know what to believe.” I took a steadying breath. “I thought I knew everything, thought I understood everything, but I didn’t. I don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
I smiled, fought back the tears in my eyes. “Yeah, you and everyone else.”
“I should have told you.”
“Yes, you should. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe we’d have had more of a chance.” I sighed. “I never gave you a chance. I never had reason to give you a chance.”
“That’s my own fault,” he said. “I handled it all wrong. I know that now.” He looked straight at me, eyes glassy. “I was just so… overwhelmed. I treated the situation like I treated everything in life, just dived right in, tried to make the best of it, but it was the wrong call.”
“I didn’t belong there… not with you… not ever…”
“You did, Katie,” he said. “I just handled it so badly you didn’t feel like you belonged there.”
“Maybe you think so,” I scoffed. “But not Verity! Not Olivia! Not the boys!” I wiped away the threatening tears. “They hated me!”
He held up his hands. “And that was my fault, too. I didn’t prepare them, didn’t warn them, just tried to throw you all together. They were as shocked as you were, as shocked as I was.”
“But I wasn’t mean! I wasn’t spiteful and nasty and cruel.”
“I didn’t know how hard they were making things,” he said. “Not until it was too late. By then you didn’t want to know them, didn’t want to know me.” He reached out his hands. “I couldn’t reach you, Katie.”
“You didn’t try!”
“You wouldn’t let me.”
And he was right, I wouldn’t let him. It would have been too little, too late.
“This is all fucked up,” I said. “The whole sorry fucking thing.”
He sighed. “No, Katie. It only feels like that. This could be the beginning. The new beginning.” He reached his hands further across the desk. “That’s what I want. More than anything. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“We don’t know each other…”
“We can get to know each other. Slowly, this time. Like it should have been, Katie. Just you and me.”
“I don’t know…”
“You’re here aren’t you? That’s a start…”
I shrugged. “So much bad feeling… so much unnecessary bad feeling.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t have to matter now.”
“You could have been with my mum,” I said. “If you loved her.”
He sighed again. “Love is complicated, Katie. I loved your mother so much it took my breath, but I loved Olivia, too. She was the mother of my boys, a good woman, a woman I could depend on.” His shoulders were tense. So tense. “I know you may not see them like that, but Olivia and Verity are good people. They are just very insecure, very highly strung. They have a more prickly heart. Not like your mother, and not like you, either.”
“Is that a compliment?”
He smiled. “You’ve always made me so proud, Katie, from the very first moment I saw you. I just regret you never got to realise.”
Tears pricked, but I didn’t let them fall. “This has to be slow,” I said. “I just… I don’t know how this could even work… after all this time…”
“However you want it to. You call the shots. Not like last time, this time it’s all at your pace, Katie, whatever you want.”
“I didn’t think you gave a shit last time.”
“You have no idea how much I gave a shit. No idea at all.” His words were raw and choked.
I felt awkward again, scratchy in my suit, small in the big leather swivel chair. “I’d better go,” I said. “I told Carl I’d only be an hour.”
He smiled. “I hear how well you’re doing. I check in every day.”
“I know,” I said. “He tells me.”
“He does?”
“I’d better go.” I got to my feet, held out a hand, and it felt stupid. He took it anyway. “I’m sorry,” I said. “For my part. For not giving you a chance.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. The apology is all mine.” He squeezed my hand so tight. “I’m sorry, Katie.”
My breath was sore in my chest. I nodded. Smiled. Shook his hand.
And then I pulled away, walked to the door, brushed aside a tear before I stepped into the corridor, but there were footsteps, a hand on my arm.
“Katie…” he said, and then he didn’t say anything at all. He pulled me into him, and held me tight, and I was so rigid, so scared. “I am so sorry. I’m sorry about your mother, I’m sorry