Dean sighed while turning his bottle in his hands. “I know it sounds crazy…and you know me, one and done and I’m good. But there was just something about her…”
Keaton winked at a few women passing by before returning his attention to Dean.
“Yeah, you keep mentioning that part. So what was it about her? She have a magical mermaid pussy?”
“My fist and your mouth haven’t hung out in a while, Slade. Keep talking and they’ll get reacquainted in a hurry.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby.” Keaton grinned before taking another drink. “But seriously, the woman obviously has some issues if she’d just give it up to a stranger on the beach then vanish. Or maybe you just sucked at it and she’s traumatized for life.”
Dean stood from the barstool and threw a few bills down on the bar. “Fuck you, man. I’m going home.”
“Aw, come on. Don’t go. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, princess.”
Dean was tired. He was tired of the constant booze and bullshit and empty-headed bimbos that had filled his beach house all summer. He just wanted to find that damn woman so she could explain why she’d left. He wanted to know her name. He wanted to know if he’d let her down somehow. Keaton didn’t know it, but he’d scratched the surface of something Dean was concerned about. It was her first time—he wanted it to have been good for her. He thought it had been, until she vanished.
More than anything, he wanted a chance at finishing what he felt like they’d started. While he’d been battling the sand, his mind had been mapping out the many ways he planned to take her when he didn’t have to struggle against the elements. The shower, the bed, the bathtub. But she disappeared into thin air, leaving him grasping at the memory and trying to make peace with the fact that his plans might never come to fruition.
“You didn’t hurt my feelings, bitch. I don’t have feelings,” he told his friend. “I’m going to walk around a bit, see if anyone’s seen a woman matching her description.”
“Uh huh. For a guy with no feelings, you sure are awfully fixated on this woman.” Keaton eyed him strangely while polishing off his beer. “Good luck to you.”
The second half of orientation was mostly about setting up email accounts and filling out life and health insurance preferences. Filling out her direct deposit information was almost as satisfying as the chicken pita wrap her new boss had bought her for lunch.
Gwen had to go back to her office after orientation ended, but she told Fate that she’d walk her to the correct train so she made it back to her place safely.
“I hate to ask, but why the East Village?”
Fate grimaced. “It was pretty much all I could afford.”
“Ah. Makes sense. So do you have a lease agreement or…”
“It’s a hotel—just something short term until I can save enough for a security deposit and first and last months’ rent.”
There was an awkward silence while they walked out of the building. Fate ached to fill it but had no idea what else to say. Her situation was far from ideal and not necessarily something she wanted to share with a brand-new coworker.
They’d both barely made it through the revolving glass doors when Fate saw him leaning against the building. Her heart sank into her stomach. Her feet acted on sheer self-preservation and instinct and began to retreat.
Then the man called out her name.
“You know him?” Gwen looked back and forth from the man to her.
Fate nodded. “I used to. Or I used to think I did, anyway.”
She froze where she stood and waited. Once Trevor Harris was in reaching distance, he pulled off his sunglasses and glared down at her.
“Jesus Christ, Fate. I’ve been worried sick about you. Why haven’t you answered your phone?”
Fate closed her eyes and counted to ten. Had he been worried? She couldn’t tell if the concern was genuine because it was diluted by his repugnant tone.
“Trevor. This is Gwen. We’ll be working together. Please do not act like an epic jackass right now.”
Trevor’s eyes darted to her new friend and then returned to hers. “Okay. We need to talk. Tell me where you’re staying.”
Fate’s hands clenched at her sides. “There is nothing left to say and it’s none of your business where I’m staying. Please feel free to move on with your life. I have.”
Trevor snorted and her body flushed hot with frustration. It was like being torn in two equal halves. One half hated him for what he’d done, and one half could remember how safe and secure he’d made her feel. She wished the sidewalk would open up and swallow her whole so she could escape his humiliating torture.
“I’m not going to let you play the martyr, Fate. What happened was both of our faults and I’ve accepted responsibility for my part in it. But it’s behind us now. Come to dinner tonight with me and we can talk.”
He was really going to try and place some of the blame for his cheating on her.
Fate shook her head. “No, thank you.”
She wondered why Gwen hadn’t made her great escape yet. Instead of ducking out of this excruciatingly uncomfortable confrontation, the woman seemed to be standing closer to Fate as if she were prepared to leap in front of her if necessary.
“You’ve made your point.” Trevor’s voice rose and he reached for her arm. “If you think I’m going to pay for your mother’s—”
“Stop. Just stop. Please.” She jerked out of his grasp and held her hands up. “I don’t want to go to dinner and I don’t want to talk. Just go. Please.”
The last thing she wanted was for her mother’s stint in rehab to be made public knowledge to the only friend she’d made so far. Not that Gwen seemed terribly judgmental, but it was private and Fate wanted to keep it that way.
Trevor’s jaw ticked and he narrowed his eyes at her. “I want to make sure we’re clear. What happened in the Hamptons will not ever happen again. I am ready to move past it, but if you can’t, then you’re right. We are done. And by done, I mean I won’t pay another penny for your mom’s medical care and you can both live in a crack den for all I care. You need to think long and hard about what you’re walking away from, Fate. You sure you’re prepared to do this?”
Eying him carefully, cataloguing every inch of him—from his narrow waist in tailored khaki pants and neatly tucked and pressed pale-blue oxford shirt—Fate tried to remember what she had ever seen in him. He went after what he wanted, and that had once been a quality she admired. Now, she realized that he believed himself entitled to what he wanted just because, and that was no longer an attractive character trait as far as she was concerned.
Everything had been handed to Trevor Harris and he’d never had to face a negative consequence a day in his life. Until now. He’d cheated and he’d gotten caught, and the price for that would be that they were done. She had absolutely no idea how she would continue paying for her mother’s stay at The Second Chance Ranch, but she knew that she’d figure it out somehow. And like everything else in her life from here on out, she’d be doing it without any help from Trevor.
“Have a nice life, Trevor. And I mean that.”
She did. Strangely, she wasn’t consumed by the fiery, passionate hatred she’d felt toward him a few weeks ago. She was just nursing wounds of hurt and disappointment. Wounds that were already beginning to heal. Wounds that had began to heal the night a stranger held her in his arms.
“Don’t do this. Give it some time. I think you’ll feel differently when you’ve had time to see past your anger.”
She would’ve smiled if the entire situation weren’t so horribly sad. He hadn’t expected her to really be done with him. He had no idea how to let it go because he’d never dealt with rejection or refusal.
“Goodbye, Trevor.”
He gaped at her for a moment before letting out a harsh noise of angered amusement. “You’ll change your mind, Fate. You will. I just hope that, when you do, it isn’t too late.”
Hell would fr
eeze over and the devil would hand out snow cones before that happened.
She waited until he’d turned and strode away from them before turning to Gwen.
“I wish I could tell you we were actors rehearsing for a play.”
Gwen’s blue eyes were bright with interest. “What? No way. That was like a soap opera happening live before my eyes. I am definitely not going back to work just yet. You and I are getting coffee. I need details, lady.”
“Oh God. Lord help me, I can feel it coming.” Gwen cringed while sipping her frothy latte and practically bouncing in the seat across from Fate in the small coffee shop just a block from where she had endured the public scene with her ex-fiancé.
Fate sipped her iced coffee and nodded. “I walked down the stairs and heard them. Then I saw them.”
“Gah! At your fucking rehearsal dinner! How did you keep from stabbing them? Or just going straight Carrie on them and burning the mother down?”
Fate shrugged. “I was too stunned to do much of anything other than run.”
“I would have lost my shit. All of my shit would have been lost. Seriously. One of them would probably still be on life support.”
Gwen was entertaining to be around. She had a flair for the dramatic and everything she felt showed plainly on her face. Fate appreciated that in a person after learning that her best friend had lied to her for the better part of a year.
“It’s certainly turned my life upside down. That’s for sure. We had all these plans. A seven-thousand-square-foot place to live. Now, I’m on my own and I’m not going to lie and say that it wasn’t tempting to take him up on his offer if only so I didn’t have to return to a tiny hotel room that reeks of sweet and sour chicken.”
“Fuck that. No way, Fate. Nothing is worth letting someone treat you like that. I would have tackled your ass if you had tried to leave with him. The things he said, the way he acted as if he were doing you some big favor by moving past what had happened—ugh. It was foul. All of it.” She exhaled loudly. “He made my skin crawl and I didn’t even know the details yet.”
Fate nodded in agreement. Gwen was right. But still…now her self-righteous breakup would cost her mom her medical care and that was a problem she didn’t currently have a solution for.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what was he talking about when he said he wouldn’t pay for your mother’s medical care? Is she sick?”
Fate’s throat tightened and her tongue grew heavier in her mouth. This was the part she didn’t want to share. Well, this and the part about her sexy, virginity-taking beach stranger.
“Um, she was in an accident and still has some recovering to do.” There. That was mostly true. “He was paying for her to stay in a residential rehabilitation facility. But it looks like I’m going to have to figure something out in addition to working at Maxwell Medical if she’s going to get to keep staying there.”
Lines appeared on Gwen’s forehead. “Jesus.”
“I’m not even sure he could help me at this point. Pretty much every aspect of my life is a hot mess right now.” She let out a small, choked laugh. “And here I thought I had it all together.”
“Do you believe in fate, Fate?” Gwen’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Because I do.”
Fate side-eyed her new friend, unsure as to where this conversation was headed. “I guess so. Lately, it doesn’t seem to be on my side though, so maybe my name is the universe’s idea of irony.”
Gwen moved her latte aside. “I don’t mean to go all Boho fortune teller on you, but I think you were meant to get on the wrong train this morning, and I think you were meant to be on that elevator when you were.”
“Ohhkay, and why’s that?”
Gwen beamed at her. “So you could meet me. We bonded. We’re like this now.” She crossed her middle finger over her index one.
Fate smiled and shook her head. “I have to say… So far, meeting you and that chicken gyro wrap-thing have been the highlights of my stay in New York.”
“See?” Gwen lowered her voice and leaned in. “In all seriousness, I couldn’t live with myself if I thought you’d go back to that asshole. And I might just be the answer to all of your problems.”
Fate arched a brow at the woman across from her. “How’s that exactly?”
Gwen chewed the inside of her cheek for a second before launching into her plan of Operation Rescue Fate. “I have an apartment—well, a small loft—on Greenwich in Tribeca. My dad helped me with the down payment, but I need a roommate. I had one but she hooked up with our boss and then hightailed it out of town.”
“Mr. Pierson?”
Gwen nodded. “Yep. That’s the rumor. And that no intracompany-dating policy is no joke. She didn’t stick around to tell me if she was fired or forced to resign or what, but I have an open room. I could even give you a few weeks to get on your feet before you’d have to help out with rent. She paid in advance and left without asking for a refund. I know how much you make at Maxwell because it’s what we all make, so I know you can afford it.”
Fate wanted to cry. Or leap across the table and tackle-hug the woman. But if she’d learned anything about life, it was that things that seemed too good to be true usually were.
“Gwen, I don’t—”
“No. Wait. Before you say no, let me explain that this is not charity. I do okay for myself, but a roommate to help with bills actually allows me to have extra money so that I can have a life.” She waited for Fate to argue. When she didn’t, Gwen continued. “And my friend Sam works at Lux, a club downtown that pays extremely well—even part-time servers and bartenders make close to what we make at Maxwell. They just don’t get the insurance and benefits. If you’re looking to make extra cash on the weekends to help pay for your mom’s medical care, I could see if she could get you an interview.”
A lump formed in Fate’s throat. Kindness like this was rare. And when everything had been going so outrageously awful, she could fully appreciate the blessing that was nearly knocking Gwendolyn Scott over in an elevator.
“Why are you doing this for me? You hardly know me.”
The other woman tilted her head to the side. “Because I was you once. I was in love with a sorry excuse of a man who couldn’t commit. And then I moved on, and it was hard as hell. I struggled and I still live on leftovers most of the time, but can I tell you something?”
Fate nodded. She could tell her that she was a serial killer at this point and Fate would still kind of love her.
“Sometimes, the worst things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.”
The words threaded through every fiber of Fate’s soul. “I love that. Who said that?”
Gwen shrugged. “I think I saw it on Pinterest or somewhere. I had it framed and it’s proudly on display on a wall in my bedroom. I believe that it’s true—not because I have any concrete proof, just because I choose to believe it.”
Fate quietly contemplated the worst thing that had ever happened to her and the path it had propelled her down. A beautiful stranger who’d given her the most incredible night of her life.
“I think I choose to believe it too.”
She couldn’t have described what she felt for all the money in the world. It was a bit like her entire life had been divided into individual balloons filled with high-octane helium, dozens of them—some carrying her concerns about her mom, a few containing the cost of her mother’s medical care, her rent, her utilities, the need for decent clothes for work, the hours of sleep she’d have to forgo to hold two jobs. All of them had strings, strings she was grasping desperately with already full hands. They pulled and tugged in every direction, threatening to break her apart any second.
But among all the worry and the fear of failure and the stress, there was one memory she held close in a private space she hadn’t even known existed.
Him.
The sexy stranger who’d given her the kind of night she couldn’t forget. Glancin
g up at the broad expanse of night sky and seeing only a few stars through the glow of city lights, Fate smiled. One star seemed to be flickering, twinkling as if winking at her with the promise of an untold secret. She hoped it wasn’t dying out. She’d read that stars did that before going permanently black.
When she much younger, her mom had called these wishing stars and encouraged her to close her eyes and ask them for something she wanted. “Couldn’t hurt,” she’d say. “Might help.”
She hadn’t actually done it in years, but landing an apartment with a non-psychotic roommate and the promise of a part-time waitressing job that would supplement her income enough to pay for her mom’s rehab filled her with a long-lost hopefulness she hadn’t felt in months.
She sighed and made what she knew was an improbable wish. She’d almost asked the universe to return him to her, but that seemed too ridiculous to even consider. Instead, she’d asked for something a little less specific but probably just as unlikely.
I wish to have a lifetime full of nights that make me feel the way he did.
“Fate?” her new roommate called from inside the apartment. “Pizza’s here.”
Smiling up at the sky one last time, Fate turned and walked back inside.
The persistent, flickering glow of light in the sky continued to shine—not dying as Fate has assumed, but coming to life.
For anyone who has ever had his or her heart thoroughly broken.
The healing will come when you least expect it. There is a certain brand of strength that can only be found in moments of weakness.
Never be afraid to fall.
I never meant to get us in this deep.
I never meant for this to mean a thing.
The One That Got Away | The Civil Wars
It was as if she’d gone off the grid. The damned woman wasn’t on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Match.com, or any other site he’d stalked in an attempt to find her. Of course, it would’ve been much easier to search if he knew her name.
Falling for Fate (Second Chance Book 2) Page 6
