Park Avenue Prince(67)

She gasped and it was as if someone had their hands around my heart and was squeezing and twisting.

The creak and stretch of her crutches filled the room. She shouldn’t be on her feet. I’d offer her a seat, but I needed her to leave. Every moment she was here, beautiful and warm and the woman I’d always love, I could feel myself weakening. “You should go, Grace. Can I call a car for you?”

I walked around her, keeping as much physical distance as I could between us as I made my way to the door. That didn’t stop her scent from filling my lungs. I fisted my hands, digging my nails into my palms, hoping the pain would be enough to distract me from what my heart was telling me to do. Comfort her, soothe her, love her.

My back to her, she screamed, “Sam!”

Fuck, why was she making this so difficult? I’d been mean to her. Cold. Nasty. She should throw me away and get on with her life.

I stopped, facing the door. “You need to leave.”

“I know you’re hurting, and I know that the accident must have been horrible for you,” she said. “But I’m fine. You’re fine.”

I didn’t move. Despite my abandoning her, even though I’d said such awful things to her, she was still trying to give me the benefit of the doubt, trying to see things from my point of view. She was an amazing woman, but I couldn’t be the one who told her so.

“I love you,” she whispered, her voice cracked and small.

My hand went to the door handle. I had nothing I could say. If I looked at her now, I knew I’d go to her because I loved her too, and eventually it would be the destruction of us both.

I turned around to face her for what I knew would be the final time. I needed to deliver a knock-out blow. “I’ve told you I don’t feel the same. You should go.”

“Sam.” Her voice was full of tears and she leaned on her crutches as if they were keeping her afloat. “Please don’t do this. I need you.”

Those final three words gave me the strength I needed to open the door.

She shouldn’t need me.

And I couldn’t need her.

“Good luck, Ms. Astor.” If she wasn’t going to leave, then I would. I walked out of the office and away from the only woman I’d ever love.





Chapter Twenty-Two

Grace





“Please just drive,” I said to Harper as I closed the door. Somehow I’d found the strength to leave Sam’s building and met Harper waiting outside.

Harper pulled out and turned north on Madison. “Can we go through the Upper West Side? I just can’t . . .” There were too many memories on the other side of the park—the Frick, the apartment. I wasn’t up to a look-what-your-life-could-have-been tour.

“No problem,” Harper replied, grabbing my hand with hers and squeezing. “I’m so sorry.”

Her sympathy unleashed the floodgates and I began to sob, deep bellowing sounds I’d never made before.

Harper didn’t pull over, didn’t comfort me. She understood the only thing that would make me feel at all better was to get as far away from Manhattan, from Sam, as I could. She’d agreed to drive me into the city, but from her reaction, she’d known my turning up at his office wouldn’t go well.

How could I have been so wrong? Oh, I knew he loved me. I wasn’t wrong about that. But I’d thought that would be enough. I thought that now that we’d found each other, both of us were committed to doing whatever it took to be together.

We had no strength at all if we’d been blown off course so quickly and so badly.

“Maybe he just needs more time,” I said.

Harper glanced at me. “Did he say he needed more time?” she asked, knowing damn well he hadn’t.

Tears began to roll down my cheeks again. “No, he told me he didn’t love me, but I know that’s not true.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. If he loves me then—”

“It takes more than love,” she said. “If he’s telling you he doesn’t love you, you have to take him at his word.”

“But don’t you see? He’s doing it to protect himself. He doesn’t want to love me—he doesn’t want to love anyone in case he loses them and has to go through what he did when his parents died.” I hadn’t told Harper about Sam’s lack of furniture or social circle, but I understood so clearly now that those things were borne out of a fear of losing something he’d grown attached to. It made perfect sense. Sam had nearly lost me in the accident, and now he was pushing me away to protect himself. I understood.

“Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean? Of course it matters.” He loved me. It was too late to erase that—pretend it wasn’t true. Surely.

“The outcome’s the same. Whatever his reasons, he’s ended it.”

“Don’t say that,” I whined as I tried to catch my breath between sobs. “He’ll come around. I just need to give him time.”

“You need to give you time. And then you should get on with your life.” Harper’s voice was soothing and sympathetic but her words were sharp and jagged. How could she think I had a life to get on with without Sam?

“Now’s not the time for your tough love. I have to believe Sam will come back to me.” Even though we’d been together so little time, I’d waited my whole life for him to come along. “I can’t just give up on him.”