by Bay, Louise
She didn’t respond.
“So, that’s it?” I asked.
“I don’t see how it can be any other way,” she replied. “You have your work and—”
“I’ve said I’m sorry and you know I had the trial coming up—”
“It’s not about Saturday,” she said. “It’s about every Saturday. It’s about not wanting to be the girl who waits around for scraps of time that you’re prepared to toss me.”
I winced. She made it sound terrible. “I am really sorry. I never pretended to be perfect, and I’m so used to only having to worry about myself that it’s going to take me some time to adjust. That’s all.”
“I can’t let myself care for you, Alexander. I’m just about to get my life on track. I don’t want to be derailed again. I don’t want to allow myself to believe in someone only to find they are another person entirely. I’ve done that before.”
The bottom fell out from my stomach.
“At first we were just fucking and then we were dancing in Berkley Square and somewhere in the middle of that, my feelings changed and I started to want more. I changed. The more time I spent with you, the more you could hurt me, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t be let down again.”
I’d let Gabby down. And although I regretted what I had done, it hadn’t caused me actual pain. But now the agony coursed through my body. “I’m so sorry. You deserve better.” It was true. She was precious.
“You are a very special man. Someone who’s taught me what I want in my life. You’ve shown me what I deserve—a man who’s capable of putting me first.”
“It was a mistake, and I wish I could take it back. Can’t we at least try?”
“I can’t, Alexander. I’m in too deep; it hurts too much already.”
I had no response. I didn’t want to hurt her—it was the last thing I wanted.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. This way, we can remember the last few months and look back fondly at our time together. I feel like you breathed new life into me, and I will always be so thankful to you.”
Breathed new life into her? That’s what she’d done to me.
“Can we stay in touch? Be friends?” I was grasping at straws, but I wanted her in my world in whatever way I could have her.
She sighed and the loneliness inside me grew. I knew her answer before she said it. “Maybe one day. Right now, I need a . . . clean—”
“I understand.” I tried to keep my voice steady when what I wanted to do was break down and beg for another chance.
“Thank you. I mean it; I think you’re a wonderful man.”
I just hadn’t been good enough for her. I’d been less than she deserved, and rightfully, she’d left me.
* * *
I’d spent Christmas day alone in a hotel room. I’d ordered a club sandwich and a bottle of whiskey and didn’t speak to anyone who wasn’t working at the hotel in some capacity. Some years that might have been the perfect way to spend the festive season, but this year it just seemed like the life of a lonely, washed-up bachelor with an empty life.
I’d never been much of a drinker. I didn’t like the way it clouded my mind and dulled my senses. But in the last week, since Violet had left, a clear head was the last thing I wanted. I longed to be drunk. Each morning, I woke sober and watched the clock until it struck noon, and I got out of bed to fix a whisky.
The news rattled on in the background as I poured my second glass. A rap at the door caught my attention. For a split second I thought Violet had changed her mind and flown back to rescue me. I checked the peephole and found a member of the housekeeping team standing outside.
I pulled the door open and the girl began to talk to me in what sounded like Romanian although it could have been Polish. She pushed her way past me and began clearing up my room. I ripped the Do Not Disturb sign from the outside of the door where it had hung since before Christmas and held it up. “Excuse me.” I waved the sign. She turned, saw the sign, shrugged, and pulled the sheets from the bed.
Fuck me. I didn’t have the energy to argue. No doubt the hotel staff were wondering what the hell I was doing in here. I pulled on some clothes and grabbed my wallet. Perhaps I could go and buy a bottle of my favorite whisky instead of ordering the stuff from downstairs.
As I stepped out of the lift, I raised my arm to shade my eyes from the light. I’d spent the last week in darkness; I should have brought my sunglasses.
Without knowing where I was going, I stepped outside. I’d not brought my scarf or my gloves and it must have been close to freezing. The air stung my whiskey-bruised throat as I turned up the collar on my coat and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I figured the housekeeper would be done in thirty minutes. I just needed to kill some time before I could go back and take a nap.
The last few weeks preparing for the trial had been brutal and it was catching up with me. Work had been relentless and then there was Violet. If I could find a way of getting to sleep without passing out from alcohol, then perhaps I wouldn’t wake with pain tearing through my stomach in the middle of the night. It was like an illness, except I had no temperature or any other symptoms except agony buried so deep it was impossible to describe where it was.
I groaned as I came to the end of the pavement and saw where I was. Berkley Square.
There were no nightingales singing. No beautiful Americans to dance with. Just me feeling sorry for myself with nowhere to go.
I wandered through the gates and took a seat on one of the benches near where I’d danced with Violet just a few short weeks ago. Slouching, I put my head in my hands. How had things been so good and become so awful so quickly? How had I fucked things up so fundamentally?
I cast my mind back to the weeks after my separation from Gabby. It had never felt like this. How long would it last? Would this crushing devastation ever leave me? When Gabby and I parted there was guilt and regret, but I didn’t recall pain. Or loneliness.
Chatter caught my attention and I sat up and saw a couple, hand in hand, strolling through the park, laughing and sharing their day together.
I had to get out of there. I headed in the opposite direction and turned left out of the park. But I wasn’t done torturing myself. Hill Street was within sight and I wanted to see it, remember Violet’s beautiful face at the door when I went to her after work, savor the memories of the night we first slept together and all the times since.
I slowed as the house came into sight. How had I let her go?
“Alex?” a woman called from behind me.
I resisted the urge to run. I didn’t want to see anyone other than Violet but when the woman called my name again, I turned to find Darcy, laden down with shopping, coming toward me.
Her brow was furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing. I live just . . .” What could I say? My hotel was in the other direction. No doubt I looked like a stalker.
“Can you help me with these?” she asked, indicating the bags she was carrying.
“Yes, of course.” Our fingers fumbled as she transferred the weight to me. She got out her keys and unlocked the front door.
“You growing a beard?” she asked.
I rubbed my hand over my jaw. I guessed it was time to shave. “No, I just . . . I’ve not been in chambers, so . . .”
I set the bags down in the kitchen, and tried not to look at anything but my feet. Already, memories Violet had left in this house threatened to overwhelm me.
“I’ll make us some coffee,” Darcy said, turning to put the coffeemaker on.
I didn’t want to stay but I didn’t want to be rude. I glanced over at the dining room, the starched white tablecloth had been removed from the polished walnut table. The flowers and cutlery had been cleared. What would have happened if I’d come back when I’d said I would?
Perhaps Violet would still be here.
“I should go,” I said. “You seem busy.”
“And y
ou’re not?” she asked. “I thought you were always busy.”
“Courts are closed, but I’m back in chambers on Monday.” Christ, that was only a few days away. I wasn’t sure the fog in my brain, or the pain in my heart, would have left me by then.
“Okay, but before you go I want to say something even though I’m pretty sure Violet would kill me before she let me utter a word, but maybe it will help—you don’t look good, Alex.”
I nodded, unable to disagree.
“The Saturday night that you didn’t come home—”
I went to speak, to say how sorry I was, but Darcy raised her hand. “She got into the two London universities she applied for. She loved it here and I think meeting you really made her see the world differently.”
My heart ached. Violet had been accepted. If I hadn’t fucked up, she’d be coming back and we’d be together.
“She loved you.”
I couldn’t hold it in. I let out a deep, rumbling groan. I bent over, sharp stabbing pains shooting through my gut. She loved me? How was that possible? Violet was the most beautiful, charming, effervescent woman I’d ever met.
And for some inexplicable reason she’d loved me.
And I’d lost her.
“I’m sorry, but I thought you would want to know. Should I have kept quiet?” Darcy asked.
I straightened, grasping the work surface for support. I shook my head.
“She said she had to get out before she got hurt,” Darcy continued.
I nodded, breathless from the pain.
Violet had said as much on the phone.
“She’s heartbroken, Alex. And you look just . . . broken. Isn’t there anything that can be done?”
I cleared my throat and released my hands. “I’m afraid not. She was right to leave.” I needed to gather myself. I was hurting but it was bound to happen at some point. It was inevitable. “She knew I could never make her happy in the long run.” I should never have thought it could be any different. I wasn’t capable of making her happy. I was too selfish. “I’m just sorry that I hurt her.”
“Alex.” She grabbed my upper arm. “I wasn’t blaming you. You’re both hurting. All I’m saying is if you love her, don’t just give up. I’ve told her the same thing. You can’t just walk away from each other.”
“She said she wanted a clean break. I have to respect that.”
“No! No, you don’t. She upped and left without a discussion and you just let her go.” She blew out a puff of air. “Don’t you love her?”
“Of course I love her.” I’d not admitted it to myself, but it was obvious, wasn’t it? I’d never experienced anything like it—neither the joy nor the pain.
“She’s hurting and trying to protect herself.” Darcy gripped my arms. “You need to prove to her that even though you missed something really important to her, it was a mistake that you regret and won’t repeat. Show her it doesn’t mean she doesn’t matter.”
“She matters more than anyone ever has. She means more than I ever thought anyone could. I love her more than any man ever loved a woman.”
“Have you told her that?”
I hadn’t had a chance, had I? She’d come across as so decided in our telephone call. So resolute.
“Well it’s obvious . . .”
“I can tell you, Alex, it is not obvious. Certainly not to her. You gave her up without a fight—you, a man who fights for a living. A man who’s made it his mission in life to win just let her walk away.”
I ran through my rebuttal in my head: I couldn’t make Violet listen to me. She was three thousand miles away. She’d abandoned me.
And I didn’t know how to work less.
She’d done the right thing.
They sounded weak. They were arguments a loser would make.
Darcy was right. I hadn’t fought for Violet. I’d accepted defeat before I’d finished making my opening statement.
But some fights couldn’t be won. “I don’t know if I could ever be the man she deserved.”
“You love her and she loves you—it’s worth trying, isn’t it?”
“For me, maybe.” I glanced down at my feet. “But it’s too late. She’s gone.”
“She’s a plane ride away and it’s been a week. Don’t be a fool.”
It felt longer and further than that. Was I giving up too easily? If I thought there was a possibility that I could make her happy, that I could convince her to come back to me—that was all I wanted. I looked up. “You think I have a chance?”
“You won’t know unless you try. If she’s as important as you say she is, then fight for her like it’s the case of your career.”
Violet was more important than any legal case.
I knew the law but I didn’t know women. I didn’t understand relationships. I also had no clue how to prove I could change.
“I don’t know how,” I confessed. Words wouldn’t be enough. I needed something more.
“You have a simple choice. Find a way, or lose her.”
Losing her wasn’t an option if I had a choice. I had to find a way to demonstrate my love and I had no idea where to begin but one thing was for sure: I loved Violet King and I wasn’t giving up without a fight.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Violet
It was the most ridiculous thing in the world. I was sitting here, in my assigned seat, having completed my first week of my MBA, wishing I could tell Alexander all about it. I should be soaking it in, not thinking about a man. Even if I’d thought I was in love with him, which I wasn’t. Because that would be ridiculous.
Coming back to New York had been the right thing to do. I felt safer here. In the weeks since I’d left London I’d been busy with the holidays and then changing my start date and preparing for classes. It had helped keep my mind from wandering to Knightley. Mostly.
There were just under two hundred of us in the lecture hall—each in preassigned seats so the teaching assistants could tell who was in attendance and the lecturers could pick unsuspecting names from the chart on the desk to answer their impossibly hard questions. Two hundred complete strangers. I would have thought it was impossible to feel this lonely among so many people.
“Did you think it would be this much work?” Douglas asked from next to me.
I smiled and began to gather up my things. We had hours of prep work to complete for next week and had already been issued three assignments. “It’s good to be busy.”
The holidays had been exhausting. I’d wanted to spend them in bed, in a dark room with a bottle of vodka, but there was no chance of even a moment’s peace at my parents’ place. Dad was always up by six, crashing about in the garage just below my bedroom, and there was always some place to be—either at Scarlett and Ryder’s, Max and Harper’s, Grace and Sam’s. So I’d plastered on a smile and gone through the motions regardless of how empty I’d felt inside. Looking back, leaving in secret had been immature. I’d run away rather than having a discussion. At the time I’d not seen any other way. There was nothing he could have said that would have changed my mind, so I’d done what I’d thought had been the best for both of us. The fact that Alexander hadn’t told me what I’d wanted to hear as I’d said goodbye—that he loved me and couldn’t live without me, and that he promised to make more time for me—made the breakup easier. There were no false promises to be broken, just a clean break before things got too messy, before I fell too hard.
At least he hadn’t loved me. If he had told me he had, I wasn’t sure if I would have been strong enough to walk away. But he hadn’t and here I was, facing my future.
Being in college, even if it was under a mountain of work, was better than being surrounded by happy couples. At least here I was doing what I wanted to. School forced me to think about the future and not the past. I refused to think about what might have been.
“A bunch of us are going for a drink. You wanna come?” Douglas asked.
Did I? I wasn’t sure. Homework beckoned, but I didn’t wan
t it to own me. I wanted to enjoy myself, too. I realized what I needed was balance between the future and the present. “Maybe just for an hour.”
He grinned. “Perfect. By then, you’ll be a beer in and hopefully I’ll be able to convince you to stay for the evening.”
The smile, the eye contact, the way his eyebrows pulsed when he talked—I’d seen it all before. I smiled, wanting to like him more than I did.
A group of us, wrapped in padded coats and wool hats, gloves, and scarves headed toward a bar on Amsterdam. The last time I’d been out for drinks in Manhattan had been the night Darcy had invited me to London. So much had happened since. I could never have imagined that I’d be studying again, let alone have ambitions to set up a management consultancy business.
It might never happen, but I was willing to take a risk, make an investment in the future.
“What can I get you to drink?” Douglas asked as we got inside. Pre-London Violet would have ordered a cocktail. I’d drunk wine with Alexander. Things had changed. Now I was open to something different. “Just a beer. Whatever you’re having,” I replied. Douglas and a couple of others went to the bar, while the rest of us secured a table, pulling off our outdoor clothing, already hot from coming inside.
“Thank God that’s over,” said one of the girls I hadn’t met. “Hopefully things will ease up a little next week.”
“I heard it gets worse,” the girl from California said.
Luckily, I didn’t have a long commute to contend with. I’d borrowed the money from my brother for tuition, so I wasn’t forced to take a part-time job. I would have more time than most, so the volume of work didn’t bother me. I didn’t want any spare time. Too much space meant thoughts of Alexander would filter in and that just wasn’t acceptable. Also, the last few years had been wasted. I needed to make up for lost time. I didn’t want an easy ride—I wanted to squeeze every last drop out of this experience, learn everything I could.
