“What the fuck, Taryn? You actually think I’m screwing with his head?” Cora exclaimed. “I love him but I’m fucking terrified to move forward.”
“You should be terrified. That’s how you know that someone really matters.”
“I just don’t know if I’m ready for this. After—”
Taryn interrupted her and said, “I swear to fucking god if you so much as utter Bryce’s name, I’m going to flip out. I get it. He was a shithead. That is undeniable. He was nowhere near breaking your heart, though. No one that you’ve dated over the years has gotten anywhere near your heart. No one since Jamie.”
Cora let out a watery sigh and started to speak.
Taryn cut her off and said, “Nope. Not quite done. So now you have a second chance with the only person that you’ve ever loved. He’s here and establishing a life. He wants to love you.”
“When we split up last time, I was a fucking mess, Taryn. I don’t know that I could deal with that again,” Cora said.
“The timing was wrong last time. You didn’t honestly think that a long-distance relationship would be sustainable, did you?”
“I guess not,” Cora said. “I had hoped, but deep down I knew telling him to go was the beginning of the end.”
“And now you’ve got a second chance, honey. You’re both grown now and you’ve got something to bring to the table. When you guys are together, you practically light up the goddamned room. You’re telling me that because some shitty guy you didn’t even love was an asshole, you’re too scared to take what you want?”
“I’m scared. I may not have loved him, but I trusted him.”
“So did I. I thought he was a decent guy. He turned out to be a pathological liar. That’s the thing about those types. Since they believe their own lies, it’s kind of hard to tell,” Taryn said. “All that shit aside, do you really picture Jamie deciding to randomly fuck other people? Do you really think he’d be capable of that?”
“No. No! Of course I don’t,” Cora said.
“So, you love him...and you trust him. I rest my case.”
Cora shook her head as it all came together in her mind. Once again, she had been complicating something that was incredibly simple. “I gotta go, Taryn. I need to talk to Jamie,” she said.
“Atta girl,” Taryn said. “Call me tomorrow and let me know how it went.”
“Thank you,” Cora said quietly.
“You’re welcome. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Bye.”
Cora hung up her cellphone and hurried down the hallway to Jamie’s office door. She knocked, got no response, and then moved back into her office. If he wasn’t here, he was likely at home or at the gym. She needed to go see him. Taryn had been completely right.
Jamie had become her rock. Her north star. He had woven himself into the fabric of her life. They went to bed together, woke up together. He had shown her in a million different ways what a beautiful person he was. He knew her hopes, her fea
rs, and every single one of her neuroses. Still, he loved her. How on earth could she have ever considered walking away from that?
She thought back and realized that he had been involved in every single thing that had ever mattered. He had held her when she was sick. He had quizzed her when she had been freaking out over the GRE. He had given her everything. His name was written across her heart with indelible ink.
Hands shaking, she picked up her desk phone and dialed the security desk. It rang six times and then dropped into voicemail. “Thomas. It’s Cora. I’ve got a little bit of an emergency and I need to leave. I...if you’re not down there, I’m just going to chance it and walk out by myself.”
She hung up the phone and said, “Dammit.” She gathered her purse and briefcase, and then locked up her office and headed for the elevator. She hoped that Thomas would be out front.
Unfortunately, when she got downstairs, he was nowhere to be found. She waited another minute or two in the lobby, then decided to leave. She dug her keys out of her purse and walked out the front door. She made her way into the parking lot, her finger on the panic button just in case.
She was tense as she walked out to her car. She jumped at every little sound. She froze when she heard a rustle in the bushes. When a squirrel skittered out in front of her, she let out a deep breath and said, “Jesus Christ. Get it together, Cora.”
When she rounded the side of the building she heard a loud crack, then felt a white-hot pain throughout her entire body. She tried to scream but nothing came out.
Cora looked down and saw the bloom of red on her silk blouse. Realizing she was in danger, she turned around and tried to make her way back to the building. She came face to face with Warren Aimes.
He raised the gun and fired two more times. Her body was wracked with even more pain as she fell to the ground. She fumbled for the panic button on her key chain. Right after she heard it go off, everything went blissfully dark.