Finding Him (Covet 2)

I sighed. “Be myself.”

“That’s tragic.”

“Yeah, well, so is high school,” I joked. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to prove I could handle the company. I swear I was born with a calculator in one hand and a spreadsheet in the other.”

“And did you?”

“Hmm?”

“Prove yourself?” she asked, resting her forearms on the table. The sky was getting dark, and I could see new snow starting to fall. Even though we finally had cell service, it looked like we were in for another night together without rescue.

“Well . . .” I swirled the wine in my glass. “That depends. According to him it will be a cold day in hell before I’m ever on his level—but if you look at what I’ve done with the company, the stocks, the portfolio, and projections for—”

Keaton closed her eyes and started to snore.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I boring you?”

She opened one eye and then the other. “I asked about you proving yourself, and now you’re talking about portfolios . . . It’s a simple question. Did you accomplish what you set out to do?”

I licked my dry lips. “Unfortunately, yes.”

God, where was more alcohol or a sedative when I needed it?

I didn’t want to travel down memory lane.

I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about myself, my shortcomings, or my fears.

It was easy when she was the focus of conversation.

Damn it.

“Why is that unfortunate?” she asked, holding her wineglass with both hands.

“Because . . .” I was seconds away from claiming a migraine when I eyed the computer. She’d told me her beginning; it wouldn’t be fair to lie about my end, would it? “That’s it, the case is closed. I had one singular goal in life. I accomplished it, and now I’m at the end of a road, and I can’t find it in myself to do anything but stand there.”

“Is standing there so bad?”

“Yeah, it is, especially when you’ve been running during your entire existence. What do you do when you realize that accomplishing everything you set out to do leaves you feeling just as empty as you were before, or even more so?” She was quiet, her eyes searching mine. “My brother says I need a hobby.”

“A man without a destination isn’t lost . . .” She shrugged. “He’s just exploring.”

“Well, exploring feels a hell of a lot like being lost.”

“Do you like it?”

“Being lost?”

“No.”

She set her wine down. “Your job, do you like it?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt out yes then laugh at her for even asking such a stupid question. I was incredible at my job. I was rich. I made other people rich. People knew me.

Not the real me.

Not the me I wanted them to actually know or care about.

I sighed. “There’s this park bench I used to pass on my run every morning. An elderly lady used to sit there with a purple jacket, purple hat, a cane, full makeup, and a bag of bread. She was there every day feeding the birds, even in a torrential downpour, and then one day she was just . . . gone.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.” My throat felt thick. “But I noticed. And I bet other people noticed too, because she was the sort of person you took notice of. And I couldn’t help but wonder, after a few weeks of her absence, why it bothered me so much.”

She leaned in. “Why did it? She was a stranger.”

My smile was sad as I looked away. “Because it made me wonder if I possessed enough redeeming qualities for anyone to miss me. They’d miss the money, the lavish parties, they’d miss the attention—but would they miss me? And then”—I stood and grabbed my plate—“the worst happened, I almost died, and I woke to find out that the world not only couldn’t care less about my absence, but it was better without me in it. My brother was better at my job, and it took exactly four weeks for my fiancée of three years to fall in love with him. The world, it seemed, didn’t need Julian Tennyson, and I’ve been struggling with that truth ever since.” I put my dishes in the sink and gave a defeated smile. “I, um, I’m going to head to bed.”

Keaton quickly stood and made her way over to me. Without speaking, she pulled me into her arms and hugged me, then whispered against my chest, “You’re wrong.”

Chapter Seventeen

KEATON

“No. I will not go out with you,” I said for the thirty-second time as Noah followed me down the hall, a long-stem red rose between his teeth. I stopped at the nurses’ station and sighed. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

The rose made its way to about an inch from my face. The insane patient was dangling it like a carrot. This was the third week I had been forced to put up with him.