I come to with the morning sun streaming in my eye and a hand on my hip, gently shaking me awake.
“Abbi? It’s time to get up.”
I groan, squinting against the light as I check the clock. Eight a.m. “I thought we had all day.” He’s the insane early bird, not me. The acrid taste in my mouth is making me wince. “Can I have some water?”
“Right here.” The mattress beside me sinks and a cold glass is set into my hand, along with two Tylenol. I struggle to sit up and swallow the pills. “God, why did you let me drink so much!” Braving the sunlight, I look up to see Henry’s flat glare and I immediately drop my gaze. I’m naked.
“Your dress is hanging in the bathroom. It’ll need to be dry cleaned,” he says as if reading my thoughts.
“Why…. Oh, God.” I cringe as memories of vomiting into a toilet flood my thoughts. My first night together with Henry and I spend it drunk and puking. Those memories quickly give way to more horrific ones—of Margo and Joel at the bar, of Margo’s eyes locked on Henry, of Henry entranced by her.
Of Henry admitting he’s already slept with her.
“Oh my God.” I curl up into a ball, feeling ready to vomit again.
“Yeah.” He sighs, his gaze drifting off toward the window. He’s already showered and dressed. “Come on. If you want a shower before the plane, you’d better get it now.”
My eyes begin to sting with tears. I’m not nearly as upset about him sleeping with Margo as I was last night. Now I’m feeling more stupid than anything, especially given it happened so long ago. And panicked, that I have permanently screwed up things between us. “So that’s it? We have a fight and you throw me on a plane and send me home first thing in the morning?”
“That wasn’t a fight, Abbi. That was you acting like an unconfident little girl. You know how unappealing that is to me.”
“I’m sorry, I just….” Why did I have to drink so much? I would have been fine, had I stayed away from those shots. “You were watching them. Watching her. I got upset.”
He heaves a sigh. “Look, I should have told you. I thought about it, but you are so goddamn insecure about us as it is, I didn’t want to make a big deal of something that meant nothing to me.”
“How can I not be insecure about you? I don’t know a woman who doesn’t want you, Henry. And I can’t compete with a woman like that.” She’s up to bat in a stadium and I’m still on the playground.
And she was calling his name, so seductively.
“You already know how I feel about you.”
“No I don’t!” I exclaim. “When have you ever told me how you feel?”
“I show you, Abbi. Every time I’m with you.”
“Like you showed Margo?”
He glares at me, annoyed. “I haven’t touched her since that night. I haven’t touched another woman since the day I met you. You can’t say the same.”
I flinch at the reminder.
“Look.” He sighs, hangs his head. “Nothing good will come of talking about any of them, so let’s stop that right now.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t sound like he’s ending things, at least. Though I can still sense his mood and it’s sour. So, I peel myself up again to crawl toward him, curling my head into his lap because I can’t punish him with my breath right now. “Let me make it up to you.” After I brush my teeth a thousand times and shower in scalding water.
Henry’s chuckle is soft but I sigh all the same, because he’s laughing. His fingers stroke through my hair. “I wish we could, but we really do have to leave.”
“Why?”
He slides me off his lap and moves for his closet. That’s when I notice the two suitcases sitting next to the doorway that weren’t there yesterday. “We just got our annual projections in and two of my Wolf hotels are underperforming. The one in Barcelona is on the verge of shutting down. That’ll be the first Wolf Hotel in history to be forced to close because of economic problems. I need to be on the ground over there to try and fix this. Fire some fucking people and rebuild my teams.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Don’t know. I’m flying to LA today, and then to Wolf Cove to meet with the engineers about the ski hill. After that, I’m guessing I’ll be overseas for five or six weeks. Could be longer.”
Five to six weeks? Maybe more?
Do we have any chance of lasting that long without seeing each other?
“I’ll meet you downstairs.” He grabs the handles on his suitcases and disappears out the door, now in full Henry business mode.
Dragging myself out of bed, I head for the shower, my heart heavy.
~ ~ ~
“Give us a minute, Miles.”
I smile at Miles before ducking out the door of Henry’s jet, though inside I’m insanely jealous of Henry’s assistant for the fact that he’s traveling with Henry. I want my job back. I want to travel around the world with him.
Henry leads me to a black sedan waiting at the edge of the tarmac for the forty-minute drive back to Greenbank. “I’m sorry that I had to cut this trip short.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” That’s all I’ve been since I woke up: understanding. Trying to soften the damage I might have caused with my tantrum last night, even though I hate this. Hate the fact that he’s leaving—again. Hate how we’re leaving things, feeling strained.
I took longer than I needed to in the shower, hoping Henry would join me and allow me to apologize for my behavior.
He did step into the bathroom, but only to tell me to hurry up.
Then I hoped for a chance to reconcile on the hour-long plane ride.
But Miles was there.
Now I’m considering pulling him into this sedan, but the windows aren’t tinted.
“I’ll call you,” he murmurs, handing my bag to the driver to slide into the trunk.
I take a deep breath and, pressing myself against the contours of his body, I stretch to my tiptoes to kiss his mouth, dragging my tongue against the seam of his lips the way he likes it.
He groans. “Abbi….” I inhale the smell of his cologne, and it brings me back to those first days at Wolf Cove. “I miss Alaska. I want to go back so badly.”
He stares down at me, an unreadable look in his eyes. “So then come.”
I smile. “Funny.”
“I’m serious. Fly to Seattle on Wednesday. I’ll meet you there and we’ll go up together.”
“Seriously?” My heart swells with relief. If he’s inviting me out, he’s still in this. He’s still willing to try “us.”
“I leave for Beijing on Friday morning, so it’ll be a short trip.”
Two days with Henry. Two days in my favorite place.
“Okay.”
His brow spikes. “Okay?”
“I think so. I’ll have to check.” I already took off on Jed and Mama for a night. This might be pushing it.
He tucks my still-damp hair off my face. “Let me know. Miles will book your flights.”
Leaning down, he plants one more, deeper kiss on my lips. “Gotta go.”
I watch him jog back to his plane, a smile on my face.
I’m going back to Alaska.
And I don’t care what Mama says.
