Chapter One
Kat
Crap. I’m going to be late.
I check the clock on my phone for the seventeenth time as my car service heads for the Houston airport. If I miss this flight, Dane will never forgive me. Two years of marriage, and I know that for a fact.
“United Airlines, right?” the driver asks.
“Yes. Please. My flight boards in less than an hour.”
He glances up in the rearview mirror and rolls his eyes at me. “I hope you don’t have to check bags. They might not let you.”
“I don’t need to check bags. Just . . . hurry.”
He shakes his head and mumbles something to himself before taking the lane heading for the United terminal. I can already picture my early-for-everything husband waiting at the gate, glancing at his watch every three minutes and wondering if I’m going to make him take our anniversary trip alone.
I should have skipped the Brazilian wax. I don’t know why I thought forty-five minutes of someone tearing the hair off my lady parts might somehow help bridge the chasm between us.
Now I look like a plucked chicken, and my husband might strangle me.
My flight from Dallas touched down at seven o’clock this morning, and I hurried home to find Dane had already left for the office. Not a good sign for me. After a mad dash up to the bedroom, I dumped out my carry-on of suits and blouses on the bed and grabbed a handful of bikinis (I’m praying they still fit and they match), some dresses from those exotic weekend getaways that seem like they were part of a different life, and a random selection of other shorts, T-shirts, cover-ups, and sandals. My toiletry bag never moves from its zipper compartment, but when does it ever? With my suitcase reloaded, I made it to the spa by nine, in time to transform my blond mane from a work-weary look into vacation ready.
This is how I live now. Rushing from here to there, barely stopping to breathe. If I don’t give myself free time to think, I won’t break.
Must. Stay. Busy.
Now I’m pasting a smile on my face and pretending to be excited about taking a vacation that overlaps with the second-most devastating day in my life.
I can’t believe you’ve been gone for a year.
Grief wells up, and like I’ve practiced since I dragged myself out of bed a week after the funeral, I push it down and swallow the urge to cry.
This is why I don’t take vacations. This is why I work myself to the bone, spending more time in airports, hotels, and conference rooms, solving my clients’ problems so I don’t have time to worry about my own.
At least theirs are fixable.
But I’m trying because Dane was adamant. He didn’t even tell me about the trip until he’d already booked it and I couldn’t say no.
The horn of a rental-car shuttle blares behind us, jerking me back into the present as my driver swerves to steal someone’s spot in front of the terminal.
“Better get moving, lady. You’re gonna be late.”
I throw open the door and yank my carry-on out of the car. Thank God this goes on my business account, and I don’t have to waste time paying him.
“Thank you,” I yell over my shoulder as I rush toward the sliding doors.
I breeze past the check-in counter because veteran traveler that I am, I’ve already got my boarding passes on my phone, and head for the expedited security line.
Thirty-nine minutes until departure. I got this.
Twenty-six minutes later, I finally get through security and rush down the hallway to the gate, which, of course, is at the very end of the terminal.
Just like I pictured, Dane is standing at the edge of the seating area, phone to his ear, glancing at the clock above the head of the gate agent.
“Hey. Sorry. I’m here.”
He turns toward my voice. Brown eyes that are a perfect match to his short dark-brown hair sweep over me. His brows slash into a deep V.
It’s a complete one-eighty from how he’d grin and then catch me when I’d throw myself into his arms when we met at the airport on our stolen weekends away. But that was before everything changed.
Dane ends the call and shoves his phone in the pocket of his gray shorts. His white T-shirt strains over the thick muscles of his shoulders and arms, revealing gray-and-black ink that’s usually hidden under the sleeves of the starched shirts he normally wears for work.
“Jesus, Kat. I thought this was your way of telling me it’s over.”
His words hit me in the stomach like a fist.
“What?”
“You haven’t answered my texts since last night, including the three I sent you this morning to see if you were even coming. I get that business comes first with you, but seriously, what the hell?”
I stare at him, feeling like I’m looking at a stranger instead of my husband. “Over?”
“What else am I supposed to think when you go radio silent like that?”
Fumbling for my phone, I stare down at it like I’m holding alien technology. “I didn’t get any texts.”
“That’s hard to believe since I’ve sent a half dozen.”
“We’ve finished our pre-boarding and now are boarding Group One, our first-class cabin,” the woman at the podium announces.
Dane grabs the strap of his duffel and hefts it over his shoulder. “Let’s just get on the fucking plane.”
Two years of marriage, and it’s already come to this.
It’s all my fault.
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