CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Max hovered near the front door of Nate’s house, impatient to leave. “Are you coming for a pint or not?”
Nate dug deeper into the foyer closet, just as anxious to be going. The house felt empty without Paige, the echoes reminding him of what he didn’t have anymore. A drink was exactly what he needed. Several of them. “I’m looking for my shoes. Once I find them, we can go.”
Frowning, Max leaned over Nate’s shoulder. “Why would they be in there? Have you checked your bedroom closet?”
Frustrated, pissed off, and exhausted from not sleeping, Nate sprang to his feet. “Of course I’ve looked there. I’ve looked everywhere. The closets, the drawers, the back porch, under the beds. Hell, I even checked my suitcase even though I know I’ve worn them since my last trip. It’s like they’ve walked away on their own. They’ve disa–”
Nate slapped his head as a thought occurred to him. “I’m a bloody idiot. She took them. She took my fucking shoes. She did it again.”
How was he going to live the rest of his life without Paige to make him laugh?
“So wear a different pair. And what do you mean she took them? Paige?”
Nate laughed, falling back against the wall. It was the first funny thing in four long tortuous days. “Yes, Paige. She hated those gray shoes and she took them.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t understand you at all. What happened between you and Paige? You both seemed so happy and now she’s staying in a hotel and neither one of you are talking.”
Nate was doing plenty of talking but now it was to the houseplants after he’d had too much to drink. So far, the ferns didn’t give a fuck that he was going to be alone until the day he died. He’d thought he’d known what misery was but he hadn’t a clue. His world was a living, breathing hell that he simply tried to survive each day, hoping that perhaps the next day might be better. That hadn’t happened yet.
“I did what was right. Maybe the first time in my life, and it would be nice to have my best friend support me in this.”
A dubious expression on his face, Max crossed his arms over his chest. “Just what am I supporting?”
“I told you. My doing the right thing. It was your advice that helped me see what needed to be done.”
Holding his hands up in surrender, Max shook his head. “My advice? I don’t remember what I said but here’s some more. You need to swallow your pride and call her, beg her to come home.”
Nate had been fighting that urge every second since that night. All he wanted was to see her, hear her voice, and smell her skin. It was like a fever in his blood. He’d dialed her number a thousand fucking times but never put the call through. She deserved better even if it was killing him inside. He’d had to make due with calling her assistant Carrie to make sure Paige was all right. It wasn’t the contact he craved but it was better than nothing.
Feeling tears burn the back of his eyes, Nate swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat.
“I can’t beg her to come back because I’m the one that pushed her away.”
Max blinked a few times. “You? But…why? That’s daft. You were happy. I know you were.”
“I was,” Nate agreed, falling into an overstuffed chair. He’d been so fucking exhausted lately, his limbs, head, and heart all hurting. “But eventually she would have come to hate me and I couldn’t let that happen. You said so yourself, mate. Don’t take a woman’s dreams away from her. This was me giving hers a chance.”
Lowering himself onto the sofa, Max slowly exhaled as if holding onto his temper very carefully. “Why don’t you tell me what you think you’ve done? Then I’ll tell you how crazy you are.”
Slowly, with several interruptions by Max for clarifying questions, Nate described the argument he and Paige had had and how they couldn’t agree on what she should do. Then he reviewed their own conversation almost word for word and that had led to Nate’s decision to push Paige away. For her own good. He even mentioned his promise to Jason. His description of his behavior that evening drew a pained groan from Max and by the time he was done his friend was holding his head in his hands, barely able to breathe.
Eventually Max raised his head, looking at Nate as if he had lost his mind. “You have fucked this up ten ways to Sunday. What were you thinking? You deliberately hurt the woman you love.”
Nate didn’t feel great about that but he’d been saving them even more heartache down the road.
“It would have hurt worse a year or two from now. Fuck, by then we might have been married. Tell me how much fun a divorce is.”
Max blanched at the mention of the ‘d’ word. “I get your reasoning, truly I do. But this wasn’t the way. Don’t you see that Paige was willing to sacrifice the movie for you?”
“She shouldn’t have to sacrifice anything for me.” Nate argued. “Shit, I’m not worth it.”
Hopping to his feet, Max paced the small living room. “She thinks you are. Hell, we all do. You’re a good person who thinks his characters are more interesting. News flash. They’re not. You should be grateful you have a woman that loves you as much as Paige does. Not many women would give up that chance.”
This conversation was going nowhere. “You were the one that assumed she would make the movie without me, remember? Now you’re saying it’s okay that she doesn’t. Which is it?”
Halting a few feet away, Max appeared to be holding onto his temper by a thread. “It’s however she wants it to be. It’s her fucking life and you don’t get to pull the strings. Isn’t that what she was so angry about that first night you came home? That you were trying to control her? You’re doing it again, only this time is far worse. You’re acting like she’s a child who doesn’t know what she wants but she does. Clearly, she wants you although at the moment I cannot imagine why. You’re a fucking idiot.”
That first night in London seemed so far away. He lived a lifetime since then, but he did remember her reaming him a new one that night. She didn’t like to be manipulated.
“I did this for her own good,” Nate said a trifle desperately. “I want her to have her dream.”
Max scraped his hand down his face, his eyes sad. “Maybe…maybe she had a new dream she hadn’t told you about yet. Maybe her dream was something about you, her, and a future. Did you ever think of that?”
He hadn’t. He’d been too busy giving her what she’d said she wanted. She’d been so desperate for that movie deal she’d agreed to a PR relationship with him along with all the red carpets and parties that went along with it. She’d told him of her ambition. An ambition that matched his own.
“I did the right thing.”
It was all he could say. It had practically become his mantra since that night, the only thing that kept him from losing his mind completely. He’d sacrificed for the woman he loved. What was nobler than that? The problem was that being a hero sucked. If he’d known how much this was going to hurt he might not have done it.
The gloom that Nate had been trying to deal with took over again. He didn’t love easily and now that he’d fallen, he was in all the way. For life, it looked like.
Paige Mitchell had done the one thing all his friends and family thought couldn’t be done.
She’d made him want to be a better man.
* * *
Paige sipped her hot chocolate, preparing herself for the grilling of a lifetime. After avoiding almost everyone’s calls except Jason and Carrie, she’d finally agreed to meet Amy at a nearby cafe. From the look on Amy’s face when she walked in, she had a million questions and they were all about Nate.
“So go ahead,” Paige said with a sigh. “Just tell me one thing before you do. Will everyone be hearing about what I say today?”
Amy shook her head. “Not if you don’t want. If Mike asks me, I’ll just tell him it was girl talk.”
Chuckling. Paige picked up her fork and tried the red velvet cake. “Right, like that’s going to work. I don’t mind, really. So get to it. You look like you’re about to burst.”
Amy sucked in a breath and nodded. “First, can I say that you look marvelous, dear? I wasn’t sure what to expect, actually. But you look good. How are you feeling? Are you ready to talk to Nate?”
No beating around the bush. Paige admired that.
“That’s two questions so I’ll answer them separately. As to how I look, well, you should have seen me a few days ago. I spent the first forty-eight hours in the hotel room feeling sorry for myself, not showering, and crying in spurts and fits, mostly because I was also drinking a large bottle of vanilla-flavored vodka. Hard liquor makes me melancholy.”
Amy’s well-shaped brow lifted. “You obviously showered this morning.”
“Yesterday and today, actually. I had to go shopping and buy a six-pack of panties. I don’t mind wearing jeans or a sweater more than once but I draw the line at underwear. I didn’t pack for more than a few days. As for how I feel? Like I’ve been run over by a truck. I ache everywhere, but mostly my heart.” Paige stared out the window to the passersby on the sidewalk. “I’m so angry and hurt.”
“Have you talked to him?”
Paige took another bite of her cake, the sweetness cloying on her tongue. Even food didn’t taste the same since that night. That asshole.
Paige shook her head. “No, and I don’t know what we would say. Intellectually, I know why he put on that little play at the party but my heart is a different story. He was deliberately cruel and even though I don’t think he meant any of it – I hope – I can still hear his voice ringing in my ears and saying those horrible things. I’m not sure I can forget it.”
Amy looked near tears herself. “Do I even want to know what he said?”
“I wish I didn’t know. Let’s just say he called my life pathetic and boring and that I was no fun. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps he wanted me gone. That I was a daily reminder that the studio didn’t want him. Maybe he’s glad I’m gone.”
Amy signaled to the waitress for a tea refill. “I’m sure he didn’t mean any of it. He’s ass over tea kettle for you, girl. If any man in the world was in love, it’s Nate.”
Paige wanted to believe that but he hadn’t made it easy.
“Yet he didn’t have any trouble finding nasty names to call me. There wasn’t much of a struggle there.”
“Would anything else have pushed you away?”
Stirring her chocolate, Paige thought about that question. She’d been torturing herself with it for days and she still didn’t have the answer.
“I doubt it,” she finally said. “Nate did what he had to do, but what has he accomplished? We’re apart. That’s bad. What does he think he gets from all of this? Did he think I was going to change my mind because he was an asshole? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Amy placed the spoon next to her cup. “Maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t get anything from this. Maybe this was about what you could have.”
The lightbulb went on over her head. The gorgeous, sexy Shakespearian idiot. He was trying to be a goddamn knight in shining armor.
“The movie,” Paige groaned. “I don’t even want the damn thing now. Those guys gave me the willies. Even if they begged me to do it with Nate on board, I wouldn’t sign the contract. I heard Stella Riley checked herself into rehab over the weekend which tells me Burt and Ernie don’t have great judgment. That little voice in my head is screaming at me to stay far away from them.”
“You’re a writer. You should be used to the little voices by now.”
“This one is a pain in the ass.”
“So what are you going to do?” Amy asked. “Go back home? Talk to him? Can you forgive all the mean things he said and get your relationship back on track?”
Answers? Paige had none.
“I don’t know. I go back and forth. Part of me is all – hey, he did something stupid but I probably will too at some point so I should forgive him. Another part is like – he’s a child in the body of a grown man and he’s going to continue this behavior for the rest of his self-absorbed life. I can’t let him manipulate me when he doesn’t get what he wants. That entire evening was a study in passive-aggressive behavior. Will he do this every time we have an issue? Because I don’t think I could take the stress. The whole thing gives me a fucking headache.” Paige looked Amy in the eye. “Do you think I should forgive him? You know him well.”
Amy rubbed her chin in thought. “Relationships are hard and complex. People do stupid things but they can learn from them. The question is are you willing to put in the work of repairing your relationship?”
It would be work too. Hard work.
“That’s something else I don’t know,” Paige admitted. “I love Nate, I really do. He has so many wonderful qualities that I admire and would want in the man in my life. I just fear that he’ll repeat this behavior over and over every time we argue. So I’ve holed up in the hotel room writing.”
Like the coward she was.
“How’s that working for you?”
Paige gave up on the cake and placed the fork on the edge of the plate. “Terribly, thank you very much. At some point I have to make a decision and I have to talk to Nate. Normally those things wouldn’t be an issue.”
She wasn’t happy with Nate but she was even angrier with herself. This indecisive shit was for the birds.
Amy reached across the table and patted Paige’s hand. “I just want you to know that I’m on your side no matter what you decide.”
It was Amy’s expression that gave her away. “But you think that I should give him another chance?”
Sighing, the other woman nodded. “Nate needs you and I think you need him.”
“I think you might be right but I’m still pissed as hell right now.”
“Is that what you’re going to say to Nate when you finally see him?”
She had no idea but there was one thing she did know. If he touched her she’d do anything for him.