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“Well, you are. That was decent of her.”
“She was really upset.”
“If you were a dick to me, I’d be upset, too. But I’d get over it, with a little time. A little space.”
“Guys forgive each other a lot quicker than women do,” I point out.
Avery long six hours later, my father meets me at the airport as I walk across the tarmac. As my latest text thread tells me, he’s arranged another plane to take us to Muskoka, a smaller one so we can land right on the landing strip on the island. He wants the deal done today, and he hopes I better not have screwed things up.
Caroline is with him, standing off to the side, clearly uptight about being there.
Seeing them together is part of my punishment. Not that I need any more. I spent the four-hour flight trying to figure out how to get Cady to talk to me, some grand gesture she can’t ignore.
I watched Pretty Woman on the plane—I know the movie resonates with Cady. In the end, Edward came to find Vivian, climbing up the fire escape when she knew he was afraid of heights. He thought he was rescuing her, but the reality was she made him a better person. They rescued each other. They became each other’s person.
I thought we could be each other’s person. How could it have gotten so wrong, so fast?
I need something that I’m afraid of. I need to rescue her, but not rescue her.
I need to show up in a big way and hope she meets me halfway.
“I’m not going with you,” I announce, cutting off the beginning of his tirade about how I could be such a—whatever he thinks of me at that moment.
“What’s the matter, hungover from too much partying?” My father sneers. “Too much fucking that whore you took with you?”
Caroline flinches, either from the language or the idea of me having sex. I don’t care. “She’s not a whore.”
“You’re blind. And an idiot.” My father is still a good-looking man, but the ugliness of his soul comes out when he speaks to me like that. “But I’ve known that for a while. Let’s go—you can give me details of her offer on the plane.”
“I’m not telling you anything, and I’m not getting into a plane with you.” It’s easier than I thought to keep my voice firm, to stand up straight and tall in front of him. “I’m done with you.”
“Bullshit,” he spits. “You need every handout you can get. You can’t make it on your own, boy.”
“Just watch me.” I back away, head held high. “Cady did tell me one thing that you might find interesting,” I say to Caroline.
“Maximus.” It’s a low growl, like the first ripples of an earthquake.
She only shakes her head, like she knows what I’m about to tell her. “Why don’t you ask him about his account with E? You’ve heard of that dating app, haven’t you?” Caroline’s eyes are huge. “I don’t know the details, nor do I want to, but you should check out if he gets off being spanked or likes to deride his partners into submission. I’m sure that’s obvious, though.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dalton Steele shouts.
I shrug, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “I know I’m done with standing here letting you destroy another one of my relationships. I’m off to fight for Cady—the woman I love.” I turn to Caroline. “For once, I’m glad I never fought for you because I’d be stuck right there beside you.”
And then I walk away.
45
Cady
The flight was brutal; business class was full so Tana got me a seat in economy, the middle seat between a young mother and her six-month-old, and a forty-year-old man who loudly complained about the baby when he wasn’t hitting on me.
I finally told the mother I’d hold the baby to get him to stop.
As bad as it was flying away from Max, the three-hour wait in the airport was worse. I honestly thought Max would come for me, and spent the first hour planning what to say to him. I went through every scenario in my head—good, bad and the ugly.
But he didn’t come. It wasn’t until after I knew his plane would have left that I stopped imagining the scene where I rushed into his arms.
Even the ugly had ended with me rushing into his arms.
