Fated (35 page)

My
stomach dropped but I kept my face blank. “Caden, I don’t want to do this here.
There’s nothing between us anymore. Let’s end it on good terms.”

His
amber eyes studied my face, touching on every feature as if he were memorizing
them. He reached up and pushed my hair behind my ear, the touch so familiar
that I felt a physical ache in my chest.

“I
know I screwed things up between us. But can’t we at least be friends? I miss
talking to you.”

I
took a deep breath. I had admitted to myself that I missed Caden’s friendship,
but could I really just be friends with someone who still had the power to make
me yearn for him?

“I
don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think we can be just friends.”

His
jaw tightened at my response. “Can’t we at least try? I’m trying to come to
terms with us not being involved anymore. But I can’t just cut you out of my
life. I find myself wanting to call you, to discuss my projects with you or to
tell you about something funny I saw during the day. But I stop myself because
I know you don’t want to hear from me. There’s eight hundred miles between Chicago
and New York. Isn’t that far enough away for us to safely have a friendship
with nothing physical?”

His
words were tempting. Maybe I could try to be friends with him. After all, he
was right about the distance. It was a natural barrier to the temptation of
taking our relationship back to a physical level, and talking to him tonight
made me realize how much I missed his friendship. Still, it was a risky move
and the distance would mean nothing if my emotions got in the way.

Everything
pointed to refusing his request, yet I was unable to stop the words from coming
out of my mouth. “We can try, but with some boundaries.”

The
tightness around his mouth relaxed. “What sort of boundaries?”

I
scrambled to come up with ideas that would make this work. “We can’t call each
other too much. How about once a month?”

Caden
shook his head. “No. That’s not enough. How about three times a week?”

I
blinked at him. “Uh, no. That’s too frequent.” I bit my lip as I thought about
it. “How about once every other week?”

“Once
a week,” he insisted. “I don’t think that’s too often between friends.”

I
studied his face, but he just gave me an easy smile. Against my better
judgment, I agreed. I knew I had already put myself in a predicament by
agreeing to be friends, but I seemed unable to stop myself. “Okay, once a
week.”

“Is
that it?”

“No.
Let’s agree that we won’t surprise each other by just showing up on each
other’s doorstep.” I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened last time Caden
had shown up unannounced.

“Okay,
but what about when I have to be in Chicago? I’m bound to have to go at least a
few times for my installation. You can’t mean we can’t see each other then.”

I
frowned, not knowing how to answer. “Well…maybe we should just see how talking
on the phone goes. We can decided before you come to Chicago whether it’s a
good idea for us to see each other or not.”

“Okay,”
he agreed swiftly. “Anything else?”

I
tried to think of more rules, foolishly thinking that the more boundaries I put
up, the more I would protect my emotions from getting involved. “We can’t talk
about relationships. We can’t ask the other person about their dating life.”

“What
dating life?” Caden tried to sound casual, but I didn’t miss the way his eyes
darkened.

“We’re
bound to start dating.” I wanted to make a dig about Caden sleeping around
instead of having relationships, but I swallowed the words. It wouldn’t be a
good start to a friendship. “I think it’s best if we don’t talk about it.”

“Fine.
Is that it?”

“If
it’s not working…if it gets too hard, we have to agree to end it with no
arguments. And we don’t both have to agree that it’s not working to end it. If
even one of us thinks just being friends isn’t working, the other one has to be
okay with ending it, even if they don’t agree.”

Caden
sighed heavily but he nodded his head. “Is there more?”

I
frowned at his acerbic tone, but just shook my head. “No, that’s it.”

Caden
spent the rest of the night trying to prove that we could be just friends by
being casual and engaging others in conversation as we mingled. Even though I
noticed that he never left my side, and I felt his gaze on me when he thought I
wasn’t looking, I convinced myself that we could be just friends. Even Macie’s
friends stopped asking me what was going on between us, and I noticed Macie had
stopped watching our every move.

It
was amazing how easy it was to fool everyone, including myself.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Incredibly,
our setup seemed to work. We got into a pattern of talking on the phone every
Sunday night, and although at first the conversations were stilted and awkward,
I soon began to eagerly look forward to our calls as we became more comfortable
with our new relationship.

Caden
respected the boundaries and never asked about my dating life, although
admittedly there wasn’t much to tell. It was surprising how much we had to talk
about, from the mundane, such as our daily lives, to the more meaningful. Caden
shared his concerns about how his installation piece would be received by the
public and I told him how I feared I would never figure out what I wanted to do
with my life. And when Caden asked me details about my past, I shared more with
him than I had with anyone else in my life. But one thing we never talked about
was Caden’s parents and what had happened to them. I broached the topic once
but he shut it down, and I never brought it up again.

Two
months passed without incident, but then Caden finally brought up the topic of
coming to Chicago during one of our Sunday night conversations at the beginning
of December.

“I’m
flying in on Thursday to meet with the director of the museum. I want to see
you.”

“I’m
not sure that’s a good idea.” I chose my next words carefully. “Things have
been going well just talking on the phone. I think we should keep it that way.”

Caden
sighed heavily. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yes.”

“Friends
should be able to meet in person.”

I
couldn’t exactly argue his reasoning, but we weren’t the normal type of
friends. “Let me think about it.”

“When
are you going to let me know? Next Sunday, when it’ll already be too late?”

“I’ll
just have to make an exception and call you before then.”

“We’re
breaking all the rules here,” Caden said dryly. “Daring to talk on a day other
than Sunday and actually contemplating meeting in person. Before you know it,
you’ll actually start telling me about the men you’re seeing.”

I
ignored his last statement. “I’ll call you on Tuesday. I just…I need to make
sure we’re not making a mistake.”

“
Are
you
seeing anyone?” All the humor had vanished from his voice and he sounded deadly
serious.

“Caden,”
I warned. “I’m not answering that question.”

“Lauren,
I need to know. I need to know before I see you.”

“We
haven’t even decided that we’re meeting yet!”

He didn’t
respond right away, and when he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. “I can’t
play this game anymore. I can’t pretend that we’re just friends when the last
damn thing I want from you is friendship. I need you.” His voice dropped even
lower. “Lauren, I love you.”

I
shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. My throat closed and I could
barely speak through the pain. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t say those words to
me just because you miss having me in your bed. Don’t be so cruel.”

“I’m
not.” His voice was urgent, frantic to have me believe him. “I’m not telling
you I love you because I want to have sex with you, although God knows I can’t
stop thinking about burying myself inside you. I’m telling you I love you
because it’s the most honest thing I’ve felt in my life. I was a fucking idiot
for not saying it before, when you told me how you felt, but I was scared.
Scared that I would lose you. Scared that I would hurt you.”

“So
what’s changed?” I whispered, tears clogging my throat. “What’s changed since
then and now?”

“I’m
tired of being scared.” Caden’s voice was low and I had to strain to hear him.
“I’m tired of my fear of becoming like my father controlling my life. Lauren,
you’re the first person in my life that’s seen me for me. Everyone else sees me
through the filters of my past or my career. Even Michael. I know he loved me,
and I couldn’t have loved him more if he had actually been my biological
father, but I know he partially blamed himself for what happened. He was my
father’s best friend and he was convinced that he should have seen the signs. I
saw the way he would look at me sometimes, with sorrow and guilt. But you…I
don’t have to carry all that baggage with you. I can be the person that I want
to be. There aren’t many guarantees in life, but I can promise you that I’ll
never become like my father.”

Tears
streamed down my face as I listened to him. I wanted to believe Caden’s words
of love, but he had hurt me too badly before. I didn’t think I could handle him
changing his mind and pulling away from me again.

“You
becoming like your father was never the problem, Caden. You don’t need to
promise me that you’ll never repeat your father’s tragic mistakes. I already
know you would never do that.” I took a deep steadying breath as I wiped my
tears away. “It was so incredibly hard to put myself out there, to risk telling
you the truth about my feelings. The way you rejected me…the pain was
unbearable. I…I don’t think I can take that chance again.”

“Please,”
he rasped. “Give me a chance to prove that I won’t hurt you again. Give me a
chance to prove that I’m worth another chance. Lauren, I’ll do anything to make
you believe me. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

I
could hear the panic rising in his voice, and I had to swallow my words of
love, to curb the instinct to immediately soothe his fears with forgiveness. I
needed time to think and I couldn’t do it with Caden pleading for another
chance.

“I
need to think about it. I can’t make a decision now. Just give me until
Tuesday.”

There
was a long silence before he spoke. When he finally did, his voice sounded grim
like he was getting a death sentence. “Okay, Tuesday. What time will you call?”

“After
work. I need to go now.”

“Promise
me you’ll think about what I said. I meant every word.”

“I
promise,” I whispered, knowing that every moment would be torture until I made
my decision.

I
sat for a long time after I hung up the phone. There was an internal battle
going on inside me, my heart at odds with my mind. It was so tempting to
instantly forgive Caden and revel in his words of love, but I had thrown
caution to the wind before and had been burned by him. I wasn’t sure if it was
his panic at losing me that was causing his confession of love or if he
actually truly loved me.

I
finally got up and walked over to my dresser, opening the top drawer and
pulling out the envelope with the pictures Caden had taken of me. With
trembling hands, I opened it and took out the photographs, looking at them for
the first time. They took my breath away. I couldn’t believe I was the woman
who looked so wanton and passionate in those pictures. The woman in the
photographs looked completely uninhibited without a care in the world besides
feeling pleasure.

I
was also surprised that although there were plenty of shots of my body, the
majority of the pictures were of just my face. There was a beauty in the
harshness of my expressions that I had never seen in myself before. The
clenched eyes, the flushed face and parted lips spoke of a woman who was in
control of her own desires and took what she wanted without asking and without
fear.

The
problem was, I wasn’t sure if I actually
was
that woman. I wanted to be her, but I
didn’t know if I could be.

I
don’t know how I got through the next two days. I couldn’t have told you what I
did at work or who I spoke to. Thoughts of Caden consumed me, and it was
torture trying to decide whether to give him another chance. I still wasn’t
sure when I called him Tuesday evening.

“Lauren,”
Caden said when he picked up the phone after the first ring barely finished.
“I’m going crazy over here.”

I
took a deep breath before speaking. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I
still don’t know whether we should give our relationship another try. I think
the best thing to do is to talk about it in person.”

“That’s
enough,” Caden said, sounding relieved. “I can accept that.”

Caden
wanted to come see me right after his flight landed on Thursday morning, but I
convinced him to wait until that night. I would be done with work and he would
be done with his meeting. He wanted to prolong the phone conversation, but I
cut it short, needing to put some distance between us until Thursday.