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“She had no way of knowing that Maria would take me in. I could have ended up anywhere and she would never have known because she didn’t check. Not once. That’s how much ‘I love you’ meant to her. And far from being the two of us against the world, it turned out that we were tackling the world separately, which seems like a pretty daunting prospect when you’re only six years old. I learned a lot of things from my birth mother, but the most important lesson was not to trust those words. ‘I love you’ means nothing, Paige. They’re empty words spoken by millions of people every day. Millions of people who still break up, get divorced and never see each other again.” He looked tired, his handsome face pale and drawn, and she felt as if someone had placed a heavy brick in her chest.
What should she say?
What could she say?
“Maybe those words are easily said,” she said quietly. “But I’ve only ever said them to one man, and that’s you. And if you really believe my love means nothing, then you’re not the man, and the friend, I know you are.”
His gaze lifted to hers and he looked at her for a long moment.
Then he turned away. “Put the key on the table when you leave. We never should have started this. I’m sorry we did.”
The pain was indescribable.
“I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry. Yes, it was a risk, but you were the one who taught me to take risks. You were the one that taught me to go after the things I wanted in life. It’s because of you I moved to New York. It’s because of you I set up Urban Genie. You taught me to take risks, but you’re too afraid to do the same yourself.”
“I take risks all the time.”
“But not in relationships. Not with your heart. You never risk your heart.” She stared at him for a long moment, holding back the tide of misery. “I love you. And those aren’t just words, Jake. They’re a description of how I feel with all of me, from my eyelashes to my toes. I love you. I’ll always love you, and I want us to be together, but most of all I want you to let yourself be loved. I want you to trust that feeling, and not keep running from it or pushing it away. Love can last, Jake. There are examples of that all around you. And even if this really is the end, I’ll never regret a single moment of these last few weeks.”
She felt as if her chest was splitting in two.
Forcing herself to stay calm, she walked toward the bathroom.
How had they gone from incredible sex to this?
How had it happened?
Why?
But she knew why. She’d put a label on the feelings they shared. She’d made it impossible for Jake to ignore them. She’d told him how she felt, and while part of her didn’t regret that, another part did. If she hadn’t spoken they’d still be in bed together. If she hadn’t spoken, if she’d taken a few more weeks—
Choking on tears, Paige stepped into the shower and turned the flow to maximum. Her tears blended with the water, the shower muffling the sound.
If she was hurt, then it was her own stupid fault. Or maybe it was his stupid fault. Or his mother’s stupid fault. She didn’t know whose fault it was. She only knew that it hurt. It hurt so badly that by the time she stepped out of the shower she had no tears left.
She felt drained. Numb.
Numb was good. Numb would get her through the next hour. She’d pick up her clothes, gather up the few things she’d left in his apartment, take the subway home, and then unload on her friends.
Friends were what she needed right now. They’d surround her with a loving blanket of support in the way that only people who knew you inside and out could.
Eva would remind her that there were plenty more fish in the sea, and Frankie would say very little, taking it as yet more evidence that men couldn’t be trusted.
They’d cry and laugh together. Probably open a bottle of wine and eat chocolate.
Either way, she’d get through it with the help of her friends.
All she had to do was get herself home.
And that was when she realized her clothes were in the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the bathroom and was relieved to see no sign of Jake.
His absence was still more evidence that she’d frightened him to death.
It would take two minutes to dress, and then she’d be out of here. He could have his apartment back. He could have his life back.
She was gathering her clothes from the floor of the kitchen when she heard Jake’s voice.
