Now I had a second chance, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up. I knew I needed to get past her anger and hurt, but I felt confident that I could. The love we had was too perfect, too pure to have died. I was patient and persistent and confident. Kate would be mine again.
CHAPTERTWO
Kate
Sam exited my restaurant and I let out a frustrated growl. God, he could be so infuriating.
“He’s hot,” Samantha said from behind the bar. “He’s probably the type that knows it though, right?”
I nodded. Sam had always been confident, and I suppose his looks helped. So he had a good upbringing with parents who loved him. In fact, it was probably his parents' influence that had him leaving me. After all, he had to do right by Sandra.
I went back to my office and shut the door while my staff finished cleaning up. I used the time to sort through my thoughts. My thoughts were easy enough to manage. I was beyond annoyed. It was my emotions that were haywire, and I couldn't get them to settle. How dare he walk into my establishment and act like nothing happened?
He said he lived out here now. Why? Where were Sandra and the baby? Had he left them? That seemed unlikely, considering how important family was to him. Maybe she left him. A part of me hoped she had. He deserved a taste of his own medicine.
What did it matter? Who cared? Not me.
When Samantha and Dana finished their closing duties, I walked out of the building with them, locking the door behind us.
Their glances at me told me they were curious about Sam, but they were smart enough not to ask. They knew me well enough to know that my answer would be an irritated comment telling them to let it go. I wasn't one of those women who whined about her private life. At least not out loud to my staff or my friends.
It was nearly three in the morning when I arrived at my condo, but I was too agitated to go to bed. I poured myself a glass of wine and pulled out a box that had been hidden away in the depths of my closet, bringing it to my couch.
With the box sitting next to me, I lifted the lid and pulled out the top item. It was a mockup of the engagement announcement Sam and I intended to send out. I didn't care about announcing our engagement, but Sam had been so eager to tell the world.
Even Ethan thought it was a good idea. He said that even if Grandfather wasn't impressed that I was marrying someone from the Clarke family, all his cronies would be.
I crumpled up the paper and tossed it across the room. The next item was a stack of photographs. The first few were of my graduation from UCLA. It was only five years ago, and yet it felt like an eternity.
I brushed my fingers over the youthful face in the picture, remembering how happy I was. And naïve. I thought I had my life all figured out then.
As it turned out, I didn't know anything. Within a few weeks of this picture being taken, my heart had been squashed and my financial future destroyed. I learned then that I couldn’t trust anyone. Well, anyone except my brother Ethan and Lucy, although it wasn’t that long ago that my trust in them had been challenged when I discovered they were having a secret relationship.
The next photographs were of me and Sam on a trip to the beach. Behind that were pictures of me and Sam on Valentine's Day. God. I looked so happy. I wished I could go back and tell that woman to build a wall around her heart.
I worked my way through the photographs, going through my and Sam’s history in reverse, until I reached the first picture we'd ever taken together. It had been shot a week after Halloween when he'd arranged to take me out on his uncle’s boat. It was romantic and fun, and while I’d already fallen for him, on that trip I knew I wanted to spend my life with him. How dumb was that?
I grabbed the stack of photos and threw them across the room. Digging through the box, I found a dried rose, the first flower that Sam had ever given me.
There was the Christmas card, which was the first time he ever wrote “I love you” to me. So much happiness was stored in this box, and it was all a lie.
I picked up the entire box, throwing it across the room, and then wept like a sap. I couldn't believe how raw and fresh the pain still felt after all these years.
It pissed me off that he was still under my skin. It couldn't have helped that I kept the engagement ring and all these mementos. Maybe I should've burned it all the day he left.
At the time, I kept them because I never wanted to forget how brutal love could be. I didn't want to forget that trust was an idiotic thing to give to somebody. If I ever felt an inkling to trust or love again, these would pull me back to reality.
I gulped the rest of my wine, setting the glass on the coffee table and leaving the entire mess. I went to my bedroom and changed into my pajamas. I was climbing into bed when I changed my mind about leaving the memories of Sam strewn throughout my living room. I didn't want to wake up to them. All this emotion I was feeling now would end tonight. In order to achieve that, I had to get rid of all memories.
I trudged back out to the living room and gathered all the mementos, shoving them into the box. I took the box to the kitchen and pressed my foot on the lever of the garbage can, intending to throw it all away. The box wouldn't fit into the can. I started to pull the lid off to dump the contents but stopped.
"Damn him." Unable to throw away that part of my life, I carried the box back to my room, hiding it away in the depths of my closet where it had lived since moving into the condo last year when I got my trust fund back.
As I lay in bed, I had to hope that Sam didn't mean what he said about taking on a challenge of having me change my mind about him. If he did try, hopefully, he’d give up when he realized my attitude toward him wouldn't change.
It was true what they said about being once bitten, twice shy. I was never going to be bitten by the love bug again, and especially not by the person who broke my heart.
The next day, I arrived at the Sea Siren early, hiding myself away in my office to finish up the work I hadn't been able to complete the night before. By the time I finished, I could hear the sounds of the cook and other staff arriving to get ready for the lunch crowd.