Chance (The One More Night Series) (16 page)

I didn’t realize that I did.

“Shouldn’t we share this conversation together?”

“Not if you’ve already made up your mind about us.”

For the most part, I had made up my mind, but I deflected the comment because there was one question I needed to ask him first.  “Do you remember what you said to me last night?”

“I said a lot of things to you last night.  Some of them were probably obscene.”

“Some of them were—not that I minded much.  I’m talking about what you said to me just before you fell asleep.  Do you remember what you said to me?  Or was that just sleep calling, and you didn’t know what you were saying?”

He leaned forward and picked up his coffee.  “Of course I remember what I said to you.  I said it for a reason.  I asked you not to leave.  I asked you to give this a chance.”

That surprised me—last night, I thought he was too far gone to remember much of what he’d said.  But I was wrong.  He did remember, which meant that he must have meant it when he’d said it. 

“You thought I didn’t remember?” he asked.

“I thought that you were half asleep.”

“I meant what I said.  I want you to stay.  I want more time with you.  I want to see how this unfolds.”

“You’re going to L.A. today.  Then to London.  Then to Paris.  You told me you don’t know when you’ll be back in Manhattan again.  So, I have to ask you, Chance—what’s the point of taking this any further than we have?”

“The point is right here between us.  The point is that we shouldn’t ignore this—whatever this is.  That’s the point.”

“Last night, I was clear with you.  I told you that I don’t do long-distance anything.  That kind of lifestyle wouldn’t be fair to me, and it wouldn’t be fair to you.  It’s a set-up for failure.  It’s a set-up for being hurt.”

“What if I changed that?”

“How?”

“What if I moved here?”

“When?”

“I don’t know when, but what if I did?”

“All right.  So you move here.  But you’re still going to be on the road for much of the time, which means that you really won’t be here.  You’ll be in L.A.  Madrid.  Istanbul.  And God knows wherever else you travel to.  You told me that you live in Chicago, but you said that you only consider it a base.  How long have you lived there?”

“Seven years.”

“And still it’s not even a home to you?  How do you expect Manhattan to become a home to you?”

“Because you’d be here.”

“And I’d be waiting weeks or months before you found time in your schedule to visit me.  Don’t you see how difficult that would be on us?  Or are you prepared to give up traveling?  To run your business from Manhattan?  To hire someone else to take over your duties so we can really explore this?  Because if you aren’t, I’m telling you for each of our own good, there’s no need to go further.  We’re only going to get hurt.”

He didn’t answer, and I knew why.  He loved his job.  He might have said that he was ready to see how this unfolded between us, but the fact that he just balked at my last question suggested that he wasn’t.

“It won’t work, Chance.  I’ve had a wonderful time with you these past two days, but it’s already clear that not much will change with the exception of you possibly moving to Manhattan.  These past two days were special.  You’ve made me see that I really am ready to move on and date again.  I wish it were with you, but I think you’re too wedded to your business to have time for anything else.”

“You don’t know that.”

“All right.  Let’s say that I’m wrong.  Let’s say that you did find time for us.  What concerns me is that, at some point, you’d grow to resent me for it.  For taking you away from you work.  That’s something I can’t live with.”

He shook his head at me.  “You sure make a lot of presumptions, Abby.”

“Then challenge them.”

“There are ways around this.”

“What ways?”

“You’ll need to give me some time to think about them.”

“So, even now you don’t have an answer.”

“Obviously, I’d need time to sort things out.  There’s nothing unreasonable about that.”  He narrowed his eyes at me.  “Why are you so willing to keep throwing up roadblocks?”

“Because I’m a realist.”

“Oh, that again.”

“Someone has to be.  Look, I’m a woman trying to get through school, which won’t be for another year.  You’re a man who’s already made it.  You own an international corporation that demands your attention and your time.  Tell me how that situation has a happy ending to it?  I don’t think it does.  So, it’s with affection that I say that I should just leave—it’s better for both of us.”

“You know what, Abby?  The times when you throw up the most resistance are the times when you should drop all resistance.  Your fear is telling you that this is something that you don’t want to face for a reason—but maybe you should.”

“What fear?”

“That I won’t follow through.  That I won’t take this seriously.”

“And how long will moving to Manhattan take?  A year?  Two?”

“You know that I have a suite here.”

“A suite isn’t a home.  Look, I was honest with you yesterday, Chance.  I told you when you called me that last night was it for us, but you seem determined to complicate it.”

“That’s because I know this can work.  I was hoping that you’d want the same.  Can you really sit there and deny that there isn’t something tangible between us?”

“No.  I can’t.”

“And how often has that happened to you, Abby?”

“Not this fast,” I admitted.

“So we should just ignore it?”

“In this case, maybe ignoring it is for the best.”

“God, you’re frustrating.”

“I don’t mean to be.”

“I think you’re just scared.”

“For all the reasons I’ve listed, why wouldn’t I be?  Would I love to take a chance and go forward with you?  Yes.  But only if the circumstances were different.  I will not be the woman who asked you to move to Manhattan and give up the real love of your life—your work.  If I did, none of this would end well.  I have a feeling that you live more for your work than you would for any relationship.”

“You know, you keep saying that, and now it’s really starting to get under my skin.  Tell me—how have you come up with that assumption when you have no idea what’s in my heart, or what I want for my own future?  Whether it’s with you or with somebody else?”

“Because you’ve put years into your business.  You’ve worked hard to get where you are.  We’ve only had two days together.  Am I being that unreasonable?  Why would I think anything else?”  I leaned toward him.  “Let me ask you this, Chance—have you ever been in a serious relationship?”

His shifted on the couch, and I saw a flicker of something unwanted cross his face.  “Once.”

“How long did it last?”

“Four years.”

“Why did it end?”

When he looked at me, he looked unsettled, rattled, and as if I’d just evoked a terrible memory.  “It ended because she died of cancer,” he said.

And to that, all I could do was close my eyes.
  What have I just done to him? 
I felt sick to my stomach again.  “I’m so sorry,” I said.  “I had no idea.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.  How could you have known?  It’s not as if I told you about Beth.  But here’s what I learned from her, Abby.  When we first met, we were both twenty.  It was magic, and the connection was instant.”  He snapped his fingers.  “
Instant.
  More than once, I’ve told you that what’s happening between us is rare.  Now you know why I’ve been saying that.  And why I’ll keep saying it.  I’ve only felt this once before in my life, and it was with Beth.  She died seven years ago.  Until two days ago, it’s never happened to me again.  But here you are now, sitting across from me, and I can swear to you that it’s happened again.  Even though I never thought it could.”

I didn’t say anything.  I couldn’t say anything.  He’d just sidelined me.

“Shit just got real, huh?”

What could I say to him after that admission?

“What are you afraid of, Abby?”

“I’ve told you.  This not working out.  Being hurt.  And potentially hurting you.  I’d never want to do that to you.  Or to me.”

“I think it goes deeper.  I think you’re afraid of taking a risk.”

“With my heart?  I agree.  It’s been broken twice.  It took me a year to recover from the last time it was broken.  He cheated on me.  When I commit to another man again, I want to make sure that it’s going to work out.”

“How can you ever be sure?”

“I think that—”

“
How can you ever be sure?
” he insisted.

“I guess I can’t.”

“Your problem is that you’d rather be in this safe, secure prison than tackle the unknown.”

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered to him.

“Because I want more of you.  Because I think you’re worth the fight.  Because I want to see what happens between us.”

“At what cost?”

“At all costs.  You keep saying that we’ve only known each other for two days.  Well, I knew Beth for one day, and we were together for four years before she was stolen from me.  It didn’t end because we were no longer in love with each other.  It ended because she died.  What don’t you understand about that?”

It was too much.  None of this was going the way I’d planned.  He was putting up more resistance than I’d imagined, and was becoming visibly angry with me.  He was fueling this with arguments that I hadn’t anticipated.  I felt unhinged at that moment.  Lost.  In my heart, I honestly couldn’t see how any of this could work out between us.  If I could, I’d stay.  But I couldn’t, so I got up to dress and leave before this really ended on bad terms. 

“You have a plane to catch soon,” I said.

“I have four hours before I need to catch that plane, which happens to belong to me.  I can cancel the flight whenever I want.  Not that it matters.  I can see that you want to leave, so I won’t get in your way.”

“I’m sorry, Chance.”

“About what?”

“That this isn’t going to work out.”

He waited for me to reach the bedroom before he said, “Who says it hasn’t?  Who says it won’t?”  

*  *  *

Ten minutes later, I left Chance Caldwell behind.

When the door to his suite clicked shut behind me, it was with a gentle push—but it still sounded final.  I quickened my pace as I walked down the hallway to the bank of elevators. 

I still felt sick to my stomach.  I was questioning everything that had just happened between us.  Had I done the right thing?  In my heart, I felt that I had.  I’d been honest with him, which was critical to me.  I’d told him my concerns, which he’d answered.  But how would I ever know if he could meet those concerns?

That’s what’s going to haunt you, Abby.

And that was probably true.  But I didn’t want to risk my heart again, not with so many uncertainties in place.  I didn’t want to go through that pain again.  Ever since Brian, I’d lived with it for too long.  I wanted to be free from it.  I deserved to be free from it.  I wanted to live again.  There were other men in this city, many who were happy to call Manhattan home, not just a base.  Men whose lives weren’t as complicated as Chance’s.

I can get beyond this
, I thought.

Can you?

I have to.

Good luck with that.  You’ve just made a mistake.  That man was perfect for you.  That man could fall in love with you.

Neither of us knows that.

Maybe not.  But either way, not knowing what could have been is going to consume you.  What would your aunt have done?

She would have taken the risk.

Then why didn’t you?

Because, despite last night, I guess I’m more like my mother than I thought.

You can change that.

Could I?  Long ago, my mother put her stamp on me.  She was so deeply entrenched in me, I wasn’t sure that I could see my way clear of her influence.

When I stepped out of the hotel and into the morning air, my bank account told me I should take the subway home, but my emotions told me differently.  I needed to be in the back seat of a cab, not surrounded by strangers, who would clearly see that I was upset.  And so when I left The Plaza, I crossed over to Fifth, hailed a taxi, stepped into it, and gave the driver my address.

As the cab lurched into traffic, my emotions took hold of me and I started to cry.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When the cab dropped me off at my apartment building, I paid the driver, stepped outside, collected myself on the sidewalk, and then took the five flights of stairs to our apartment.  It was already past nine, and I knew that the girls would be up at this point, which was a blessing because I needed to talk with them about this.

When I entered the apartment, the first thing I smelled was fresh coffee, which reminded me of Chance because we’d just shared a cup together.  From the living room, I heard Brooke say, “Somebody’s home!”

But when she saw me—and then when Elle saw me—each came to my side out of concern.

“What’s happened?” Elle said.

I dropped my clutch in the entryway and felt tears sting my eyes again.  “Everything you anticipated.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No—
I
hurt
him
.  And myself.  It’s a mess, it’s over, and I’m the one who’s to blame for all of it.”

They gave me a hug.

“Come and sit down on the couch,” Elle said as she pulled away from me.  “Sit over here.  That’s right.  Give me your shoes.  Just relax.  We’re here for you.  Would you like some coffee?”

“Actually, I would—if I can keep it down.  I’ve already puked once this morning.  You probably should also bring over an empty bucket, because with the way I’m feeling, none of this is going to be pretty.”

Brooke sat down on the edge of the chair across from me.  “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry, Abby.  I hate seeing you so upset.”

Elle sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulders.  “It’s going to be OK.”