Fight or Flight

“You know, before you said all that I was actually feeling pretty good about being your best buddy.” I scowled at him.

“What?” He shrugged before wolfing down the last of his sandwich.

“That’s chauvinistic crap.”

Leo wiped his mouth with his napkin and gestured to a bench on our right. I reluctantly followed him, hoping he was going to save himself. We settled onto the bench and I continued to nibble at my tuna melt, waiting for a response.

“It’s not crap. I wish it were. But there are a lot of women out there like that in my experience. Some guys see her as the marrying kind because that’s all they want. Someone to stroke their ego, etc. But men like me, if we’re smart, we learn from that lesson and move on.”

Understanding dawned. “Your first wife?”

“Interested in nothing but my family money.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, now I know better. If I’d done it the right way the first time, the thought of marriage wouldn’t make my balls jump back up inside my body.”

I’d just taken a sip of my iced tea and it promptly exploded out of my mouth in my shocked amusement. Leo threw his head back in a rich, deep laughter, and I coughed and laughed along with him. As our hilarity faded to gentle mirth, Leo handed me a clean napkin so I could wipe the iced tea off my chin.

It was as we were sharing a smile that I felt the burn on the side of my face.

I knew that sensation.

Tense, I followed it, and my breath stuttered at the sight of Caleb standing in the middle of the path. I didn’t have to wonder how long he’d been there, because the furious glower on his face told me it was long enough to have witnessed my camaraderie with Leo.

“Caleb.” My voice came out in a surprised croak. I cleared it and stood up, sensing Leo stand too. He shifted his body, almost protectively, close to mine. “Uh, what are you doing here?”

“Stella told me you take your lunch in the gardens when the weather is nice.”

Damn Stella.

His glacial stare suddenly fixed on Leo.

“Uh … this is my friend Leo. Leo this is my … this is Caleb.”

Caleb’s nostrils flared at the introduction and I cursed myself for forgetting that I’d told him Leo was the guy I was going to date when I thought he wasn’t returning from Scotland.

“Nice to meet you.” Leo stepped forward and stuck out his hand.

Caleb stared at his hand like it was a piece of dung.

I winced.

Leo, however, cool as you please, just dropped his hand. “Or not.” He shrugged, like he didn’t care, and I decided I liked him all the more for it.

“We need tae talk,” Caleb said. I knew it was directed at me, but he was still staring at Leo like he wanted to rip his head off.

I shouldn’t have cared.

But I did.

I felt a smug, soothing satisfaction that I could still make him jealous. It meant he cared. And although it didn’t change what he’d done, it was a small kind of balm to my pain.

“Leo.” I turned to my companion with an apologetic smile. “I should …” I gestured to Caleb. “But it was really nice to see you again.”

“Let’s do lunch. Properly.” He leaned down to kiss my cheek and whispered so only I could hear, “Best bud.” When he pulled back, he winked at me and I knew that all he was asking for was friendship. However, he was deliberately provoking Caleb.

I shook my head, biting back my nervous laughter at his mischievousness, and gave him a little wave as he walked away.

Caleb’s gaze followed him and I swear he looked ready to stalk Leo and murder him.

Ignoring the zing of dangerous thrill at being in his presence again, I started to walk away. “So talk.”

“Where have you been?” he demanded as he caught up with me, grabbing hold of my arm to stop me on the bridge. A young girl passed us, giving us a quizzical look, and Caleb sighed, easing his hold on me.

My arm tingled and I had to force myself from taking the last step that would bring us chest to chest. Instead I looked up into his face, feeling too many emotions—anger, grief, loss, love, hate—to choose one. Anger, however, autonomously decided to trump them all. I yanked my arm away. “Not that it is any of your business anymore, but I had to go to New York to meet a new client.”

“Did you block my number?”

“Yes.”

He ground his teeth together, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “If you had just given me a second tae explain …”

“I’m giving it to you now.”

With a clipped nod, Caleb took hold of my arm again and started walking me off the bridge. We took a right just before the George Washington statue and Caleb stopped us at the end of the path, under the shade of a tree.

“I can see you better here,” he explained, his voice gruff as his eyes seemed to drink in every aspect of my face.

The intensity of his stare made me shiver in awareness and I had to pull my gaze away from his. “Talk, Caleb.”

“I think you’re wonderful.”

Astonished, I felt my gaze fly to his face to determine the seriousness of this statement. He looked at once fierce and sorry.

“I can’t let you think you’re anything else. I tried tae tell you that, but you ran out of my place before I could get the chance. As soon as I realized you thought I was … I’m not Nick. I dinnae think like Nick. No man in his right mind would, Ava. I am sorry for how I acted. I felt ambushed. I wasn’t expecting you tae turn up, let alone force that conversation. I honestly thought if I stopped calling you, you would just protect yourself and move on without ever confronting me. Bringing up nonsense about another woman … I acted like a child. And I’m sorry.”

Before I could even get over the monumental moment of alpha guy Caleb Scott apologizing and admitting to acting like a child, he reached for me, his palms on my neck, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. I knew he could probably feel my pulse racing beneath his hold. “You are the smartest, funniest, most caring, loyal, determined woman I have ever met. Having a beautiful face and a beautiful body doesn’t make you any less of those things and it doesn’t make you more attractive. Who you are makes you beautiful, Ava. When I met you, I thought you were sexy, aye, but the more I got tae know you the more beautiful you became. You are a find, wee yin. A precious find.” He pulled me closer, and I gasped at the frustration and pain in his eyes. “If it could be anyone … it would be you, Ava Breevort. In a heartbeat. But I just …” He sighed, a shuddering, harsh sigh, and I felt the hopes he’d just built up crash as he let me go and stepped back. “I dinnae have that left tae give. She killed it when she—” Caleb cut off, his voice breaking, and he glanced around the gardens as if seeking something.

When he didn’t find it, he stared off into the distance and whispered, “I need you tae be a good memory.” He wrenched his eyes to me again. “I could handle almost anyone else in my life turning into a regret. But not you. I can’t have what we had together going bad. I was an arse for trying tae make it that way. So we end it now the right way. In honesty and kindness. Because I can’t regret you.”

His words were agony. Tears of exasperation filled my eyes. “You know it would have been better if you never tried to explain. Better for me to think of you as a bastard than—”

“Than what?” he bit out impatiently.

I shook my head. “Caleb, don’t you see? You changed me. You made me brave enough to fight against what I was most afraid of and admit that I’m in love with you. I wish I could make you feel brave too. But that’s not going to happen apparently.” I swiped at my tears but refused to break eye contact. He needed to understand the reality of what he was doing to us. “Just because you’ve decided I’m not worth the risk doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to take it again. So I have to thank you for that. Because it might take weeks, months, but I will fight to get over you. I will fight to find someone who loves me and wants to make a future with me. I will move on.”

The look on his face … it nearly crippled me.