Page 126 of Rules Of Engagement: St. Louis
I loved Christian enough to want him to be happy. And if I couldn’t be the woman to make him happy permanently, then the kindest thing I could do was get out of his way so he could find someone who could.
I pushed through the powder room exit and Christian was waiting outside the door. He must have been there for a while, because his expression immediately shifted from concern to alarm when he saw my face.
“Tell me what I can do to make this better?” he said.
I trembled but held myself together, drawing on strength. “This is going to sound really cliché but… it’s not you, it’s me.” I sighed. “I need to leave.”
His brows dipped and he reached for me, but I took a step back. The avoidance of his touch gave him pause, and I watched confusion settle in his eyes.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
“What can I do to help?”
“You can let me leave. Just... let me go.”
We stared at each other in the hallway outside the powder room with the sounds of the reception continuing behind us. In his eyes, his confusion turned to hurt and the desperate desire to fix whatever was wrong. In mine, I knew he could see the truth I wasn’t saying.
“Naomi—”
“Please.”
We stared at one another for so long it was like we were frozen in place. Then, he stepped aside.
I walked past him, through the reception hall, past the table where our untouched dinner waited, and out the door.
When I reached the parking garage, I sat in my car and cried for the love I was walking away from and the woman I still wasn’t brave enough to be.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
CHRISTIAN
Two days later
“You wanted to see me, Christian?”
Dahlia entered my office as I stood looking out the window at the city. I’d been in my head a lot since Naomi walked out of my life but work still needed to be done. I slipped my hands inside my suit pants pocket and glanced over my shoulder.
“Yes, closed the door, please.”
When the door shut, I faced her, and she strolled to my desk and perched a hip on the edge of it, smiling up at me brightly.
“I’m going to ask you some straightforward questions, and I need straightforward answers.”
Her smile faltered. “Okay.”
“Have a seat in the chair.”
She removed her hip and sat in the chair across from my large mahogany desk.
“Have I ever given you the impression that I’m interested in you outside of a working relationship?”
Her smile vanished completely, and she straightened her posture. “Um, no, not at all.”
“Even dancing with you at the gala didn’t give you this impression?”
