The Trouble With Love(46)

Wouldn’t do it again.

Emma stepped back.

His hand at her back resisted only briefly before he let her go, his gaze puzzled.

She stepped back even farther. “If you want to take a trip down memory lane, have at it, but don’t expect me to come with you.”

Hurt flashed across his face before anger settled over his features. “I wasn’t the only one feeling it, Emma. You forget that I know you. I know I’m not the only one who wishes we could turn back time. I’m not the only one who wants—”

“We can’t just go back, Cassidy.”

Her hardly spoken words seemed to rattle against the window, echoing through the apartment before hanging between them like a poisonous ghost.

There. She wished some of her old boyfriends could see her now. There was nothing cold and unfeeling about her current state of turmoil. It was always there. Always threatening to boil over.

His jaw clenched and he inhaled, but said nothing.

“We can’t just go backward,” she said, more calmly this time. “We have good memories. A lot of them. But we have bad memories, too, and—”

“And we get to choose which ones we hold on to,” he interrupted. “We get a choice, Emma. And you’re intentionally making the wrong one—”

“The safe one, Cassidy. I’m making the safe choice, and I won’t apologize for it.”

He crossed his arms, looking both agitated and disdainful. “We’re adults. Don’t we owe it to each other—”

“You hurt me!” Emma exploded. “You hurt me, Cassidy!”

“You hurt me, too, Emma!” he shot back, his statement every bit as vehement as hers, made even more fierce by the look of torment on his face. “You think it’s easy, seeing the woman who once tore me in two on a daily basis? You think it’s easy sitting across from you at the conference room table, or riding the same elevator or sharing a damn cheeseburger with you? Somehow you’re managing to pull me closer even as we’re further apart than ever, and I’m f*cking tired of it, Emma.”

Her lips parted a little in surprise at the unexpected outburst. Cassidy had never been one prone to monologues. And certainly not ones that had to do with his feelings.

“I’m not trying to pull you closer,” she said, her voice quiet. “I don’t want things to be complicated, I just want…”

He looked at her, eyes bleak. “What do you want?”

She forced herself to meet his eyes. Took a deep breath. “I want to be over you. All the way over you. It’s the reason I agreed to this damn story. But I approached it all wrong. Talking about it isn’t going to help. There’s nothing we can say that the other person wants to hear.”

“So what would help?” His voice was rough once again.

She swallowed. “Distance. I need some space.”

“We’re neighbors. And we work together. Distance is going to be a little hard to come by.”

“We did it before,” she said, her voice slightly desperate now. “We’ve survived in each other’s orbits for the past year without things being weird. You’ve had girlfriends, I’ve dated people…I want to go back to that.”

He searched her face. “You want me to date other women? You want to see me bring a woman back to my place on a Friday night—want to see her leave the next morning?”

Emma felt nauseous at the thought, but she forced herself to nod. “We’ve done it before. We can do it again.”

He uncrossed his arms, shoving his hands into his pockets as he resumed his initial stance at the window, staring out. Except before, his expression had been contemplative.

Now the hard set of his jaw and the distance in his gaze made him look cold. Ice cold.

He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “You know, when I came here tonight, I knew it would be about me answering questions. I was prepared for that. But I’d hoped to get you to answer some questions, too. I wanted to know what you remembered about us.” He cut his eyes to her. “But you don’t want to remember.”

She put her shoulders back and stared blindly at the twinkling lights, not really seeing them. Not seeing anything.

“No. I guess I don’t,” she said softly.

His chin rested briefly against his chest before he nodded once, twice, before moving away from her, scooping his jacket off the chair, and walking toward the front door.

She turned and watched him walk away, although she didn’t try to see him to the door. She wasn’t entirely sure her legs would work.

Cassidy turned back before moving out of her line of sight. “You used to be brave, Emma. What happened?”

“We happened. We’re no good for each other. There was no payoff in being brave. I’d rather be cautious.”

It hurts less.

He searched her face for a long moment before unexpectedly moving in her direction, stopping by the table to pick up both wineglasses. He handed one to her.

She took it in confusion, searching his face for an explanation, but his features were blank, his eyes cool. He clinked his glass to hers. “To moving on. To f*cking distance.”

He took a long swallow before she had a chance to react, then turned away, setting his glass on the counter as he headed for the front door.

“Cassidy.”