…I guess I wasn’t as attentive as I should have been with her. At least, that’s what she told me when she asked for a divorce.”
“What?” I gasped. The pain on his face was palpable.
“She had been cheating on me with some other guy,” he shook his head, his voice low, as though he somehow didn’t want me to hear this part. “For a year or so. And I had been so caught up in the business that I didn’t even notice.”
“Cheating on you,” I repeated after him, testing the words on my tongue. They brought back the all-too-familiar sting of what had happened with Matt and I, made it feel fresh after how well I had blurred it out in the back of my head until now.
“Yeah, cheating on me,” he shook his head. “And so we broke up. We got a divorce. That was about…I would say eighteen months ago, at least.”
“Why didn’t I know anything about this?” I wondered aloud. “Why did you keep it so quiet?”
“For one thing, she wanted to be able to move on to her new guy without any complications,” he replied, the bitterness in his voice obvious. “And for another – I just couldn’t handle the thought of everyone around me knowing.”
“Why not?” I shook my head. After what I’d been through with Matt, I could say for damn certain that I wouldn’t have been able to do it had it not been for the support of my friends to get me through the whole thing. The thought of dealing with something like that all alone made my chest ache.
“People don’t want to work with someone who isn’t a success,” he shrugged and smiled up at me, a little sadly. “Would you want to work with the asshole who couldn’t even hold his own marriage together? Most of the guys I work with, guys like your father, they’ve been in solid marriages for so long and they consider that another marker of their success. If those people were to find out about me, find out that I hadn’t been able to keep my wife – it would have changed their opinions on me, no doubt. And you can’t get that kind of thing back. That kind of good press is priceless if you can manage it, and if you can’t, it’ll send you way down on the list of people these guys want to work with.”
“So you covered it up?”
“Pretty much,” he admitted, and he finally looked up at me, meeting my gaze properly for the first time since I had sat down. “And that’s why – shit, when we met, I just wanted to have a little fun. I was sure that’s what I needed more than anything else. And you were just a booty call. I guess I managed to talk myself into believing that the best thing for me was just to hook up with someone and have a good time and try to put all that shit with Maya behind me once and for all.”
“Yeah, I feel you on that,” I nodded grimly.
“And that’s why I’ve been so fucking all over the place with us,” he continued, sounding annoyed at himself – as annoyed as I’d been at him when I had walked into this place just a few minutes earlier but I didn’t have it in me to keep up the rage I’d felt when I arrived.
“I really fucking like you, Nia,” he looked into my eyes. “And when – when I saw you again at that party, I wasn’t sure whether it was a godsend or a curse. Because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you since that day at the restaurant, but I knew as soon as I figured out who you were that we couldn’t do anything else.”
“Nate, people are going to know about us when I start showing,” I pointed out gently. “You can’t hide this from everyone, forever.”
“I know that,” He closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again. He looked so young all of a sudden – he was usually this big, swaggering badass, but in that moment with me it seemed as though he might go to pieces at any moment. It passed when he blinked, but I would never forget it.
“But if this comes out, I’m so worried that people will start doing some digging,” he went on. “And find out about the divorce. And that people will – they’ll figure out the kind of person I am.”
“Which is?” I prompted him. I wasn’t sure what I expected him to say but I knew I had to hear it out of his mouth.
“A fucking mess when it comes to the women I love,” he looked up at me sharply and the words caught me off-guard. Maybe it was just the hormones, but I felt for a moment like I might burst into tears. He looked away from me and got to his feet, beginning to pace up and down the apartment in front of me, like there was this energy inside of him burning him up that he couldn’t keep control of. I took a deep breath. I guessed if he was being honest with me then I should be honest with him, too.
“You know why I hooked up with you the first time?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. He glanced over at me and cocked an eyebrow.
“My irresistible handsomeness?” He suggested, and I rolled my eyes.
“Well, that too,” I teased lightly. “But…I had actually just come out of a long-term relationship. Like, a really long-term one. We were living together and all my friends thought he was going to propose to me.”
“Huh?” He furrowed his brow, waiting for me to go on.
“And when you were hitting on me that first day, I guess there was this part of me that thought, fuck it, I can’t make a proper relationship work so I should just have a little fun,” I explained. “The first night we were here, it was why I left so quickly. I didn’t want to get attached to you, or to any of it.”
He didn’t reply but he was looking up at me with this look in his eyes that told me he knew precisely where I was coming from.
“So I just…I just started hooking up with you, and then before I knew it I guess I realized I actually felt something real for you,” the words were coming so quickly now that I couldn’t keep track of them, so fast that it felt as though my brain was struggling to keep up. “And then when I saw you at that gala I knew – I knew I had to be with you. I had to give things a chance between us. And then the pregnancy, and then you called it off, but those flowers-”
I stopped to catch my breath, running my fingers through my hair.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I finally finished up quietly. “But I need you, Nate. I know we have something and I want – fuck, I just want to see how it plays out.”
He was still quiet, staring at his hands, and he stayed that way for a long time as though he was trying to take in everything that I was telling him. I knew how he felt. My brain was still buzzing from everything he’d just dumped on me, and it was difficult keeping my head straight enough to focus on the task at hand. I stared at him intently, the only thing I was sure of through all of this being that I needed him to say yes, needed him to finally accept that whatever it was between the two of us it deserved a chance to breathe.
“Nate?” I prompted him softly, as though my words might take him by surprise. He looked up at me.
“I know what you’re saying,” he sighed. “But with the pregnancy it’s just – it’s just such a big commitment. And then your family on top of all of that-”
“My family will just have to come to terms with it,” I replied firmly. “Don’t let them get in the way of what you want.”
He took my head then, and squeezed softly, a gesture so tender and so sweet that it could me a little off-guard. I opened my mouth to say something but instead just found myself gawking down at our hands next to each other. His touch still drove me crazy, in every way possible.
“I won’t,” he promised me. “But I need some time to figure myself out, okay?”
“Okay,” I sighed deeply, even though the last thing I wanted was for him to slip through my fingers once more. “But you’ll know for sure, won’t you, on the other side?”
“Of course I will,” he assured me. “No more – no more of these games, Nia. I promise.”
“And no more big bunches of flowers out of nowhere when I’m trying not to think about you,” I teased gently, feeling a warmth spread throughout my chest. He cocked an eyebrow.
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything,” he sighed and shook his head. “Sometimes it just happens spontaneously, you know?”
“Right,” I rolled my eyes, and got to my feet; he was still holding my hand but as tempting as it was to stay I knew I needed to give him some space and time to work out how he felt.
“I’ll see you soon,” I met his gaze steadily, and he squeezed my hand once more.
“Yeah, you will,” he promised me, and for a moment all I wanted to do was lean down and plant a kiss against his lips. But I knew I had to leave. No more distraction, no more back-and-forth; both of us needed to take the time away from each other to figure out what the hell was going on between us once and for all. With one last look at him, I turned and headed for the door, my heart in my throat, and hoped to God that this wouldn’t be the last time I set foot in this apartment.