Page 10 of The One Who Got Away

Of course I was, but I’d be damned if I let him know that.

The footsteps took a detour and he dropped into the seat adjacent to me. A wise choice, since I wouldn’t have been liable for my behavior if he had the audacity to sit beside me.

“Are you really not going to talk to me?”

The strangled laugh that rose in my throat gave me away and I snatched my eyes from my butchered manicure. I thought I’d show him just how okay I was, how okay I’d been since he’d been gone. But there was too much history. He saw the truth as soon as our eyes met. All cockiness, all signs of the charismatic charmer who made women giggle and blush and men wish they could be like Linc, evaporated. He nearly leapt from his chair, like he wanted to pull me into his arms.

“Oh, Cat-”

I shrank away and threw knives at him with my eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks and he gave me a peevish look, apologizing as he ducked his head and returned to his seat. “Sorry. I-” He clenched and unclenched his fists, then rested his hands on his knees.

Wait a minute. Lincoln Carraway was nervous? As nervous as I was?

That made me feel a tiny bit better.

He scrubbed his hands down his face and even though he was clean-shaven, I saw the roughness of worry, of caring in the creases on his face. It was heaviness beyond his years.

“I know it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken,” he began. “Even longer since we’ve seen each other.”

Over five years to be exact, I thought angrily, but I kept my lips clamped together. I wasn’t sure why I was listening. His words had been empty then, so what kind of peace would they bring me now? Being so close and still feeling the fire raging in my veins confirmed that we still had chemistry. We had enough electricity to light up a whole damn city, but that didn’t make this reconciliation, or whatever he was trying to do, any easier to swallow.

“I want you to know that we are my greatest regret.”

My jaw dropped and anger, no, rage bubbled from my lips like lava. “Are you kidding me right now?!” I scrambled toward the door, red blocking my view, the hole in my heart growing so big that I could fall into it and be lost forever.

This was why he was there? To tell me he regretted us? The middle finger was too good for this man. A hundred middle fingers were too good for him.

I stormed into the hall and headed straight toward the elevator. The colorful pictures that spoke to me, so filled with promise, swam before my eyes. The words and images bled into each other.

“No! Cat, I didn’t mean...will you wait a damn minute?!”

I didn’t stop until I hit the elevator, punching the down button over and over again, praying for something I know wouldn’t come true. Please show up in time for me to slip inside and get to the lobby without being stuck with Lincoln Carraway. The one who got away who apparently regrets everything. Regrets me.

The man upstairs did me no favors and Lincoln was in front of me, his face awash with that word that was now branded on my heart: regret.

“That came out wrong,” he insisted. “I didn’t mean that I regretted us.”

I had enough dignity to not full out sob, though I knew the minute I was alone, all bets were off. Tears snaked down my cheeks though, and if I could move, if I wasn’t so shell shocked by him, by the past, by the present, I would have plugged both ears and shouted over his explanation.

“I know that look, and I’m not going to let you ignore me, Catherine. Look at me.”

I found a spot on the wall just past him and glared, shaking my head adamantly. “No.”

“Please, Cat.”

I’d already given him more than he deserved, but I couldn’t help it. How many times had I wished for this exact moment? For Lincoln to sweep back into my life and truly explain himself? There was a piece of me that still believed in happily ever after. It gave him the tiniest inch and I shot my eyes to his face.

He looked surprised, his mouth agape like he was waiting for some catch.

“You have until the elevator arrives, so I’d use your time wisely,” I seethed.

“Right!”

He cleared his throat and raised his chin, and I saw the man who must have slain giants in the boardroom, the Boy King with so much to prove. It broke my heart because he never had to prove anything to me. I didn’t care about the money or any of the other ‘perks’ of dating a Carraway. He didn’t have to ‘sell’ himself to me. Lincoln had always been enough.

The elevator dinged behind him and the timer went off, taking my patience with it.

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