Page 118 of Mark my Words

“I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you look at me like you’re looking at me right now…every day. So, it’s better if I leave.” He lifted his messenger bag from the floor, pulling it over his shoulder as he took a few steps toward me. Stopping just shy of touching me, he closed his eyes. His pained exhale was loud in the otherwise quiet room. “Just so we’re clear. I do care for you, Kristine. And that’s why I had to make this decision because I knew no matter what you feel for me, you would have resented me for taking the job here, and you would have resented me if you found out I turned it down for you. There wasn’t any way I would get to keep you, so this will make it easier to let you go. I’m sorry.”

My mouth opened a few times, but I couldn’t even formulate words right now, my throat tight and my eyes stinging. I’d thought telling my family off was hard, but this...

Sam grasped me gently by the shoulders, moving me away from the door before he pulled it open. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I watched him slip through the opening, giving me one last sad smile. I blinked back more tears as the door shut with a quiet click.

When Isobel had asked me if I’d ever change my career goals for a man, my answer had been a gut reaction. But now, I could see a gray area where relationships were concerned. You made compromises. You talked about your options and made decisions together. But Sam had stolen that from me and any chances of a relationship between us, even if his intentions were pure.

We were done.

I was done.

And I didn’t see any way to come back from this. To find a way back to us.

SAM

MINNEAPOLIS

For the first two hours of the six-hour drive north, my mind was working overtime, trying to figure out how I would stand being in the same room with Kristine for more than five minutes. In the six weeks since I’d seen her last, she had completely wiped me from her existence.

My emails bounced back, and the desperate calls were rejected, my text messages didn’t send, her profile from Tinder had been erased—not that I’d opened it an obsessive number of times to look at her profile photos—and Isobel was refusing to act as a messenger. She’d cut me completely out of her life in the length of time it took me to settle in Chicago, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d fucked up, I knew I had, but there was nothing I could do to change the decisions I’d made.

My stomach had churned when I sat on the video call the morning after Evan’s proposal, but I’d been terrified that there was no future with Kristine. So I’d cemented that reality.

My new team in the Chicago office was solid, and I loved being able to take on a new role working directly with the authors instead of just being a side note in a Word document. It felt like my input in the creative process mattered, and I’d finally found my stride out of Adrian’s shadow. The head of publishing was invested in my success with Vivid, and I was finally within a few hours’ drive of my family.

It should have been perfect. I was close enough for them to visit but not close enough for my mother to meddle or show up at my new apartment unannounced. Not having roommates was quiet, but I’d heard from Taylor and Caleb often. Blake had settled into my space in the apartment back in Boston as if I’d never been there. Making new friends was going to be a challenge, but a few other young professionals at the office weren’t married yet and had no kids. With a little time, I could see myself being happy in Chicago.

But I wasn’t. I loved my job and the challenges it presented, but I didn’t feel the same excitement I’d felt going into the office over the last several months. I tried to tell myself I could move on, that if she could turn her back on me without letting me truly explain myself, then I was better off.

If only it were that easy to erase love from your heart. She’d imprinted herself there, and no matter how much I wished for the marks to fade, they didn’t. I loved her, and I’d missed the chance to tell her that for real, not just while she was crying and staring at me like I’d broken her heart. The way I left Boston would probably haunt me for years, possibly the rest of my life, but I didn’t see any other alternative.

She could hate me all she wanted, but I made the decision for her. I could have easily stayed in Boston, settled into the position there, and let her stay on with Isobel, but I knew she would never have been happy maintaining the status quo. She wanted more, and I wouldn’t take that opportunity away from her.

Daphne had texted me a few days after I’d left the city, telling me that Kristine was heartbroken and my dumb ass needed to do something about it, but it was a lost cause. She’d kept me at arm’s length for months while I was already a goner for her, and she saw my actions as a betrayal. It felt like a betrayal, but I’d been throwing myself at a brick wall for months. We’d both made mistakes that I wasn’t sure we could fix.

Seeing her CC’d on emails from Sloane was the worst torment. She’d even asked if we would be interested in working on Chase and Evan’s new novel, but I couldn’t keep torturing either one of us like that. Stepping away was the mature thing for me to do, but it felt like swallowing a bag of nails.

“Thanks for riding up here with me.” I smiled over at the brunette sitting in the passenger seat, feeling a little guilty that I’d been silent most of the ride through Madison. When she’d suggested carpooling to the engagement dinner in Minneapolis, I was a little skeptical, but Kelly had been a great resource while I was getting used to Chicago.

“It’s not a problem. We were both going to the same place, so we might as well save on gas.”

Kelly’s head bobbed in my peripheral vision, biting her lip before turning to face me. “Have you spoken to her?”

“Hmm?” I hummed. I’d wondered how long it’d take her to bring up Kristine. I knew she’d picked up on our behavior toward each other in the bar that night we’d gone out with her during the tour. Part of me lamented that the sun was setting, meaning Kelly couldn’t continue typing away at her laptop like she’d been doing since we left the city.

“Kristine. She’s coming, right?”

“I don’t know.” Adrian and Isobel had flown in last night, along with a few others from Boston, but I had no idea if Kristine was coming. She’d been invited; Evan had asked me what was going on between us when he called to invite me to their engagement party, but I’d tried to keep things vague.

Chase and Evan weren’t stupid. I think they knew something was happening during the tour, but Evan wasn’t the type to pry into other people’s personal lives. On the other hand, Chase seemed exactly that type. She’d just been too busy finishing up her romantic comedy series to make a big fuss over it, and she was closer to Kristine anyway.

“Weren’t you two...” she trailed off as she made a crude hand gesture, poking her finger into her closed fist. “Ya know, playing hide the sword.”

If she only knew what Kristine and I had done the last time that swords had been mentioned with a sexual connotation.

“It was complicated.”

“Didn’t look all that complicated to me. You two had some major chemistry. You weren’t all over each other like my brother and Chase, but it was still there. I was low-key jealous that you two seemed to be pulling off working together and working it together.”

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