Coda Books 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (MM)

exhilarating experience of my life. I wasn’t even surprised to discover that Cole was right. I longed to fly.
    Six weeks after taking the job, I decided I needed to get out of the house. I took my laptop to a café near my home that offered free wireless. I ordered a Cobb salad and a glass of wine. That was another small but somehow significant sign of my new life: I could have wine with lunch. There was no office to go back to, no client to impress, nobody who could frown on me for it. I smiled as I ordered the Sauvignon Blanc, because I could picture the look on his face if I were to order Chianti.
    While I waited for my food, I got online and checked his accounts. I found that two days earlier, he had booked a flight from Paris to New York. It wasn’t hard to check the flight number on the airline’s webpage. He would be arriving in New York late tomorrow afternoon. I wondered if he would spend his nights with Raul while he was there. The thought made that pain in my chest flare to life, and I pushed it away.
    “We already made the reservations!” The statement caught my attention. It came from the table next to me where a young couple was having lunch together. The man was wearing a suit and had a briefcase leaning against the legs of his chair. The woman was fighting tears. It was she who had spoken. She was talking in a forceful whisper, obviously trying to keep her voice down, but unable to keep it completely under control. “We’ve been planning this trip for months!”
    “What do you want me to do?” he asked her. “If I say no, they’ll give the account to Connor.”
    “So let them!”
    “Claire, you’re being unreasonable. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for. The chance we’ve been waiting for—”
    “The only thing I’ve been waiting for is our anniversary!”
    “Maybe next year—”
    “That’s what you said last year!”
    “You can still go, Claire. You may as well use the tickets.”
    “By myself ?”
    “Sure. Why not? You’ll have fun. Maybe Carrie can go with you—” His phone rang, interrupting him. Claire sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, angrily wiping the tears from her cheeks.
    That stupid man actually took the call. “This is Mike.”
    It reminded me of my first date with Cole, when he had walked out. I had been such an ass, so caught up in the rat race that I couldn’t even enjoy dinner. But even with my phone ringing non-stop, he had still given me his number and told me to call.
    What if he hadn’t been willing to give me that second chance?
    What if I’d never taken it?
    Mike was still talking. “Of course, sir. It’s not a problem at all, I assure you.”
    Claire stood up, grabbed her purse, and walked out of the café.
    Mike didn’t follow.
    And suddenly, with painful clarity, I realized what an idiot I really was. Julia had said it. My father had said it. Why it had taken me until now to realize that they were right, I didn’t know.
    More than ten years earlier, in an apartment in Colorado, I had packed a bag and walked out the door, leaving my own cat behind—not because I didn’t want her, but because I was sure I wasn’t really leaving for good. I was sure Zach would beg me to come back. I waited and waited, missing him the whole time.
    He never called.
    My own failure to act had cost me the man I loved once already in my life. But had I learned my lesson? Apparently not. Here I was, older but no wiser, waiting for Cole to realize that he loved me as much as I loved him. Waiting for him to realize that we were meant to be.
    Waiting for him to call.
    What if he never did?
    I was unwilling to admit that we might be over. But if I waited for him to admit he was wrong or to change his wandering lifestyle, I would be waiting the rest of my life.
    I made my plane reservation before I even left the café. I went straight to Julia’s house when I got home.
    “I need you to watch my house for a while. Can you do that?”
    “Of course.” It had been months since I had traveled anywhere, but she still had the key. “How long will you be gone?”
    “I don’t know yet. I’ll call you.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’m going after him.”
    She smiled at me. “It’s about damn time.”

    THE flight from Phoenix to New York was six hours long. Six hours to contemplate all the ways this could end.
    Every minute was an exercise in patience. Pre-boarding made my heart pound. Finding my seat made my palms sweat. The take-off almost