Page 12 of The Heiress Bride
I make it into the hall before his voice halts me.
“Katherine—”
I rub my lips back and forth, the gloss smoothing the glide. “Good to see you,” I say to Nancy and the group she’s with. Looking back at Gabe makes the pit of my stomach ache.
Worse than that. It sours.
I don’t get it.
I really don’t.
I mean, we had a crazy few weeks, I’ll give him that. My mother melted down, and now she’s in jail. Seriously, you have to laugh so you don’t cry. Isn’t that how the saying goes?
I’m torn between desperately wanting to hear what he has to say and needing to protect myself. How much longer can I keep my chin up and act like my world isn’t upside down?
I swallow past the lump in my throat and wait as he advances because I can’t make myself leave. There’s a huge chunk of me that is just dying to know what’s going on. To know what’s happening in his head. And in his heart.
But another chunk resists. She knows all too well this path of meager scraps and rotten moods. As much as it hurts, and as loud as the little voice is telling me to run out of here as fast as my Jimmy Choos can carry me, I wait.
Will I always wait for him?
Why can’t I just get the hell out of here and show him my back? Easier said than done because my heels seem rooted to the floor.
“Was there something you needed?” I ask as the last board member leaves. The elevator dings down the hall, and voices grow distant, quieter.
Standing in the doorway of the conference room, he glances down the hallway, then back at me. Doeshe have to be so handsome? So effortlessly geek chic? The unease etched onto his face, the frown marring those sinful lips, only adds to his appeal. Which is weird and would be alarming if I could feel anything other than this mix of desire and fear.
“We need to talk.”
His words are so measured. Almost monotone.
My heart drops down to visit my Jimmy Choos.
Tears wet my eyes, and my nose prickles, but I fight the sensation and do what I learned to do long ago. Go on the offensive.
“If you have a problem with me being on the board, you could have brought it up during?—”
His gaze narrows, and his head tips the tiniest bit. “Of course, I don’t have a problem with you being on the board.”
He steps back, waving a hand toward the boardroom. “Please.”
My cocky geek sounds unsure, but I stay rooted to the floor as I search his face. It’s so achingly familiar, and yet, do I know him at all? I know those dark, gorgeous, jealousy-inducing lashes, but what has he been up to the last few days? No clue. I know the curve of his lips, how plump and firm they feel against my own, but why has he been pulling away since that fateful morning? That’s a mystery.
It feels like years, not days, since I’ve seen himlast, and every glance brings a familiar, insatiable longing. It’s like finally letting myself be with him, embracing the idea of being with him, galvanized a connection that had been weaving itself for years.
I have my own ideas, of course, stories I tell in my head, trying to logic my way through his withdrawal.
I glance past him to the empty room, the big table. Then down at the faint line in the beige carpet where the hall meets the room. If I step across the threshold, will I get my answers? Or more pain?
Another second ticks by.
And I choose to get my answers.
But I’m not going to let him hurt me again.
5
KATHERINE
