her hair against my nose, the feel of her lush curves pressed up against me.
Something stirred in me and the words hovered on my lips. My expression of gratitude, my strong sense that we had done this together. The teamwork I’d felt with her, and more.
But yesterday’s admission of her feelings stood like a giant road barrier between us. With crossed boards painted in garish colors and yellow lights flashing warnings. But I could still see, on the other side of a road barrier, us. Together. Happy. Making it last.
A sharp pinch of almost physical pain squeezed my chest when I thought of coming back to this house after a long day of work alone. And her living somewhere else. I’d have to rattle around between those four walls alone. My throat felt thick, and I cursed my stupidity for not keeping her at a distance. For allowing myself to feel.
Because right now I wanted to ask her to try with me. To stay. To see what we could make of this. It felt like the tiny spark of the beginning of something great. Could it be?
Or should we stick to plan A and quit while we were ahead?
I followed her into the house while she chattered a mile a minute, demanding details about the job—of which I had a surprising few.
“Well, it’s not official yet and—speaking of that, Adam specifically asked me to swear you to secrecy.”
She made the sign of an X over her chest. “Mum’s the word.” She plopped down on the couch and began scratching the dog who was whoring for love, as usual. “When does it become official, anyway? We should have a party.”
I sighed. “Well they’re making me do some dumbass presentation to the Board of Directors Thursday morning. I’m not super thrilled about it but—”
I stopped. Her face had instantly darkened. Had I said something wrong?
“Thursday morning as in… next Thursday morning?”
Oh shit. My stomach dropped, remembering what I should have realized much sooner. I rubbed my forehead with my palm. “Kat, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize.”
She blinked and her body language was such that she was immediately closing off. She pulled her hand away from the dog who kept poking at her with his nose.
“Max, go lie down,” I snapped.
The dog did as he was told, shooting me a look in transit. Kat bolted up from the couch and followed him, then zoomed right into the kitchen. When I got in there, she was pulling a bottle of water out of the fridge. She uncapped it and drank half of it while I watched.
“I’m sorry. We can call tomorrow and reschedule the deposition—”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t do that. Derek’s lawyers have confirmed and will be there, too. They’ve ordered an independent court reporter and videography crew to document it. I also have the plane tickets and the hotel reservation. Can’t you ask Adam to change the Board Meeting?”
I blinked. Not only could I not ask him. I would not ask him. “Those meetings are set up months in advance. The people on the board are CEOs and execs of other companies. It would look horrible for me to—”
She blinked. “To what? Leave the country on urgent family business? They wouldn’t get that and cut you some slack?”
I took a pained breath in and ran my fingers through my hair. Well shit. I’d promised her I’d be there for her and now… now I couldn’t.
“I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry.”
At that moment, I felt like one hell of a crappy friend. And the shittiest husband ever. Why break that track record, right?
Just one look into her pale face, her wide eyes as she contemplated doing all that she had to do alone made my gut twist.
This was it. This was the reason I should never be a married man. I let the women in my life down. And I’d left Kat down after setting her up to do something she so feared that she’d planned on never going back to Canada again rather than do it.
Now here I was, backing out on her.
But I honestly could see no other way, barring cloning myself.
I shook my head. “Kat, I’m sorry.”
When she blinked, there were tears in her eyes. “Well you warned me, didn’t you? That you weren’t good at being a husband. Too bad you didn’t take this opportunity to be better.”
An invisible punch to my chest. It knocked the wind out of me. It was nothing