“Are you sure?”
“Yup. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
“All right. Good night.” Cathy picked up her bag and left the suite.
“Come sit down. You want something to drink?”
“No. I want to know why you didn’t tell me you were here.”
He grabbed the remote and turned off the television, then gave her a smile that heated her all the way to her toes. She ordered her body to ignore that physical response to him.
“Because I didn’t want you worrying about me or fussing over me. I knew you had a big job to do this week. I knew how much you’d been looking forward to it. And that’s what you needed to focus on. Not on me.”
She folded her arms over each other. “I see. And you think I’m too stupid to multitask?”
“Uh, I didn’t say that.” He studied her. “Are you pissed at me?”
“You’re damn right, I’m pissed at you. Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? My God, Gray. That accident was horrific. I’ve thought about you all week, worried about you, wondered how you were doing.”
“Exactly. And this was your week to shine. The last thing you needed was to think about me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t treat me like I’m a simpleton. I could have handled your father’s appearance at the convention along with caring about you. And don’t presume to make decisions for me and my life. I thought you were better than that, better than those people who told me I couldn’t be the kind of woman who could have a career and a man in my life, who couldn’t have everything I wanted.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Right now I’m saying I’m damn angry with you for pulling yourself out of my life when you were hurt because you thought I couldn’t handle it and my career, too. I thought better of you. I guess I was wrong.”
“Now hang on.” He struggled to get up, and he winced, reached for his side.
It gave her the advantage. His crutches were across the room. “Just stay where you are.”
“I want to talk to you—face-to-face.”
“We don’t have anything to say to each other that requires you standing up.”
Out of breath from the attempt to get up, he leaned back against the sofa. “Now who’s the one presuming?”
Pain lanced her as she realized she was arguing with him about nothing. “This is pointless anyway. We already knew our relationship was going nowhere, that once the campaign finished, so were we.”
His expression went icy cold. “Oh, is that what we knew? Or did you just make that decision for us?”
She lifted her chin. “Be realistic, Gray. How would we make it work? I’m going to be in D.C. That’s my home base. That’s where I want to be and where my future lies.
And you’re”—she waved her hand—“everywhere else.”
“So you’ve decided that you and I can never work. And there you go presuming again.”
She refused to let him bait her. “It just doesn’t make sense and we’ll both get hurt in the long run.”
“Yeah, might as well cut our losses while we can, right? A good campaign strategist knows when to get out of a race before an impending loss.”
“Yes. That’s it exactly.”
He reached for the remote. “Then I guess we’re done here, Evelyn.”
She stared down at him, already missing him, aching to lie down beside him and put her arms around him one last time.
But he was right. It was time to cut their losses.
“I guess we are, Gray.”
She turned around and headed toward the door, pausing to take one last look. “You should call your . . . nurse to help you off the sofa.”
She closed the door to the suite behind her and made it all the way to her room before the tears started to track down her cheeks.
She left the light off as she entered her hotel room, closed the door, and fell onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
It was over between them.
It should be a relief. Now she could concentrate on the presidential campaign with nothing else on her mind, no emotional entanglements.
Just work. Just the way she’d always liked it.
She smiled into the darkness, realizing the idiocy of that statement.
She’d just walked away from the man she loved. And she’d never told him she loved him.
Despite the fact it was “for the best,” as she’d told him, it wasn’t the best.
Not for her, anyway.
She rolled over on her side and closed her eyes, needing to shut it all out, just for a few minutes.
Maybe tomorrow she’d be back to her old self again.
And then again, maybe she’d never be her old self again, because being with Gray had changed everything.
The floodgates burst and she let out a soft sob, then anguished cries as pain wrapped itself around her, squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe.
She’d lost him. She loved him, hadn’t wanted to leave him, and she’d let everything go anyway.
There was no winner at all in this race.
*
GRAY THREW THE REMOTE ACROSS THE ROOM.
Dammit. Shit. Fuck.
That’s not the way this should have gone down.
He dragged his fingers through his hair, so damn frustrated. He wanted to jump off the sofa and go after Evelyn, to pull her into his arms and kiss her until the frustration and misunderstandings were obliterated.
Seeing her tonight had made him so happy.
Why hadn’t she been happy, too?
He’d wanted to surprise her, not piss her off.
Had he presumed? He hated being one of those guys. He leaned his head back against the sofa and stared at the white ceiling fan blades, their soft whirring sound the only noise in the otherwise quiet suite.
He was a guy, and guys weren’t all emotional and shit. Women liked to think they could do all that multitasking. And God knew Evelyn was a master at it.
He blinked. She was right. He’d made decisions for her instead of telling her where he was. He would have loved to have seen her this week, even if only for a few minutes here and there. She’d have given him comfort when he was feeling like shit, which was mostly every goddamned day since he’d done the flying car bit.
So why hadn’t he let her? Because he thought he knew what was best for her?
Since when? She was an independent woman more than capable of juggling her job and their relationship.