More wetness hit my cheeks when I nodded. “You’re going to watch me walk away.”
“Yes.”
Once again, I didn’t think the tears could stream faster at how much this man loved me.
My foot felt like it weighed a million pounds when I lifted it over the pavement to take a step, our arms extending to the point where our fingers could no longer hold on.
And they broke …
I took a final look, and then I put my back to him and hurried inside.
It was the only way, or I wouldn’t go.
Once I was in the terminal, I rushed past the crowds to the glass window that overlooked the outside. From here, I was able to see Oliver. He was standing where I had left him, still staring at the entrance as though he was visualizing me move through it one last time.
Then, he got in the taxi and shut the door.
As the driver pulled away, my hands slid down the glass, and my ass hit the ground. Sobs racked my body while I tucked myself into a ball, rocking over the airport floor.
When I was finally strong enough, I took out my phone and pulled up my messages, finding the one I wanted. As I sobbed with the rest of the emotions I had left in me, I started to type.
Me: I’m coming home. xo
Part Four
A love … that never ended.
Forty-Nine
Oliver
“What in the fuck are you still doing here?” Jake asked as he popped his head into my office. “Don’t the important people get to leave early?”
“Then, we’d both be gone,” I said, laughing at my best mate as he sat in the chair in front of my desk. My eyes were on the T-shirt he wore, and I remembered when we’d grabbed it after a concert at The O2 when we were back in London, visiting family. “Do I need to give you a pay raise? Your shirt has a goddamn hole in it.”
He looked down, shaking his head. “It’s fucking Noah,” he said, referring to his nine-year-old. “Emma’s been teaching him to do the laundry, and there’re rips in everything. I don’t know why my wife thinks it’s such a good idea for this to be his chore if everything I fucking own is ruined.” He smiled as he adjusted himself in the chair. “Good thing I work for the largest travel booking site in the country and you can afford the pay raise I’m going to hit you up for.”
I turned my chair, my hands leaving my computer, to face him. “You’re my CFO. If you want a pay raise, you know how to make it happen.”
We were both laughing when there was a knock at the door, and our assistant walked in.
“Should I come back?” she asked, glancing between her bosses.
“No, no.” I waved her over.
“I wanted to give you this before I left.” She held up a folder and then set it on my desk. “It’s the list of interview questions that the station sent over. I printed them out so you can prep.”
“Oh, I’ll take that,” Jake said, snatching the folder before I could grab it.
“I’m going to call and have your dinner delivered,” she said. “Would thirty minutes be all right?”
Knowing there wasn’t anything in my fridge at home, I thanked her and followed it up with, “That’s perfect.” When she left, I glanced over at Jake. “How do they look?”
He got up from his chair, reading as he walked to the window. When he returned to my desk, his grin gave me my answer, but he still said, “You’re going to have fun with some of those.” He took a few steps toward my door. “See you in the morning?”
“You bet.”
Once I watched him leave, I opened the top of the folder and began to go over the questions.
The interview was for the largest business publication in Europe, and they had named me as the highest-earning CEO of the year. The feature would stream live for sixty minutes. It would also include a pre-taped segment, which had filmed at my office, to show all aspects of the business I’d built in Amsterdam after resigning from International Bookings ten years ago.
As I got further down the list, I realized what Jake had meant.
Oliver Bennett, at fifty years old, you’re officially Amsterdam’s most eligible bachelor. Has there never been a leading lady in your life?
The question had no relevance whatsoever to my company, but I understood their interest. How could someone my age, with my success, never settle down? It was actually something I was asked often, but the answer I gave was never honest. The one I would give during the interview wouldn’t be either.
Because no one in this world needed to hear that I had been in love two times in my life and both were with the same woman.
The first was when we had been just kids, and as much as I’d wanted to tell that gorgeous girl not to leave London, I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be the man who had taken her virginity and her future. I couldn’t live with that kind of guilt. The only thing I could do was let her go.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Nothing made me move on. And I never really settled down, partly because I was young and having such a blast with my mates. And partly because Chloe was the girl who had come into my life and turned it upside down.
And then six years later, when the European managers had been forming their US teams, I had seen Chloe Kennedy Hamilton on the list, and every memory I’d tried to let go came rushing back.
I had to have her in my life again.
I didn’t know how much of her I would get; the name change told me she was married. But there was a reason we’d been brought back together, and I had to find out what it was.
I had no expectations when I met her in that corridor. I just wanted to be near her one more time, and if her presence was all I got, I would take it.
But slowly, that sweet girl began to let me in more, and it was like the six years we had been apart had never happened. And she slid into this pattern of traveling home to her husband and spending the rest of the month with me.
All I wanted was what we never got a chance to have the first time.
The possibility of a future.
And those six months …
They were so fucking hard on her.
They were so fucking hard on me.
But they were a gift, and we both knew that.
And we had known when she came back for her second contract, she was going to have to make a decision.
I walked over to the window, pushing my palms on the glass, looking over this city that had always been so hopeful for me, and I remembered when I’d watched Chloe walk into the airport in Amsterdam.
That evening, I’d waited for a text, telling me she had landed.
I got nothing, and she didn’t reply to any of the ones I’d sent her.
Because of her husband, I agreed I would never call, and as much as it hurt, I wouldn’t break her trust, so all I could do was wait.
Every fucking minute was tortuous.
When Monday morning came and I still hadn’t heard from her, I went to Sven’s office and asked if he’d been in touch with the American team to see if they had arrived. I’d tracked the flight, so I knew the answer already, but he assured me everyone was fine. I then asked about Chloe specifically, and he told me that on her last day at the office, right before she left for the evening, the contract she’d signed was actually for termination. She’d canceled the six-month extension and discontinued her employment.