Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 58952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Lauren swallowed hard. If only that were true, then she’d be sitting beside a different man. One who hadn’t given her every indication he was about to let her go. A man who would have fought for her.
But despite everything, Chase was a good guy. A victim of a shitty upbringing that had skewed his views on relationships and commitment to a woman, but still a solid, honorable man.
As she felt his car make the familiar turns and stops toward her apartment building, the pain in her chest increased. And since Chase hadn’t mentioned seeing her again, she resigned herself to the reality of their situation. This was the end.
The vehicle came to a stop. The engine shut off, and Lauren forced her eyes back open, glancing at Chase, determined to keep things amicable despite her feeling so shattered inside.
“Thank you for standing in as my boyfriend for the weekend. I appreciate it.” She hated how impersonal her words sounded, but she didn’t know what else to say.
He gave her a very poor attempt at a smile. “I think the weekend accomplished what you needed for your family.”
“Yes, it did,” she agreed, and for that, she was grateful.
She got out of the car, and he did the same, meeting up with her at the trunk where he pulled out her luggage.
“So, what are you going to tell your parents about us?” he asked, his voice low, somber even.
He was referring to their inevitable breakup. She shrugged, trying to remain indifferent when her emotions were a tangled mess in her chest. “That things didn’t work out. People break up all the time.”
He nodded, and she could see the conflict in his eyes. The pained expression on his face told her that he was having as difficult a time letting her go as she was with walking away.
She’d never been the type of woman to beg and plead for a man to want her. But she realized she couldn’t leave Chase without telling him how she truly felt about him—even knowing it wouldn’t change his decision.
She cleared her throat. “There’s something I want you to know, Chase,” she said, holding his gaze. “I care about you. In fact, I’m halfway in love with you.”
He groaned, sounding like a man tortured. “Lauren—”
She cut him off and rushed on, not wanting to hear his platitudes. “I hope you don’t come to regret letting go of something that has the potential to make you happy. You might not think you’re capable of being happy, but I’ve seen it this weekend. I felt it. I lived it with you because you made me happy, too.” She stepped up to him and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “I wish it could have been different for us. Goodbye, Chase.”
His jaw clenched, turmoil swirling in the depths of his eyes, but when he didn’t say anything in return, she grabbed the handle of her luggage and followed the walkway leading up to her building.
At the beginning of this past weekend with Chase, she’d promised to keep her heart out of the equation, but that was before she’d seen the man beneath the façade he put up for the rest of the world. And that man had been impossible to resist.
* * *
For what felt the dozenth time, Chase attempted to review the prospectus on his computer screen, seeing the financial and investment data, but his brain was having a hard time retaining the information. Which was a problem, when he needed to assess whether this particular investment aligned with his client’s financial goals and risk tolerance.
He groaned in frustration at his inability to concentrate and sat back in his leather chair, rubbing his fingers across his forehead. Being distracted was par for the course the past four days, since watching Lauren walk away from him while struggling internally with all the foreign emotions waging war inside of him. There had been panic and dread at the thought of never seeing her again, and worse was the hurt he’d seen in her eyes because causing her pain was the last thing he’d ever intended to do.
And then there was the crushing amount of regret he couldn’t shake, no matter how hard he’d tried. Telling himself he’d done the right thing was a fucking bitter pill to swallow, especially when he was miserable without her.
Chase wasn’t a man who’d harbored a lot of regrets in his life. Even as a child, when his mother had walked out without so much as a goodbye and his own father had been emotionally and mentally unavailable, Chase had done whatever it had taken to survive and get himself to the point where he only had to think about himself.
Having two absentee parents had forced him to grow up fast. That lack of unconditional love and guidance throughout his formative years had taught him to rely only on himself, to the exclusion of forming emotional attachments with others because he refused to live through that kind of painful disappointment ever again.