Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(81)

“I . . .” I started, but stopped.

“Dude. She’s right,” Oliver added.

I closed my eyes, but it was useless, because all I could picture was Nicole’s smile when she looked at me, her laugh when she made fun of me, the way her blue eyes lit up when she saw me walk near her. And f*ck, I loved all of that. I loved the way she tried to hold back her emotion from the world but let me see it. I loved the way she let me see all of her, unfiltered. And my sister was right. I was in love with her.

“This is you admitting it?” Jensen asked with a laugh. I opened my eyes and looked around the room, at him, at Mia, Oliver, Estelle, and finally, at baby Grayson.

“I . . . it doesn’t matter. I can’t . . . it doesn’t matter what I feel,” I said.

“Shit. Victor stuttering and at a loss for words. This is big,” Mia said.

“I f*cking lost her,” I said quietly. “The one girl I could stand to be near when she chewed her food and got all emotional and shit . . . and I f*cking lost her.” Again, I wanted to add, but didn’t.

“You haven’t lost her yet,” Estelle said with a small smile.

I loved my sister. She was a pain in my ass most of the time, but she encouraged me when I needed it. I haven’t lost her yet . . . but it didn’t take away from the fact she was still in another country with her ex. I decided to call her. What else could I do? But her phone went straight to voicemail. Once. Twice. Three times. Finally, I sent her a simple three-worded text message in hopes she’d get it. Thankfully they hadn’t pushed me for more, because there wasn’t much I could offer. I wanted to fight but I had no idea how. The only thing I’d ever had to fight for was my career. My love life always sorted itself out. Fuck.

Later that week in the office, I snapped at everybody. Corinne cringed every time she walked into my office to drop off a paper, and I didn’t blame her. I was sick of her, William, Grace, Bobby, and everybody else I had to see. The next time somebody knocked on my door, I growled a loud, “What?”

Bobby.

“Did your promotion come with a pissy attitude?” he asked as he stepped in.

I took a deep breath and put down my pen so I could massage my temple. When I knew I wouldn’t snap, I dropped my hands and looked at him.

“What’s up?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” I said, letting out a breath. The last thing I needed was to talk about it. I went from being upset at myself for letting her go, to being pissed off at her for going and going with him. Him. The guy who had treated her like shit, cheated on her, let himself be seen in public with other women, and then there was the ice cream parlor thing . . . I just . . . I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t.

“Okay. You want to go watch the game, have a drink? Maybe it’ll help you sort your shit out.”

“I’m fine,” I growled. “Nothing to sort out.”

“Dude. Everyone in the office is f*cking scared to talk to you right now. This has been going on for a week. You really don’t think we realize you have a problem?”

My hands formed fists. I ground my teeth together to keep myself from lashing out. The moment I felt my heart tighten and thought of the heart attack scare my dad went through a couple years ago, I realized I couldn’t do this anymore.

“I have to go talk to Will,” I said, standing from my chair and heading toward his office. I knocked once, twice, and raised a hand to knock once more before he shouted for me to come in. He was sitting on the other side of his desk with his eyes closed, the lights dimmed down as he listened to one of those relaxation podcasts he’d been into as of late. He’d even gone as far as to email one of the links to me, which I deleted without opening.

“Hey. What can I do for you?” he asked, straightening in his chair and pushing down on his phone to shut the Zen bitch up.

I took a deep breath and sat down across from him. This man had given me the opportunity of a lifetime twice now. First, when I came to him looking for a job in divorce law and he took a chance the moment I sat down and went over the reasons why I thought I’d be a good fit in his firm. Second, when he named me partner. Partner. My f*cking name had just been painted on the outside of the goddamn building. Alessi, Cohen, and Reuben, Esq. I wasn’t ashamed to admit tears were almost shed when I saw that. And there I was, about to let it all go. Or most likely let it all go, because if he told me I needed to quit, I’d do it and start from scratch at a different firm. The thought alone made me want to throw up, but the thought of my life without Nicole in it was unacceptable.

“I’m in love with your daughter,” I said, surprising myself. That wasn’t the way I wanted to start the conversation, and from the way his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, I could tell I took him by surprise as well. He cleared his throat, blinking.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m in love with your daughter,” I repeated. “I’m in love with her, and I don’t know when it happened, but I do know I should have passed her case along to someone else when we were well underway with it. It was wrong of me, and I’m willing to take responsibility for all of it.”

Will stayed quiet for a long moment, just staring at me. He was going to ask me to pack up my shit and leave. I knew this, because he was giving me the same look he gave Roger Petit when he fired him in front of the entire staff.