Page 6 of Take Me Back
“One second. I just need to send—” She cuts off her words in favor of finishing typing.
The flight attendant waits a few beats, as though she’s heard this a dozen times. God knows I have.
Kat drops the phone into her lap and holds her hands in the air. “See. Done. Off.”
The flight attendant meets my gaze. “You’ve got your work cut out for you getting this one to relax on vacation, I bet.”
“You have no idea,” I tell her.
Forty minutes later, we’re somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. I want to reach over and lay my hand on Kat’s fidgeting fingers to get her to chill, but I don’t. She may be my wife, but right now that label feels hollow.
I choose a new playlist, one more suited to a punishing workout than a first-class flight to paradise.
In my peripheral vision, Kat adjusts her earbud and reaches for her coffee spiked with Baileys. It’s her second, and I wonder if now that her stimulant of choice—work—is gone, she’ll find something to fill the void rather than deal with the ultimatum I’ve thrown down.
I won’t take it back.
If it’s the only way I can break down the wall between us, I’ll do it. This week is hell for me too, even though she doesn’t have a clue why.
You have to tell her.
Right, like it would be so easy to explain why I wasn’t there for her when she needed me.Twice. That’ll go over great.
Kat might have built the wall, but I handed her the bricks.
Any man who says the right woman will fuck your world upside down knows exactly what he’s talking about. You’re perfectly happy living the single life, but then you meet a woman who blows in like a goddamned tornado. No warning, and suddenly your life is unrecognizable.
That was Kat. She wasn’t part of the plan. She changed everything I thought I had figured out, and what’s more, she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
Before it all crumbled, I would have told you it was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me. Now she’s avoiding eye contact from the seat next to me like she would with a stranger.
In the beginning, I never would have been able to picture things coming to this.
* * *
Two and a half years ago
Waiting around wasn’t my thing. Getting shit done and moving on—that was what I was best at. Someone else would have been the better choice for this job, but I’d drawn the short straw. It was a strange group when you had to fight over who would have to sit at the all-inclusive resort for a few days.
My annoyance with the task faded when I heard the unsure stammer of a woman declaring she was going to ride me until I needed a new saddle.
That was a new one.I dig her originality.She’d definitely caught my attention.
Asking her to dinner wasn’t part of my initial plan, but I’d gone with it. Now she was sitting across from me in this restaurant wearing a tiny excuse for a teal sundress I’d rather see on my cabana floor.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
I’d pegged her for a one-night stand, a distraction, but with every word that came out of her sexy-as-hell mouth, I was drawn in.
“Basically it’s like jumping off a cliff with no net, but I have faith that I’m going to fly rather than crash.”
Something I’d actually done before ... although not the way Kat meant.
“So you walked away from your job at a big consulting company to take a chance on yourself.”
I could respect that. I’d left behind a steady paycheck for nothing but the hope of a bigger reward. It was a scary thing for most people, but Kat was brimming with excitement.
“Exactly. If I don’t believe I’m worth taking a chance on, then why should anyone else? Besides, life is too short not to take risks. There’s no time like the present.” She lifted the mojito to her lips and took a sip.
