“Grace, listen, I didn’t mean to offend you or start something.” Mac again jammed a hand through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh.
“No, no, you didn’t, Mac. I’m just wondering how I should play this? I mean, you are, after all, the consummate player. Are you not?”
Kate considered faking a heart attack or a stroke.
“Grace, please,” Kate managed. The wine filled her head, and although she thought she’d used a stern voice, neither of them even looked at her.
“You know, Mac, I think I will take a lesson from you. Hell, maybe I’ll just take him to Paris like you’re doing with your wife. Oh, I’m sorry, ex-wife.”
Mac slammed a hand on the table, sending the china clattering. Kate jumped. Well, that was it.
“Damn it, Kate. That was private!” He pinned her with his eyes. The sting in his voice made her face burn.
“I’m her best friend, Mac. She tells me evvvveryyything.” Grace emphasized each syllable in the word.
“Guys, please,” Kate choked back a sob. “Let’s just start over.”
She looked at Mac, “I’m sorry, Babe, but this is really hard and I needed someone to talk to.”
“Oh, and your therapist wasn’t enough?” He shot the comment at her; it was hot and cutting and sent a shudder through her. She’d never seen Mac this mad before. He was one big towering emotion, and God, was he pissed.
“Mac, how dare you.” Kate’s voice shook.
“Kate, you sat right there—right on that couch,” his finger shook as he pointed, “and you said you were fine. You were fine with Paris. You told me to go!”
Kate was silent.
Mac shoved back his chair so hard it almost fell over. “I’m outta here. You two enjoy your night.” Mac grabbed his keys and Kate stood up.
“Mac, please don’t go!” Her voice was strangled.
“She’s right. I’ll go.” Grace stood up.
“Whatever. I need some air and I do not want to share an elevator with you,” he pointed a long finger at Grace.
“Fine by me,” her hands flew up and Mac marched out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
CHAPTER 60
When the front door stopped reverberating, a heavy silence fell in the room.
Kate couldn’t move. She just stood, staring at the door. Kate felt the tingle of desperation creep into her mind.
“Don’t you dare follow him,” Grace said behind her.
Kate spun around. “Haven’t you done enough, Grace?” she bit. Grace took a step back. “Mac is gone. He’s mad as hell, and I asked you not to say anything about Paris.”
Grace’s eyes skittered away. “I’m sorry, Kate. I- I couldn’t stop it. He provoked me.”
Kate walked over to her and got within inches of her face. “Don’t you dare blame him. We were having a conversation. So what if he has a skewed male view about this? He was making small talk, that’s it. Was it so damned hard to have a nice, simple evening? Do you have to turn everything into a battle, Grace?”
Grace took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I just can’t stand—”
“What can’t you stand, Grace?” Kate interrupted her. “That I’m happy with Mac or that I’m not with Nick? I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? You trying to prove that Mac is a flawed human?”
“He’s more than flawed, Kate.”
Kate turned away from her and walked into the living room.
“Get out.” Her voice was hot and angry. Grace flinched.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Go.”
Kate didn’t even look at her friend but stared out the tall window into the darkened city. From behind her, she heard the door close quietly and then the distant ding of the elevator.
Her friend was gone.
The evening was officially over.
CHAPTER 61
After Grace left, Kate made herself a cup of tea. She was done with wine. She decided to wait up for Mac. She tried reading, but her mind kept wandering off the page and back to the argument that had happened less than an hour ago. She should have known better than to try and put those two in a room together, but being ever the optimist had once again bitten her back. This time, she feared there might be permanent damage—certainly between her and Grace, and possibly also with Mac. Kate waited and watched the time ticked by. The clock moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. She’d tried texting Mac but he had not responded.
She’d never known him to be this angry.
At least not this angry with her.
Kate sat curled up on the couch, sipping her tea. The dinner dishes were still piled in the sink. She didn’t have the interest or energy to wash them. A fatigue crawled up her spine, enveloping her. Kate bit down on her lip to keep from crying. She was so tired. Actually, tired wasn’t even the right word. She felt hollowed out. This endless rollercoaster they were on had to stop. She wanted to love Mac, get married, make babies, and live her life. She wanted her friends, or friend, to see him the way she did.
Was that too much to ask?
Clearly it was.
. . . .
Kate fell asleep around midnight. At two a.m. the front door eased open—slowly, quietly, and Mac walked inside. He softly tossed his keys onto the counter and went into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. He didn’t spot Kate at first, and then as he drank his water, he saw her sound asleep on the couch. Her head draped over the armrest and her body curled into a ball. A cup of tea, no doubt cold, sat on the coffee table. Mac walked over and sat on the coffee table, just watching her sleep. God, how he loved her. A hand reached out and stroked her hair.
Finally, he lifted her up and carried her off to bed.
“Mac?” her voice was soft and sleepy, “Where did you go?”
“Sssssh, it’s okay,” he kissed her face. “Let’s get some sleep and talk about it in the morning.”
Mac set her on the bed, removed her skirt and blouse, and pulled the covers over her. He undressed and lay down beside her, cradling her in his arms.
After he’d left, he had walked all over New York thinking about the night, about his trip to Paris, and about his relationship with Kate. It had hit him somewhere between fifty-first and fifty-fourth street how hard this whole thing had been on her. Losing Kate would crumble his entire world. He was pretty sure he’d done a shitty job of making her feel loved. He’d tried, or at least he thought he had, but clearly he had not succeeded. He had a plan now though, and he knew what he needed to do.
He couldn’t wait to tell Kate.
CHAPTER 62
Kate woke up the next morning realizing that today was the day, or rather tonight was the night. Mac was leaving for Paris. One week, seven days. Her stomach clenched and her head pounded. She reached over and realized Mac was gone, no doubt still pissed at her. Then her fingers touched a piece of paper. He’d left her a note, which read:
Katie,
I had to head into the office early for that conference call with the Dubai author, and then I need to get some work done. I’ll be home later.
I love you, and I’m sorry things got so out of hand last night.
Mac
Kate sat up. Mac was sorry, too. Everything was going to be alright. Well, almost alright. He was clearly still going to Paris. Kate swung her legs over the bed. As her feet hit the ground, she remembered that she had set an early morning appointment with Ruth Ann. She’d moved it from the other day, knowing she could not stomach a session. She wasn’t sure she could now, either, but she knew she needed to go in. Although the doctor’s odd and often awkward manner of dealing with her patients left a lot to be desired, Ruth Ann did make a lot of sense. Well, wait, maybe a lot of sense was a bit too generous. She had insights. Yes, that was better. Insights. Kate needed an insight right now.
Paris.
The word floated through her head and her headache pounded harder. She walked to the bathroom and grabbed a couple of aspirin, tossed th
em back with some water, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was shallow and pale and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
She looked, in a word, like hell.
CHAPTER 63
The door flung open to Ruth Ann’s office and Kate stood there, looking as determined as the good doctor had ever seen her.
“I’m here for my appointment, and today I don’t want to talk about my crazy-ass author or the color of my toothbrush. Mac is taking his ex-wife to Paris. That’s what I want to talk about today.”
Ruth Ann didn’t move from behind her desk but just looked at Kate as if she’d expected this outburst.
“Have a seat, Kate.” Ruth Ann grabbed her pad, walked over to her chair, and sat down.
“Now tell me what’s happening.”
“Mac’s taking his ex-wife to Paris. There’s a great clinic there that will help her with a new treatment and it was her wish to go. Years ago, it was supposed to be their honeymoon destination. I need to support him, right? I mean, that’s what love is. Isn’t it? I just yelled at my friend Grace because she thinks he’s a mess. She thinks he shouldn’t go, but I feel like this is what love is about. We give and we take. I invited her over to have dinner with us so she could get to know Mac better,” Kate rolled her eyes, “and boy, was that a mistake. I’ve seen better outcomes at a Middle Eastern peace summit. They both yelled at each other and stormed out.”
Kate knew she was babbling. At the end of that tirade, Ruth Ann was quiet. Kate watched her jot down some notes in her ever-present notepad, and she fought the urge to yank it out of the woman’s hands to see what she was writing about her. Finally, the doctor looked up.
“Sounds like quite an evening,” Ruth Ann replied, her voice devoid of any hint of what she might be thinking.
Kate wanted to shake her.
“What do you think?” Kate asked again. Her impatience pounded at her temples. She’d told Andrew she wasn’t going to become one of “those people,” and now here she was, asking advice from the last person she’d ever expected to.
“Kate,” Ruth Ann started and then offered a thoughtful pause before she continued, “it really doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Does it?”
“I, I guess not, I mean, I just needed to know if…”
Ruth Ann leaned forward. Oh, here we go again. Kate braced herself.
“I think what you mean to say is that you needed to know if Mac was being selfish and if you should step aside for the sake of his dying ex-wife. You’re worried that stepping in and stopping him would make you look like a jackass. Am I right?”
Kate only nodded.
“Kate, you clearly came here for my opinion, and here it is: I think Mac is a selfish man. All of his married life, he’s catered to this wife—even when he was cheating on her. You said yourself that he refused to divorce her for fear of what it would do to her. People get divorced, Kate, and 99.9% of them do survive it. Most end up doing quite well. So now you have to ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice for this man. Your personal dignity? Your own beliefs?” Kate was silent. A million disorganized thoughts ran through her mind. Was he really selfish? Sure, Mac often saw things from his own perspective, but who didn’t? And granted he had his own “Mac view” about things, but that was who he was.
“Kate, I’m going to remind you of something I said in one of our earlier sessions: Life is too short not to be adored.”
Kate blinked and wondered if she felt adored. How many times since she’d started therapy had she asked herself that? A few? A dozen? She wasn’t sure.
Ruth Ann inched forward a bit more and leaned closer to Kate.
“I know you’ve come to these sessions kicking and screaming, Kate. I know you don’t want to be here and you only came to honor your friend Andrew who prepaid for these. You have two sessions left after this one, and I’m going to cut to the chase so you can decide if you want to keep coming back or just call it a day. Andrew will never have to know.”
Kate hated that Ruth Ann could see right through her.
The doctor continued, “You know in your heart that you and Mac have a long, tough road ahead of you if you stay with him. I’m not saying he doesn’t love you, I’m just saying that he’s got his own way of showing it and that means that you will have to deal with these types of things. Paris won’t be the last time his selfish behavior rears its ugly head. Will he be faithful to you? Every girl who has ever had an affair with a married man asks me that, and the answer is that I don’t know. But statistics, if you believe them, aren’t in your favor. There is, however, a deeper rooted issue that you need to get to, and that is why you left Nick. I mean, why you really left Nick.”
Ruth Ann paused, sat a little more upright, and continued, “The problem as I see it, Kate, is this: You left that man for no good reason. Sure, you may have felt that you were doing him a favor—that you didn’t love him the way you loved Mac. But is that really the case? Or did you leave Nick because, at the end of the day, you finally bought into what your authors have told you for years—that you are a hack, that you have no idea what you’re doing, that their lack of fame and success is your fault. And at the heart of this is that you believed you didn’t deserve someone like Nick. So, you went with Mac who is damaged and who you believed was the only man you were really worthy of.”
“I-I don’t feel that way.”
Ruth Ann shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you do, and if we’re cutting to the chase here, let’s take this down the road a bit more. Shall we?”
Ruth Ann paused, not really waiting for Kate’s response but just to add effect.
“The problem, as I see it is this: You love Nick. You still love Nick, and you left him because he was better and kinder than you felt you deserved. And Mac, for all that Mac is, he is the prize of publishing, isn’t he? But the problem is that he isn’t, not really anyway. He’s damaged. You know it, and from what I read online, everyone knows it. But he’s what you felt you deserved. He was more in line with your view on yourself, which is odd considering what a powerhouse you are professionally. But personally, you resign yourself to men who aren’t even close to being worthy of you. Except of course, for Nick, who you dumped like radioactive waste for a man who will, whether it’s today or next week, break your heart into a million pieces. Is it possible that somewhere deep down inside you always knew this relationship with Mac would end, and that’s why you kept putting off marrying him—because you knew that all of this came with an expiration date?”
Kate wanted to dissolve or vanish or race out the door. Her heart beat so fast she thought she was having a heart attack.
Ruth Ann didn’t wait for her to respond.
“You love Mac. I’m not denying that you do, but, my dear, the problem is that you love Nick more.”
The doctor paused again. Kate wanted to stand but she couldn’t feel her legs.
Ruth Ann continued, “You sacrificed Nick because you felt you weren’t worthy, and now he’s moving on. Or if he’s not, he soon will be. How will you feel when he does? Right now, he’s still single and maybe he’s pining for you, too. But one day he won’t be. He’ll be married and having children and happy with someone else. How will you feel, Kate?”
The room was spinning. Kate gripped the annoying muted orange button sofa. She needed to breathe. She needed air. She stood up and walked to the window and looked down. She had to get out of here and fast.
From behind her, the doctor’s voice said, “Kate, if you decide to return, that’s what we are going to focus on: Why you left Nick and whether you believe you’re worth being with that kind of a man.”
That was when Kate snapped. She spun around.
“Are you kidding me? I left Nick because I loved—I mean love—Mac. I love him, not Nick.”
Ruth Ann looked at her over her reading glasses, “Are you sure?”
Kate felt a bead of sweat form on her forehead. Her palms were sweaty, too. “I’m sure. I know myself. I would not have left
someone like Nick if I wasn’t sure.”
“And since we’re putting all of our cards on the table, let me tell you this. For most of your adult working life you’ve catered to authors. Their schedule is your schedule; you have been at their beck and call—helping them, proving something to them and to yourself. When was the last time you did something just for yourself? Not because you were tied to a deadline or an expectation that someone forced on you? Everything up to this point has been for someone else.”
“I love Lavigne House,” Kate protested.
“Sure, of course you do, but it’s Allan’s legacy—not yours. Let’s face it, Kate, the task of publishing was forced on you, just like everything else.”
“I-I couldn’t walk away from it or from Allan’s last book. I had to.”
“We all have choices, Kate. And unless you’re being held captive or a prisoner, you have free will. But it seems you’ve been a prisoner to your career. Tell me, Kate, when was the last time you did something just for you?”
She couldn’t answer her.
She honestly didn’t remember.
Kate steadied herself by gripping the windowsill. Of course that was right, wasn’t it? She wasn’t some masochist just out there doing everyone else’s bidding, was she? She hadn’t left Nick by some misguided attempt to show the world and her authors that she was worthy, had she? Behind her, Kate could hear that annoying ball clock ticking past the seconds. She wanted to throw something at it, or better yet, yank it off the wall and stomp on it. Her vision flashed and her breath shuddered out of her. A dart of regret sang through her, and a memory came rushing back to the front of her mind. She and Nick were on the beach in Santa Monica having a picnic on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
“I love you, Kate,” Nick had whispered in her ear and then pushed her back onto the blanket and kissed her hard. The sun on the water, the sound of laughter, and children playing; it was a perfect day.
Climax: The Publicist, Book Three Page 24
