Sparks - Wendy Higgins Page 0,96

had crossed my mind, and each time I pushed the sadness aside, focusing on some other amazing thing to look at or do.

I fumbled to answer, my heart in my throat. “Hello?”

“Are you busy?” Oh, his voice.

“No.” I floated out of the elevator, then continued to float down the narrow hall to where I stopped in front of my door. “I just got back to my hotel. In Paris.”

He was quiet. “Are you really in Paris?”

“Yes. Shawn…why are you calling?” My heart could not handle this.

“Are you there with someone?” he asked. His voice was soft and filled with some sort of heavy emotion.

“I came alone,” I said. I continued to stand there, unable to dig out my key and let myself in because my limbs felt like lead.

“We didn’t go through with it,” he said.

I brought the back of my hand to my mouth as a wave of elation crashed over me. I leaned my forehead against the door.

“Harlow?” he asked, and now I recognized the heaviness. It was pain.

“Hold on.” My voice shook, and I was afraid I might drop the box. “I need to let myself into my room.” I balanced my cell between my ear and shoulder as I let myself in and set everything down, crawling onto my bed and stuffing the pillow onto my lap. “Shawn, what happened?”

This was the moment I’d wanted to dream about but wouldn’t dare let myself.

“She called it off.” His voice was so, so heavy, void of his usual lightheartedness. “She said she couldn’t trust me anymore and there was no way she could move across the world with me.”

His words sank into me, one by one. She. Called. It. Off. She did. My blood slowed and cooled. I should have felt happy, right? So why was my stomach churning? Why was disappointment cascading over me like tiny blades?

“Say something,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered back. I felt his pain. I was hurting for him. But then I realized why I didn’t feel the way I thought I’d feel.

He still hadn’t chosen me.

I covered my mouth and closed my eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Because now we can be together. Right?”

I swallowed and shook my head, hating this feeling. It was like my dream-come-true, but then it morphed and all the faces were wrong and everything felt off.

“I don’t know.” I forced the words out.

He paused for several beats. “What do you mean?”

“Shawn…” How could I make him understand? “I feel like…”

“Like what?”

“Like the runner-up.”

I pressed my lips together as he processed that.

“It’s not like that, Harlow. If I had a chance to keep my family together and move us forward, I needed to take it. But you were always there, in my heart. My feelings are not any less. And maybe that’s wrong of me to have felt that way for you while I was with her, but I never expected to meet you. I never expected to have this kind of connection with someone.”

I wanted to be happy. I tried to will myself to be filled with joy, but it just felt like it wasn’t enough. Like I would always be the other woman who got the leftovers. I squeezed the bridge of my nose, wondering if I was losing my mind. This was what I wanted, to be with Shawn. Right? Was I being a total spoiled brat right now because things weren’t picture perfect? This was real life, not a movie.

“I think I need some time to think,” I whispered.

“I…okay.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll be back to Jersey tomorrow night.”

“Okay.” I could tell by the gentleness in his voice he was trying not to push me.

“I’ll text you when I get home. Good night, Shawn,” I whispered.

He paused. “Sweet dreams, Harlow.”

For the first time, my emotions were at bay when I hung up. I felt numb. It shouldn’t matter who’d broken up with who, should it? But somehow, it did matter. But would it always? Years down the road when we’d grown together and had a family of our own, would it still matter?

I squeezed my eyes shut. This felt like settling. And what happened if Natalie changed her mind in a week? Would my relationship with Shawn always be at the mercy of his ex? I wanted to feel chosen. I needed to feel like the man who loved me wanted me above any other woman, no matter the reason.

I would take tonight and tomorrow to think on it and maybe get over my initial disappointment.

“Everything