Tear You Apart Read online

  He doesn’t, even as I’m grabbing up my purse and sliding along the smooth vinyl toward him. I bump against him. “Move!”

  He won’t. I don’t want to cause a scene. And sitting this close, I can feel his thigh on mine. I can feel the heat coming off him. When he slides a hand between my legs beneath the cover of the table, all I can do is let him.

  “Everyone’s busy,” I tell him.

  His fingers press, press, press. “My ex went out of town. I had my kid. I was busy, Elisabeth.”

  To anyone looking at us, we simply appear to be deep in conversation. There’s enough distance between us, the angle is just right to hide the fact he’s inching up my skirt to get inside my panties. At the last minute, I clamp my thighs shut, trapping his hand before he can.

  “Then you should’ve told me.”

  There’s more to it than that. I can see it in his face. He twists his wrist a little, but I don’t give him even a quarter of an inch.

  “I told you—”

  “Bullshit.” I lean a little closer when the waiter passes by, lowering my voice to keep it from attracting attention. The heat of Will’s hand against my bare skin is beginning to burn. “It’s an excuse, and a shitty one. You think I wouldn’t understand if you told me you had to take care of your kid? You think I’d be some kind of bitch about it?”

  Steadily, he works his hand a little higher. His knuckles brush my panties before he twists again to press my clit. I do not move except for the rise and fall of my shoulders when I take a breath. My muscles ache from the effort of keeping him away. When I relax the tiniest bit, he takes advantage, pressing harder. Twisting so infinitesimally that nobody would be able to tell.

  He can’t see the golden stars beginning to creep into the edges of my vision, but I’m sure he must see something in my eyes, because his hand moves just a little faster. His pupils are so wide-open his eyes have gone dark. His tongue slips out to touch the center of his bottom lip.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” Will says, but low and under his breath.

  I do not want to let him see how good he’s making me feel, because I don’t want to be feeling it. But when I put my hand over his, it’s not to push it away. I grip his wrist tight, holding him closer.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “You do.”

  I am close, so close, but not going over. The waiter shows up then with a dessert tray, and I pull away. I shake my head at the pies and cakes, and decline a box for my leftovers as I slide toward the other end of the booth, now cleared by the busboy. I assure the waiter everything was fine, though I can see by the way he eyes my plate that he takes my uneaten food as a personal affront. I get out of the booth and push past him and out of the restaurant to the New York City street outside, and I breathe in exhaust and heat and the scents of puke and piss, and I blink away the last flutters of gold Will’s touch gave me.

  I’m halfway back to the gallery when he catches up to me. He falls into step beside me without saying anything. He follows me through the door I don’t bother to hold open for him, and down the hall past Naveen’s blessedly empty office and into my own. Then, when I whirl on him to tell him to get the fuck out, he shuts my door. The lock clicks.

  We sweep my desk clean. Paper clips scatter. Then he’s inside me, and nothing else matters but this.

  After, with his forehead pressed to mine and the taste of his sweat on my lips, Will says, “I was ignoring you on purpose.”

  I cup his face in my hands and kiss him. “I know you were.”

  We disentangle, comb and straighten. He fills a paper cup from my water cooler and drains it, then crumples the cup. I pull my hair back with a spare elastic from my drawer and swipe my face with powder. Fix my lipstick. Will is glancing at the door, ready to make his escape, when I finish. I recognize the look.

  “You don’t have to talk to me every day,” I tell him carefully. “If it’s too much. But you can’t just abandon me, Will. That’s not fair. I deserve better than for you to just disappear. Frankly, you deserve better than to be that sort of guy.”

  “I came back,” he begins, and stops when I don’t smile.

  “You can have a life. I expect you to have a life. I have one, too, you know.”

  His brow furrows. “Yeah. Believe me, I know.”

  And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t have an answer for it. So much to say and nothing seems right, so we stare at each other, too far apart to touch.

  “Did you...really miss me?” I almost don’t ask, in case the answer isn’t what I want to hear.

  He nods.

  I shouldn’t feel so relieved. I shouldn’t feel anything for him, but there’s no holding it back. No stopping it. I sag against the desk a little. “Good. I want you to miss me. A lot.”

  “I worry this is going to make trouble for you.”

  “It might.” My chin lifts. Shoulders and spine straighten. “But that’s my problem.”

  “It would be mine, too.” Will rubs at his mouth with his first and middle fingers. “Sometimes, I think we should stop. Before it’s too late. Before we do something that we can’t take back.”

  “It’s already too late,” I tell him. “We’ve already done it. It’s done, Will. We can’t take it back. That’s the way stuff like this works.”

  He won’t move, so I do. I pull him closer, step by step, until he takes me in his arms. We fit just right, Will and I, and I don’t want to let him go.

  “You’re my kryptonite. I don’t know why.” My words are muffled against his neck. I can’t stop myself from nibbling, just a little, and I can’t stop myself from telling him the truth. “But if you don’t want to talk to me anymore...if you don’t want to see me...”

  His arms tighten, just a little, around me. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  I look at him. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  We both smile at the same time.

  “Just don’t ever disappear on me again. If you have to stop talking to me—”

  “I don’t want to stop talking to you.”

  “Then...don’t. We’ll find a balance.” I say this more confidently than I feel, but it seems the only thing to say.

  Then I kiss him, kiss him, kiss him until neither of us can breathe.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Find a balance. That’s what I’d told Will we should do. It was certainly what I believed I wanted when I said it, but sitting here alone on a Friday night with nothing but a carton of ice cream and a spoon to keep me company, I’m feeling decidedly...unbalanced.

  We’ve been cautious with each other. Not talking every day. It isn’t like it used to be. There’s a distance. I don’t like it, but I understand it. We haven’t seen each other in what feels like forever, and though I’d told him I would be alone this weekend, he’d already planned to have his son.

  I try to miss my husband instead. Isn’t that what good wives do? Pine for their mates when they’re away on business trips? It’s what Andrea would do, and even though she’s my best friend, I shudder at the thought of ever being like that.

  Still, I try. I thumb his number into my phone. Ross picks up just before the call gets shunted to voice mail. “Hi.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. What’s up with you?” I keep my voice light, just a little teasing.

  “Working,” he says, after a hesitation that’s just a little too long. “Finishing up some stuff, then heading out for dinner.”

  He’s in Arizona. I forgot about the time difference. “Oh, right. Where are you going?”

  “There’s a Ruth’s Chris Steak House here. We’re going there.”

  “Out, after?” I know how those guys work.

  “With clients.”

  “Have fun,” I say, and add impulsively, “Maybe some pret