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Or, rather, she wanted to cling to her walls and keep him at a distance more than she wanted to actually be with him.
A knock on his office door brought his head up. Aaron minimized the screen and sat back. “Yeah?”
Cameron walked in and dropped into the chair on the other side of his desk. “Think it’s about time we had a talk.”
“Did we lose another client?” He couldn’t even work up the energy to be pissed about it. Becka’s solution for bringing his sister in to work as a junior consultant was still hanging in the wind. He had been too twisted up inside over Becka to worry about work, which was ironic, because he’d been at the office since their fight.
His partner laced his fingers behind his head and stared hard at him. “Doesn’t sound like you’d care if we did.”
He didn’t in that moment, but he would. Aaron straightened in his seat and tried to focus. “I can get them back, whoever they were.”
“Probably, but there’s no crisis to deal with.” Cameron raised a single eyebrow. “Except the one I’m looking at right now. What the fuck is going on with you and your woman? You’re walking around here like a zombie, and judging from the state of the couch over there, you slept here last night.”
He glanced at the couch, guilt flaring. The thought of going back to his penthouse and fighting with Becka more, of having her layer rejection upon rejection over him had been...too much. Cowardly didn’t begin to cover camping out here for the night, but he wasn’t ready to be done and he hadn’t figured out a plan to keep it from happening. He would figure it out if he could just think. “You have a point. Get to it.”
“My point is that you’re fucking it up. I don’t do relationships and even I can see that.” Cameron shook his head. “She called earlier and sounded just as messed up as you do. Go home. Fix your shit. Don’t come back to the office until you have it taken care of.”
Aaron frowned. “What are you talking about? She didn’t call here.” He would have heard the phone. She had texted yesterday, but it was so damn confrontational, he’d set his phone aside without responding. A plan. I just need a damn plan.
“No, she didn’t call the office. She called me.” Cameron leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “Seems she couldn’t get ahold of you, which is confusing as fuck to me because you’re sitting right here with two phones on your desk and yet it looks like you walked out of a fight and have been acting like an asshole ever since.” He gave Aaron a disgusted look. “She wanted to make sure you were okay. Didn’t say as much, but the relief and hurt practically radiated through the phone, and if leaving her hanging like that isn’t some bullshit, I don’t know what is.”
She’d called Cameron.
Horror flooded Aaron. He hadn’t responded to her text. Hadn’t called. Hadn’t done anything to let her know where he was or where his head was at. For her to call Cameron, she had to have been in a bad place, worried about him, and he hadn’t done a single thing to stop that. He’d let his own hurt get in the way of everything. He’d promised her that he would be in her corner no matter what, and the first time she got truly skittish on him, he acted like a dick and left her.
He shoved to his feet so fast, he tipped his chair over. “I’m an asshole.”
“Finally.” Cameron sat back. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”
He rushed out of the office, barely pausing long enough to grab his phone and his keys, and then took the stairs down to the street because he didn’t want to wait for the elevator. The trip to his penthouse took on a nightmarish quality. No matter how fast he moved, it wasn’t fast enough.
He should have taken a walk around the block and immediately come back after the fight.
Fuck, he shouldn’t have left in the first place.
It would have played on every single insecurity and fear Becka had. And then to leave her hanging...
He was well and truly an asshole.
Aaron raced through the doors of his building and took the elevator up to his floor. He burst through the door. “Becka? Becka, where are you?”
Silence greeted him.
I’m too late.
He closed the door behind him and stalked through the penthouse. The answers he sought lay in the spare bedroom. The closet doors hung open, all her clothing gone, along with her suitcases. Even knowing it was a lost cause, Aaron walked to the bedroom they’d begun sharing together and opened the door.
It looked exactly like it had when he’d left for work two days ago. A pair of Becka’s shoes had been tossed in the approximate direction of the closet. Her towel still lay in a pile on the dresser where she’d set it while she was getting dressed. There was even the slightest indent on the pillow she’d claimed as her own.
Aaron leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It was worse seeing evidence of her here compared to the searing lack in the other room. It meant she hadn’t been able to force herself through the door. He’d hurt her that much.
Fuck.
He didn’t know how to make this right. There wasn’t a single plan that would work—he knew, because he’d labored over countless ones while he sat in his office and didn’t work. Becka was gone. He was to blame.
Each second ticked by, a reminder of the way he’d failed her. Aaron pushed off the wall and rushed back through the penthouse, looking for some indication of where she’d gone.
Nothing.
