Page 168 of Never Let You Go

forty-nine

Alexandra

When we get there, he’s sitting at a booth with Emma, and he’s looking at papers on the table. He sifts through them. Clenches his jaw. Sets them back on the table.

I’m worried for him. I hesitate for a beat. Is this a private, business moment? Should I wait?

Emma lifts her eyes to me and says something to Christopher. He doesn’t look up.

I close the distance between us. Emma is nervously glancing between Christopher and me. Christopher has his eyes set on the papers. He jerks his chin up. Clenches his jaw again.

“Hey, everything okay?” I ask. “D’you need a minute?” I’m standing, Sarah right behind me, and they’re both sitting.

Christopher squares his shoulders, and his lips flatten when he says, “Mind explaining this?”

His eyes are steely when he finally lifts them to me.

Emma pushes the papers my way.

I take the papers.

No. Oh no no no no no. No!

They’re on Red Barn Baking letterhead. I don’t need to read them to know what they are. I drop them on the table.

This is not how it was supposed to happen. I was going to tell Christopher, preface it with some history, and the assurance that I do love him, and that this is just a minor point in my background that I neglected to mention, but that won’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Because when two people love each other, they do so without regard to their financial situation or family background. Right?

Meanwhile, Emma catches the papers with a thin smile, stacks them neatly, and puts them back in the file folder with her business logo on it.

The room tilts slightly around me. I want to scream. How dare she take that moment away from me? How dare she get between us?

But I don’t let my current anger at Emma take precedence. She’s not who’s important here.

Christopher will understand. He loves me. He said so just last night. And he knows I love him too. That, too, he said just last night. I understand he’s hurt that he didn’t hear that from me.

“I can explain, but if you don’t want to forgive me for not telling you sooner, I need you to know, I just won’t take the exam. I’ll forgo everything.”

His eyes darken. “Don’t,” he says.

Emma reaches her hand out and places it on his forearm, as if he needed calming down and she was the only one who could give him that.

My palms are sweaty, my heartbeat out of control. “You think this matters more to me than you? It doesn’t. I thought I could have it all. Well, I was wrong. I can’t. And I choose you.”

“Don’t jeopardize yourself, Alexandra. It’s useless.”

“Useless? I make it right, and you’re telling me it’s useless?” I can’t help the rise in my voice. This is so unfair.

My eyes cut to Emma. “We’ll continue this conversation without an audience.” Then I turn to Christopher. “I’ll be at the bakery.”

I get the ugly cry out of the way in my room, cursing Emma but mostly blaming myself.

When I hear the bakehouse door slam, I wash my face quickly and put some moisturizer on my lips. I take a deep breath and look around my room. I’m dreading our talk.

But the make up sex is going to be awesome.

I find him in the bakehouse, leaning against the farthest prep table in the back. I close the door softly behind me, and I lick my lips in search of something to say as I make my way slowly to him, the intensity of his glare like a fist around my heart. “So that’s it, huh?” he says, and his eyes say it. He means our relationship is over.

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