Chapter 20 - 21
Calhoun’s pov~
I almost didn’t recognize the place at first, here was a small rooftop bistro tucked behind the new glass towers of the neighboring Pack’s business district. It had been chosen for its quietness: modern steel and greenery, a place people could disappear into without running into anyone they knew. That was probably the point.
I stepped through the door and my world narrowed to the one figure in the corner. Elodie. She sat with her back to the low city noise, a plain sweater, her hair pulled up into the loose knot she used whenever she wanted to be invisible. It should have been a relief to see her safe; instead it felt like walking into a room that had been emptied of air. One month apart and the ache felt like punishment I hadn’t earned.
She looked different, softer somehow, not the prim woman who sat at my desk. There was no crisp blouse, no neat office hair. There, was the Elodie I used to catch glancing at me during meetings, the one who’d tucked things into my bag without saying why. For a second, I wanted nothing more than to cross the room and press her to me, to fix whatever I had broken.
I forced my smile into place and walked over like a man doing what he knew would be judged later. “Elodie,” I said. “It’s been a while.” My heart raced.
Her eyes didn’t lift right away. When they did, there was no welcome in them, only the flatness of someone who’d rehearsed goodbyes. “Let’s not waste time,” she said. Her voice was small, the way small things can still be sharp. “I only agreed to meet because I needed to close this.”
There it was, a soft blade. I couldn’t keep myself from stumbling forward. “I know,” I said before I could stop myself. “I know I destroyed things. I let Carmela tear everything apart. I...I didn’t see what I wanted until it was gone. I love you, Elodie. I always—” The rest of it tumbled out: how blind I’d been, how I’d let the wrongness seem easier than the truth. How I’d been a coward.
I pictured the scene that would save me: her standing, throwing herself into me, forgiveness falling easy like rain. Instead she watched me like someone watching a play they hated but felt obliged to finish.
“Too late,” she said, and the words landed harder than anything anyone had ever thrown at me. “Your apology doesn’t change the month I spent waking up without you. It doesn’t change the things I tolerated because I believed they were temporary. I don’t love you anymore, Calhoun.”
Her hand slipped from the coffee cup as if it burned; she stood and began to gather herself with the calm of someone who had rehearsed every movement. It should have been a small thing, an exit but it felt like the floor beneath me dropped away.