Page 68 of Double or Nothing

“I’ll tell you exactly what she did,” I say loudly. “Val is the one who called Jack and told him my casino host wasn’t fulfilling her duties.”

“So?” Val shrugs. “She didn’t.”

I slam my hand against the table with a force that makes even Mac jump.

“Kat did nothing wrong, and you had no right to step in. Pull something like that again, and you can find another artist to work with.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.”

Just like I stormed out of Jack’s office, I storm out of my room. I can hear Mac calling after me, asking where I’m going. The thing is, I don’t know. All I know is I need to get away to clear my head.

I wander the streets of Vegas, wondering how I can make everything up to Kat—my leaving, the impossible ultimatum I gave her, not being here when her mother died, and now, Val causing her trouble at her job. I owe her an apology for all of it. Shit, I owe her so much more, but everyone needs a starting point, right? Without that apology, how can I hope for anything else?

It’s why I invited her to dinner. I hoped being alone in public would give me the time to apologize to her, make her understand why I did what I did, and how much I regret doing it.

While I hated that she didn’t show, I also understood it. She has no reason to trust me, no reason to want to see me, let alone forgive me. Not after everything I’ve put her through. Yet, she let me kiss her last night. That has to be a sign there’s hope, and if there’s hope, I still have a chance.

My mind wanders back to simpler times. A smile crosses my face as I think about our first fight. Christ, I was such an idiot back then. I’d had the perfect girl but ditched her, without so much as a phone call, to fuck around with Mac and the guys. Jesus, I don’t even remember what we did. All I remember is the hurt in her eyes and me on her doorstep, begging forgiveness with a bouquet of flowers in my hand. The cheapest shittiest flowers, the only flowers I could afford. For some reason, she loved them. She brought them to her nose, inhaled the scent, then threw her arms around me.

Maybe that kid wasn’t such an idiot after all. At least he got one thing right.

Detouring from the hotel, I head to the local florist.

Chapter 32

Kat

The flowers on my desk are gorgeous, and there is only one person they could be from.

Staring at them, I hesitate a moment before removing the card. I already know who they’re from, but I’m afraid of what they might say and how the words will affect me. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I read it.

Kat,

There is so much I need to apologize for.

Please just hear me out.

Sutton

P.S. Does remembering your favorite flowers earn me points?

Short, sweet, and oh so very Sutton. The P.S. makes me chuckle. I’m grateful he didn’t write a long, drawn-out apology. I don’t think I could have handled that. Just like I’m not sure how I’ll be able to handle actually sitting down and talking to him about any of this.

Inhaling the sweet scent brings me back to our first fight. He’d showed up on my doorstep with a bouquet of flowers, but I refused to open the door. He said, “I brought you flowers,” and I was so stunned, I opened the door. There he stood, tall and devastatingly handsome with his head hung and his eyes refusing to meet mine. He apologized profusely, telling me he was an idiot and that he didn’t deserve me. In return, I kissed him, took the bouquet from him, and said, “How did you know these were my favorite?”

They weren’t, but from that moment on, they sure as hell were.

That he remembered this after all these years surprises me. Sure, Sutton was always thoughtful and sweet - at least when he needed to be. He never hesitated to apologize when he knew he was wrong. It’s what made forgiving him so easy and resisting him so hard.

And those eyes. Those blue eyes filled with every emotion that he couldn’t verbalize and even the ones he could. The hurt, the pain, the love.

He was impossible to resist. Still is.

Sitting at my desk, I stare at the flowers and allow them to take me on a trip down memory lane that I’ve been fighting since Jack mentioned Sutton Cole. One that’s filled with the good memories, the sweet memories, rather than the bad ones I had been making myself focus on. There was so much good between us, so many more happy memories than sad, yet one bad decision, one sentence, took all that away from us.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

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