I smile.
The wedding.
“Never.”
“How are you getting where you need to go? You know I can take you.”
“Nah, that’s all right. I’ll leave just like I came. In one pretty damn expensive cab ride.”
Cash shakes his head and smiles. “What the hell kinda cabbies are you using?”
“The desperate kind.”
“Sounds like it.”
“But they make good money.”
“Sometimes desperation pays off.”
And sometimes it doesn’t.
Visions of Marissa settle over me like a cloud. The hurt look on her face when she remembered New Orleans will probably haunt me forever.
“You gonna say good-bye to Olivia?” Cash asks.
I nod. I guess I’d better. She’ll likely be my sister-in-law one day. I’d better make nice.
“I’ll be in touch with a number where you can reach me. I’ll be wanting all the gory details on how you botched a proposal.”
“Shhh.” Cash shushes me as he looks behind him. “She hears everything. Be careful what you say.”
“Who hears everything?” Olivia says, as if right on cue. Cash and I both bust out laughing. “What?” she asks from the doorway, looking confused.
“Nothing, babe,” Cash says, reaching out to draw her to him. A little stab of envy pricks me, but I refuse to dwell on it. It’s time to stop being jealous of my brother and his life. It’s time for me to find my own version of bliss, whatever that might be.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Marissa
I sit, stunned, with my phone in my lap. I find myself doing this a lot lately.
I don’t know what is making me feel short of breath—the fact that Cash just told me everything Nash has done to secure the RICO case, the fact that I’m going to have to make some very tough career and life choices in the very near future, or that Nash is gone.
Gone.
Without a good-bye.
Without another word.
Just gone.
He left things like they were.
Like I demanded he do.
I don’t know what I would like for him to have said, or if there was really anything left to say. But I wish he had. I wish he had tried. I wish he had fought. For me. For us.
But he didn’t. He respected my wishes and he left. Now he’s gone. Forever. Never to be a part of my life. Ever. In any way.
I didn’t expect it to end this way. I mean, I’m no idiot. After the things that happened over the last day or so, I figured it would end sooner or later, that we didn’t stand much of a chance. Even after our one beautiful, surreal night, I knew we were a long shot. But I guess I thought there would be more time or more words or more . . . something. But, instead, there was nothing.
And that’s where I am. Here. Now. With nothing.
And Nash is gone.
I close my eyes. The tears spill between my lashes and down my cheeks. I don’t even try to stop them. There’s no point. These are the first of many that will fall, I feel sure.
There’s no doubt my life is getting ready to become much more difficult. There’s no doubt there’s a hard road ahead. There’s no doubt the day-to-day details of my existence will be dramatically different, as will the people who fill them. But I won’t shed tears over any of that. I feel no sense of loss; only dread and anxiety.
For the most part, I’ll be going it alone. I will have the support of Olivia, of course. And Cash, such as his support will be. And maybe one or two more people, but in the end, I’m alone. When the dust settles and I’ve alienated all the horrible people in my life and I’ve abandoned the only career I’ve ever known and thought I ever wanted, I’ll be left with the fallout.
There may be a great guy who will cross my path one day, but even then, I’ll still be alone. He won’t be Nash. And I’ll never be satisfied with less. There will always be a hole in me, one that no one else can fill.
And that’s the cold, bitter truth. The harsh reality of falling in love with a man who doesn’t want to be held and who can’t be tamed or contained.
The thing is, I never really wanted to tame him or contain him. I just wanted to be a part of his freedom, to fly with him. I wanted to be more like him, not try to make him more like me. I’m trying to escape me, not drag someone into my hell.
Maybe that’s what I did, anyway, by making him a part of my escape. I pulled him into my struggle.
Maybe I expected him to save me. I know I wanted him to. But he did all the rescuing he was going to do the day he brought me home from a Russian mafia prison of sorts. Anything more than that would have to be his idea, something his heart is in. He’d have to come to that conclusion on his own. There’s no swaying or forcing or convincing Nash to do anything. He’s his own man. One hundred percent.
Maybe one day I can be my own woman. One hundred percent.
Maybe today, I’ll be taking the first step.
Cash doesn’t want to be involved in the prosecution because he’d have to assume Nash’s identity again, which he’s opposed to now for some reason, but also because of his father’s involvement. But he wants to be in the loop, so he asked me to request to be a special prosecutor on the case so I can sit second chair and be involved every step of the way.
I think he knows what he’s asking. He knows my father, knows the kind of life I’ve led. He knows that taking on a criminal case would be the social equivalent of moving to the ghettos. It’s something I’d never be forgiven for, that would never be forgotten, and that would change the course of my life irrevocably.
But it’s also just what I need.
And I think it’s what I want.
There’s nothing for me in my old life anymore. I’m not even sure law is where my future is. But I know this is important and it would be the most personally courageous, definitive thing I’ve ever done. And I need to be courageous. I need to embrace the new me. Fully. Publicly. Proudly. If I can’t do that, the new me will shrivel and die in the shadow of the old me. That’s my only other option—to go back to the life I knew, the life I had.
But that’s no option at all.
I think of Nash. He goaded me, as though he thought I couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t. But in a way, I think he was prodding me to do it, like he wanted to see me succeed and be the different person that I so longed to be. And if he were here, maybe he’d be a little bit proud of me for doing it, for being strong. Maybe stronger than he thought.
My heart speeds up.