“had to meet me.”

My back rests against the desk chair as my gaze lingers on the photograph. I had it printed in black and white. It’s the four of us on the sofa in his family home’s living room. It’s funny how I can see the colors of the sofa so clearly, the faded plaid, even though there isn’t any color in the picture that hangs on my wall.

All four of us are smiling. His mother insisted on taking the photo. Just as she’d insisted he bring me that night.

It’s only now that I can remember how Evan’s father looked at her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that’s because they hadn’t told us that she was sick.

I guess in some ways it was the last photograph. If that isn’t accepting someone into your family, I don’t know what is.

I have to hold back the prick of tears as I think of her. I only met Marie a handful of times. The dinner was the second. The third was after she’d told Evan; she didn’t have a choice, seeing as how she had to be hospitalized. The last time I saw her was at the funeral.

I may not know when I fell in love with him, but I think I know the moment he fell in love with me. The moment a part of his heart died and he needed something, or someone, to fill it. Maybe I got lucky that it was me. Or maybe it was a curse.

I roll my eyes, hating that I’m stuck in the past because I can’t move ahead with the future.

Maybe we weren’t really meant to be. Maybe it was never the type of love that’s meant to keep people together. Just the type of love when you feel compelled to give someone compassion.

Are there types of love? I find myself leaving the question as a comment on the book and then deleting it.

If there are, then maybe Evan’s love is the stubborn kind. He’s not so stubborn that he’ll stay this weekend, though. Come Friday he’ll be gone again. Maybe it’s a different kind of love then …

It’s only when I hear the bedroom door shut that I finally look back at the manuscript and email the editor back. I need more time before I can give feedback on any of these to the author and I’m ready to fall asleep in the corner chair, or any place I can where Evan will leave me alone.

I need more time for so much more. I need time and a clear head to move forward with my own life. I need someone to tell me I’m not walking away from the only man who will ever love me, but there’s no email I can write for that unfortunate request.

Evan

If I could focus on the hate and leave her all alone,

I’d be able to move forward, if only I had known.

I can’t speak the truth, I don’t want to make it real,

I can’t stand what I’ve done or what it makes me feel.

Regret will settle in my chest and suffocate the day.

If only I could make it right, if only there was a way.

“It’s good to see New York again,” James says as I walk into his office on Greene Street in lower Manhattan.

Even as he speaks, he stares out the office window. It’s an impressive eight-by-eight-foot picture window, making the view seem like it’s not quite real.

I don’t return his sentiment. I’m fucking miserable regardless of the scenery or location. I want to drop to my knees and confess everything to Kat. The weight of it all is burying me. I think she’d forgive me. I can see it in her eyes that she wants to accept anything I’m willing to divulge. I could tell her almost everything and I think she’d let me stay.

I’m too scared to do it, though, and bring her into this mess. If they find out she knows … she just can’t know. Not until I end things here at least. It’s step one to getting my Kat back.

“It’s crazy how you miss it, isn’t it?” he continues as he turns to me. He’s more relaxed than he was in London, although his suit is crisp and fresh from the dry cleaner. I close the door as he takes a seat at the desk, unbuttoning his dark gray jacket.

“Sorry you had to wait a minute, I was just getting this paperwork wrapped up.” He leans back in his chair, loosening his slim navy tie and unfastening the top button of his crisp white dress shirt.

“Are we going to talk about it?” I ask, needing to get this shit off my chest. I kept quiet in London, but I can’t anymore. It’s been weeks. That must be enough time.

Is that how long it takes to get away with murder?

“Talk about what?” he questions and his voice is gravelly and low.

“Talk about the fact that the charges against Bruce are dropped?” I say then hold his cold gaze with one I hope informs him I have no time for bullshit and I’m out of patience.

He may have been relaxed before I sat down, but now he’s still. And silent. I let my eyes fall to the stack of papers on his desk, then drift to a small picture frame. It’s a cube and matte black on all sides, and I have no idea who the woman in the picture is.

I absently pick it up, ignoring how his eyes bore into me, how his icy gaze heats as I let the question hang in the air, forcing him to answer.

The block is lighter than I thought it’d be and I don’t recognize the broad with a closer look either. It’s not his ex-wife, or his current girlfriend. Not that I thought Luna or whatever her name was, the fling of the month, would have a place in his office.

“My sister,” James says, answering the unasked question. “A Christmas gift.”

I nod my head once, putting the block back down and waiting for him to answer me.

“Bruce didn’t do anything, so of course the charges didn’t stick,” James states in an eerily calm voice. “We knew he was innocent.” James pulls out a drawer and shuffles something inside of it, but I can’t see what. He doesn’t elaborate or give any room to further the conversation that we should have.

“What’s done is done, and there’s nothing more to say.”

“That’s not what Sam told me. She told me she’s scared.” It’s the only reason I let her get so close. She’s terrified that the truth is going to come out. She helped me, so she’d go down with me.

“Whose fault is that?” James sneers.

“She’s your wife,” I say, pushing out the words through my clenched teeth.

“I don’t have a wife,” he answers me with a sly smile, as if he’s clean of this mess. As if it’s all on me. Deep down in my gut, I know it is.

“Ex then,” I concede and add, “I didn’t know the divorce had been finalized.” He picks up a pen and taps it against the desk but doesn’t take his eyes off me. It hasn’t gone through yet, according to Samantha. All the money needs to be split one way or the other, and neither him nor Samantha, his ex-partner in this business and future ex-wife, wants to take less than the other.

“Either way, what’s done is done and the two of you need to let it die.”

“An innocent man—”

“Got off!” He looks me in the eyes as he leans forward and adds, “And a guilty man got away.”

“We should have come forward.”

“Should have, but you listened to a shady bitch. That’s your problem, not mine.”

My gaze falls to the desk as my fingers itch to form a fist. I called him. The number I dialed that night was to his office. I had no idea she’d be the one who answered.