Authors: Joan Kilby
…
Cassy placed her suitcases by the door. She felt out of sorts, her heart heavy at the thought of leaving. In the month she’d been here the penthouse had come to feel like home. She wandered one last time through the apartment, looking for clothing or books she’d forgotten.
Nope, nothing.
Nothing except memories.
But oh, what memories!
In the foyer, she and Scott had exchanged their first adult touch with all the tentativeness and trembling anticipation of teenagers. The kiss that followed that evening had been public but the awareness that preceded it had been stoked here.
Naked against the window, she’d felt his passion, strength, and protection, even as she’d reveled in the wildness of the storm outside and the storm inside herself, matching his desire with her own.
In his bed, after he’d spoken to his father, she’d almost wept at the tenderness with which he’d made love to her.
They had so much history, so much love and respect and caring between them. How could he think this was about a job?
Her last task was to write a good-bye note. How did she say all that was in her heart? He wouldn’t understand she was doing this for him. And she was. So why did she feel as if she was letting him down? It was all so confusing. She only knew it was time for her to go.
Scott.
Thanks for everything and good luck. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of this ride with you.
PS Don’t try to change my mind. This way we can remain Best Friends Forever.
Cassy.
She left the note on the kitchen counter next to the cutting board where he couldn’t miss it. Then she tugged off the pink diamond ring and turned it over in her fingers, watching the light catch in the lush pink crystalline depths. If buying the fake engagement ring had been hard, leaving it behind was a thousand times harder.
Her fantasies of Scott going down on his knee and asking her to marry him for real were just that. Fantasies. Scott was wonderful and amazing in so many ways, but he wasn’t the romantic type. His mind was focused on logarithms and bytes and whatever geeks worked with on their computers. He saw her as a best friend and lately, as a lover, but never, in all the years she’d known him, had she heard him talk about love or marriage or children. With him, his work was his life.
Maybe if he resolved his problems with his father… No, she wasn’t going to hang around, waiting for that hypothetical day to come along.
She carried her suitcases to the elevator and took the long last trip to the ground floor. When the doors opened, Martin saw her and hurried over, scolding her for not calling him to assist.
“Thanks, Martin.” She shook hands with him while the taxi driver loaded her bags into the cab. With a flippancy she didn’t feel, she added, “Another place, another time.”
Martin, his dark eyes troubled, forgot his rigid standards of professionalism and clung to her hand as if to try to keep her there. “Does Mr. Thornton know you’re leaving?”
Gently, she disengaged and managed a small smile. “He’s a smart guy. He’ll figure it out.”
Chapter Twelve
“Cassy!” Scott burst out of the elevator and strode through the living room and kitchen. No answer. Where the hell was she? He hurried down the hall and pushed open her bedroom door.
The bed was neatly made. There was an empty feel about the room. No dresses hanging over the back of the chair beneath the window. No shoes lying on the floor next to the dresser. No book, sleeping mask, and jar of peppermint foot balm on the nightstand. He went to the closet and flung open the door. Empty.
His heart stuttered.
No. Please, no.
He spun and hurried down the hall to his room. She’d moved her stuff in there, she’d be lying on his bed, reading, look up and smile at him when he came through the door.
Empty.
The charcoal silk bedspread with burgundy piping was as smooth and flat as when the maid had made it this morning.
Scott had to admit now what he’d known the moment he entered the penthouse. She was gone, and her absence meant something vital was missing, as if the life had been sucked out of his home. He went looking for some trace of her anyway, some reason to hope she’d only stepped out for a moment and was coming back.
Nothing.
Nothing in the bathroom. No shampoo or body lotion or toothbrush, nothing to mark that she’d lived here. That for a time she’d been an intimate part of his life.
Nothing but memories.
He could still see her ear-to-ear grin as she hung up the phone and proclaimed herself “Firewall!” Or the time she’d tormented him with lust as a problem-solving mechanism. And infuriated him by thrusting the phone in his hand with his father on the other end of the line. Then just when he was wishing she’d never moved in, she’d turned his heart inside out with a sweet, soulful hug that reminded him why they were best friends.
Were they? Or had that all vanished, too?
He walked slowly back to the living room and sank onto the couch, staring at the thin bank of fog slowly moving up Puget Sound. He’d blown it. He’d wanted more than friendship. So he’d blown it.
The hell of it was, he didn’t know where he’d gone wrong. She must not have believed that he could get funding
and
her job. He’d failed her and broken his promise and so she’d left. His breath hitched in his chest and he swiped the heel of his hand over his eyes.
He wrapped his arms around himself, gripping his shoulders, and buried his head in his arms, trying to block the gnawing pain in his heart. Meanwhile, an insidious realization was worming its way into his mind. All along, he’d thought he was afraid of getting involved with Cassy because he would end up hurting her and screw up their friendship. Because he wasn’t good at romance and all his relationships ended badly.
Now he knew the truth. What he was really afraid of was
her
leaving
him.
His father had said on the phone,
You’re in love with her, that’s why you want her to be CFO. It’s not good business, son.
Love Cassy? He’d hotly denied it but it was true. He’d fixated on her being CFO as a way of keeping her with him. She’d told him how much she wanted that job, how bored she was doing taxes back in Bellingham. So it made sense that if she had a great job, she would stick around long enough to give their new relationship a chance to grow.
Not that he needed time. He knew right now he wanted her, not just for a few months or a year, but forever. A whole lot of things had suddenly become clear.
He loved her. He didn’t want her as an employee. He wanted her as a life partner. To marry. To have and to hold.
His other relationships always ended badly because all these years he’d been in love with Cassy. He just hadn’t known it until now. He’d thought her friendship was the most important thing in his life. It still was massively important. But he
loved
her. He’d had no idea how much bigger an emotion love was.
And she was gone. But
why
? He dragged his hands down his face. It did not compute. Illogical as her running away might be, one thing was very clear. He had to get her back.
He shook his head and tried to think. Surely she wouldn’t move out without some communication. A note might give him a clue to her state of mind. He jumped to his feet, scanning the dining table, the kitchen counter. There, by the phone, a loose sheet of the lime-green notepaper she used.
Lying atop the paper was her engagement ring. Her
fake
engagement ring. Why was she always so insistent on the fake aspect of the arrangement? Because she wanted it to be fake, or because she wanted him to contradict her? Why hadn’t he contradicted her? For the past ten years, at the back of his mind he always thought that once the Dreamcatcher was sorted out he would make his move on her, see if his attraction really meant anything or if it was simply curiosity. A decade had slipped by while he wasn’t looking. What woman waited that long for a guy? Then suddenly they’d had the fake engagement. Everything felt rushed. He hadn’t been ready or able to deal with the deeper reality of their relationship. He hadn’t been able to deal with the intensity of his feelings for her.
Now she’s gone and it’s too late.
He made himself read the note.
Thanks for everything and good luck. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of this ride with you.
PS Don’t try to change my mind. This way we can remain Best Friends Forever.
Cassy.
Not good enough. Best friends was no longer enough.
He needed a plan. Because he thought best when he was moving, he paced before the window, his fingers twitching at his side. What would Cassy advise him to do if he was in the doghouse with a girlfriend and wanted to make up? He’d given her the wildflowers. Couldn’t do that again. What came next?
He ran to his bedroom and scrabbled in the nightstand drawer for the notes he’d taken during one of their Skype conversations.
“If flowers don’t work, up the ante with perfume or fine jewelry.”
He snapped his fingers. “Of course.” The engagement might have been fake, but there’d been nothing false about her enjoyment of the fabulous pink diamond. Excellent. Now he had something to go forward with. He was impatient to see her right away, but finding the right jewelry could take a day or two. It would be difficult to hold on, but the delay would be worthwhile if she came back to him.
…
Yawning, Cassy dragged a black queen onto a red king and surveyed the board. The holding spaces were full and she had nowhere else to move. Come on, there was always
something
she could do. Or she could do some work. The problem was, she lacked motivation. One minute she’d had this amazing job full of important tasks and interesting challenges. The next…nothing.
She’d e-mailed her clients to say she was open for business again. The response had been a resounding silence. All except for Maisie Perkins, the elderly woman who ran the yarn shop and gave knitting lessons. She hadn’t even realized Cassy had been away and her meticulously kept records were sitting in Cassy’s in-box when she’d arrived home two days ago.
She would start on Maisie’s file any minute now. Just as soon as she finished this game of solitaire. Or maybe she should wash some clothes. Her cat pajamas were grubby around the cuffs.
She was glad she’d come back, even if things were slow right now. Yep, totally the right decision. Scott was better off without her. He would figure things out more easily without her around, distracting him.
There was only one move she could see, putting the red three on the black four, but that didn’t open up anything. She did it anyway.
You lose. Game over!
Tell me something I don’t know.
Ian had sent her an application form for the MBA program at Harvard, repeating his offer to pay her tuition fees. She couldn’t accept that. She had savings of her own. If she were to go back to school she would pay for it herself. She sighed. After working for Scott, she would never be content with her old life again, not after the excitement of helping to grow his company. She missed the geeksters, too. Tom’s slogans always made her smile. Park had so much energy it was contagious. Leonard was sweet and shy. She wondered if he would ever get the courage to look for that girl he’d liked in high school.
And she missed Scott. More than anything else in the whole wide world, she missed Scott. The worst had happened, just as she’d feared. The romance had failed and she’d not only lost her lover, she’d lost her best friend.
Why hadn’t he called? She’d thought for sure he would at least phone. But no. She checked her Skype account day and night because he sometimes forgot what time it was. Nothing. No message. No failed attempt at contact.
The sad fact was, she’d wanted something he couldn’t give her. He’d suggested they go through with the wedding. If it was enough for him, why wasn’t it enough for her?
Because she wasn’t ready to settle, not even for Scott.
Oh, she knew she was important to him, probably more important than anyone else in his life. But now that she’d glimpsed love she couldn’t go back to simply being friends. Or even friends and lovers. She wanted a true marriage of hearts, minds, and bodies.
Why was he so fixated on her having the damn CFO job? Sure, it would have been nice but it wasn’t the most important thing. In fact, his obsession with the job was part of what had pushed her away. He was too much like his father, putting business ahead of his family.
She’d found reasons to excuse Ian’s abandonment of Scott when he was a child, because she believed that Scott wouldn’t heal inside until he and his father reconciled and because she believed everyone, including Ian, deserved a second chance. But she hated to think that Scott could be that obsessed with business.
She, on the other hand, should take a leaf from his book and be a little more focused. More proactive. She needed to not always put Scott front and center. The thought seemed like sacrilege but it was true. She needed to do something just for herself.