Chapter 11: Goodbye To All That
Caspian drove without speaking and I could not stop looking at him.
I tried. I genuinely tried. I looked out the window at the city sliding past and then my eyes drifted back to him anyway because the man was just that unfair to sit next to.
He had changed his shirt at some point and this one was a deep charcoal that did things for his shoulders that I was not going to think too hard about. His jaw had that late afternoon shadow that made him look less like a CEO and more like someone who should be in a cologne advertisement.
And he smelled incredible. That cedarwood warmth that I had first noticed in the hotel room and had been quietly noticing ever since. It was not loud or overwhelming. It just settled around him and made the inside of the car feel like the safest place I had been in five years.
I noticed the small diamond like mole on his earlobe. Something about it made my stomach do a thing I was choosing to ignore.
I was staring. I knew I was staring. I told myself to stop and then I looked at his hands on the wheel and did not stop.
"The way you are looking at me," he said, eyes still on the road, "is that an invitation? To kiss you? Hold you? Or something else?"
I grabbed his arm to steady myself because my dignity had apparently left the vehicle. "Before we go home, can you come somewhere with me first?"
He glanced at me sideways. "After we get there, can we finish what we started last night?"
Lord help me.
I straightened up and cleared my throat. He allowed himself a small private smile that I pretended not to see.
We did not go directly home. He drove to the Rose Garden on the edge of the city, the little private restaurant tucked above it on the second floor with the windows that looked down over the trees. Liam and I used to meet there. It was where he had taken me on our first date, where he had told me he loved me for the first time, where I had believed every word because I was twenty one and completely gone on him and did not know yet what he was capable of.
I was leaving all of that behind today.
I called Liam from the car. "I am at the Rose Garden . Our usual place. Come if you want to see me."
"I will be right there," he said. No hesitation. Not even a breath of pause.
That was the thing about Liam. He showed up when it was convenient. When I summoned him. When he needed something from me. Five years and I had never once been the priority. I had always been the option he chose when nothing else was immediately available.
I hung up and looked at Caspian. "This is the last time I speak to him about anything personal. After today, never again."
Caspian did not say anything. He just patted the seat beside him. I slid over and sat close and we watched together through the restaurant window as Liam arrived beneath the cherry trees below us. He stood in the exact spot where I used to wait for him. He checked his phone. He shifted his weight. He looked around.
I had stood in that spot so many times. I had stood there in the cold and in the rain and in heels that were killing me and I had waited and waited and told myself it was fine, he was just busy, he would come, he always came eventually.
Half the time he had not come at all.
"Will this really get rid of the hatred?" Caspian asked quietly, his arm resting along the back of my seat.
"No," I said. "But I want him to feel every small thing I felt. Every single one."
Caspian reached out and held my chin for a moment and placed a soft kiss on my nose. Then he let go without a word.
"I ordered the foie gras," I told him, letting the subject change naturally. "The waiter said it came in from France this morning. I thought you would like it."
He looked at me with something shifting behind his eyes. "How did you know I like it?"
"I pay attention to my husband," I said simply and gestured for the food to be served.
He looked at my mouth. Then back at my eyes. "I do not want to eat right now," he said. "I want to kiss you."
I looked right back at him and felt something go warm and unhurried in my chest. Every person in this industry who had ever called him ruthless or cold or untouchable had clearly never had dinner with him while cherry blossoms bloomed outside the window.
...
Downstairs, I knew Liam was waiting. Upstairs we kept eating. The food was good and the wine was good and Caspian’s knee was warm against mine under the table and nobody was talking about work or revenge or anything that mattered and for the first time in longer than I could accurately remember I was not braced for something bad to happen.
I just sat there and ate my dinner and let myself be comfortable.
Liam called four more times over the next hour. I had turned the sound off completely. He was just a figure beneath the trees now, pacing, checking his phone, slowly understanding that nobody was coming.
When we finally finished Caspian glanced down at him one last time. "Ready?"
"I need you to help me move my things," I said.
We left through the side exit. When we got to my apartment I asked Caspian to wait outside for five minutes and he did, no questions, no commentary, just leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets and waited. By the time he walked in I had already cleared out everything of Liam’s. It had not taken long. There was less of him here than I had realized. He had always kept most of himself somewhere else.
I came out of the bedroom holding one thing. A small teddy bear, worn soft at the ears, that I had bought myself on a trip to London three years ago when Liam had cancelled on me for the fourth time that month and I had decided that if nobody else was going to take care of me I would do it myself.
"This is all I am taking," I said.
Caspian looked around the apartment. Then at me. "Nothing else?"
"Nothing else. Let the memories stay here." I meant it completely.
He crossed the room and pulled me to him and kissed me the way he had kissed me in the hotel bathroom that first night. I held on and kissed him back and forgot entirely that I was supposed to be a person with composure and dignity and a five year plan.
We pulled apart when his hands started making additional plans.
"We will save the rest for home," he said, a little rough around the edges in a way I was very much enjoying. "But tell me. Did the kiss help?"
"good, now I want to take my wife home"
