sorry,” he said. He sounded like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.
“That’s the last thing you need to be sorry about.” she replied. “I have a whole other list of things you should be apologizing for.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry for dropping out of sight, too.”
“Are you also sorry for turning the media against me?”
“I never meant for them to turn on you.” Cory tried to hold Emily’s gaze, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I just wanted to reach out to you somehow,” he continued. “You weren’t returning my texts, so I didn’t know how else to do it.”
“Do you blame me?” she asked. “It’s not like you returned mine after you dumped me over the phone.”
His hand touched her shoulder, and she felt the warmth of his fingers against her skin. “I’m more sorry for that phone call than you know. I had my heart broken pretty badly not that long ago, and I just freaked out when I realized how close I was getting to you.”
“Because doing what someone did to you makes it that much better?” She watched him flinch and kept talking before he could answer her. “I don’t think you quite understand.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Really?” she asked. He nodded.
She looked out the window. “I liked you, and I trusted you, and I was falling for you, and then you were just gone. It wasn’t bad enough that you then turned it around in the media, causing them to drag me through the mud. But no, I’m sure if it was just strangers gawking at me, and gaping at me, and telling me off in public, and sending me nasty emails, it would be fine. I’m a big girl, I can handle that. But I don’t think you realize what you really did.”
“I’m—”
She snapped her head back in his direction. “No, you can stop talking and listen.” She watched Cory blink hard. He stared at her in silence. “What you did, and what you’re doing this very second, is destroying my dream.”
He waited for a full minute before speaking. “Your dream of a relationship?” he finally asked.
“No. My website. Hell, my entire writing career. When all that bad press started hitting the media, advertisers on Zeeked started to drop their campaigns. The only thing I’m hanging on to right now is the freelance work I do for other publications, which, not surprisingly, has been slowing down. If the work I do have left disappears, I have no idea what I’ll do. This is how I make a living, you know.”
“That is pretty bad,” Cory admitted. His hand dropped from the steering wheel to his lap. “I think it goes without saying that I’m sorry for that, too. If I can fix it, I will. Just tell me where to start.”
Emily pressed her lips together and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She saw Cory’s eyes widen, and he moved his hand up to her face to brush something off of her cheek.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft.
She wondered what he’d brushed away, then realized there was moisture on her cheeks. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
“Look, I have to go,” she told him.
“You’re upset. I don’t want to leave you alone like this.”
She reached for the door handle. “Thanks for your concern. You’re just a little bit late on it.”
“Don’t say that. Please.”
Emily was silent while getting out of the car. She didn’t look back at him.
“Em,” Cory said.
She kept her eyes focused straight ahead while she walked to her building gate and let herself inside. She didn’t turn around to see if Cory was still waiting there, watching her go.
Chapter Twenty
Hot liquid pooled around Emily’s toes as she searched for a place in her kitchen she could safely move to. Shards of a broken mug floated like islands in a river of coffee that was all over the floor.
“Strike two,” she grumbled, biting down on her lip. It was Monday morning, she’d overslept, had already missed a call with a Zeeked advertiser, and had a column due for Sweltry by early afternoon. It was her own fault for resetting her alarm clock this morning, she knew, but when she’d first woken up, she could barely find the energy to roll over and reach out a hand to hit the snooze button.
Her sleep had been fitful, peppered with dreams of news and entertainment magazine articles that elevated Cory to a god-like status and tore her apart. Each time she’d closed her eyes after waking up,