He fell into pace with her. “Astrid, honestly, I never meant to hurt you.”
“You’ve been reading my emails.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“Oh, that makes it okay to violate my privacy, does it?”
“No. It’s just my job. And I was just telling Adam and Dylan that I couldn’t do it anymore. Because I like you too much.”
“Bullshit. Leave me alone.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. To my hometown”
“Why in such a hurry?”
“That’s nothing to do with you.”
Her eyes fell on the main entrance for the station, so she headed toward it, ignoring him.
“Something happened back home?” he asked.
She didn’t want to talk to him, but her mind was reeling from her dad’s phone call just now, and the words tumbled out of her mouth. “Someone broke into my childhood bedroom. I’m going back to see what’s been stolen. But it’s nothing that will affect you or your stupid brothers, okay. Now will you just leave me alone?”
She halted at the top of the station steps – determined to get on that train – but a wave of terror washed over her, pinning her to the concrete ground. It was as if there was a force-field was around the station, preventing her from going down into that confined space. Her heart pounded with terror as she gazed at all those people swarming around. The panic rose from her stomach, into her chest, and spiraled in her head, shooting her temperature sky-high and stealing her sense of reality.
“Astrid?” Jake’s echoey voice said from faraway. “Are you feeling okay?”
She clutched her head and swiveled away from the station entrance, but was confronted with the busy Manhattan street – which wasn’t much better.
Jake’s arms steadied her. “It’s okay,” he said. “Come with me.”
She allowed him to guide her to a quieter road that ran alongside the station, then she leaned on the wall, staring at the dirty ground – breathing deeply and trying to calm down. Now that she was safely out of the crowd and away from potential confinement, her dizziness slowly subsided and she focused on Jake’s boots – waiting for her anxiety to pass, which it always did eventually. She realized she’d never noticed before that Jake wore boots with his suit, rather than shoes. He was like a tough workman, wrapped up in designer clothes. He was rugged at heart. But under that tough ruggedness, she knew there was something else… A tenderness lost perhaps even to him.
But at the moment, he was a backstabbing asshole.
She realized he was talking. “I can drive you,” he said. “It’s no problem. My car’s at the Quinlan Brothers’ building. If you stay here I can get it. Or we can go there together.”
She refused to look at him. “No. I don’t need your help.”
“Well you’re not getting on the train, are you?”
“My therapist says I should face the fear. It’s the only way to overcome it. To get over something, you have to go through it. That’s what she says.”
He reached out and caressed her chin, then lifted her face to look at him. He gazed deep into her eyes – deep into her soul. “That’s very commendable, Astrid, but right now, you need to get back to your hometown urgently, right? And you don’t want to get on the train? So let me take you.”
She nodded reluctantly, feeling weak and stupid. She wanted to be brave and tough, like him. She looked down at the ground again, but didn’t argue this time. He wrapped a strong arm around her and pulled her close, then he guided her back through the crowd toward the parking garage. He was so secure and solid. She leaned into him, trying to absorb his strength. Somehow, being in Times Square, among all these frantic people, was okay when she was with him – when he was protecting her from her own fear. But she wanted to be able to do it alone. It just made her resent him even more.
He opened the car door for her and she climbed in, hating herself for being so stupid for not even being able to get on a train – or go into a station.
He turned on the ignition and threw her a kind smile. “Where to then?”
“Northfields. It’s a small town about eighty miles away.”
“I know it. I grew up around there.”
“You did?”