“I get that you’re angry,” I say. “But I think you’ve made some assumptions …”
“Assumptions?” Her dark eyes widen and her brows arch. “You’re right, Isaiah. I did. I assumed you were a good person. I assumed we were on the same page with the no lies and bullshit rule. And I assumed we had something special—or at the very least a friendship.”
“No,” I say, lifting my hand, but she continues to talk.
“You’ve been home a while, haven’t you?” she asks.
“A few weeks, yes,” I say.
“Tell me,” she says, squaring her shoulders with mine. “Is it true you have a nephew you don’t acknowledge?”
My eyes narrow. How the fuck would she know that?
“And is it true you’ve ruined peoples’ lives, Isaiah?” she asks. “Is it true you … is it true your family blames you for your father’s death?”
Dragging my hand down my face, I look her dead in the eyes. “Yeah. It’s true. All of it.”
Maritza exhales, her glassy coffee-colored eyes settling in mine. “You should go. And please don’t come back here again. You’re not the person I thought you were, and I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want to pick up where we left off. Not now. Not ever.”
With that, she pushes past me and disappears behind the swinging door to the ladies’ room.
A blue-eyed blonde donning a matching uniform rounds the corner, stopping in her tracks when she sees me.
“Oh. Hi,” she says, looking at me like I’m a bomb that needs to be defused. “Have you seen Maritza?”
I point to the ladies’ room.
“Right,” she says, offering a tepid smile. The waitress makes her way past me before stopping and turning back. “You should probably leave.”
“I know.”
“And you should probably never come back here again.”
Dragging my hand along my mouth, I linger.
A second later, I remember the letter, and I dig into my pocket to retrieve it.
“Give this to her,” I say, handing it off to the blonde.
I don’t wait for her to respond or refuse it.
I get the hell out of there.
I don’t want to upset Maritza any more than I already have.
It hurts like hell to see how much pain I caused her, and not just because I care about her but because she wouldn’t be so hurt if she hadn’t cared so much about me.
Our feelings? They were mutual at one point.
But evidently not anymore.
Not now. Now ever.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Maritza
“Hey. You okay in here?” Rachael pushes past the restroom door and stands next to me in front of the mirror.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I force a smile. The swell of tears in my eyes subsided about a minute ago, the second I removed myself from his presence.
I didn’t know seeing him again was going to get to me like that. When I first saw him, for a half of a second, I thought it was Ian, but then I saw the faded t-shirt and the shorter hair and the weighted look in his eyes, and I knew.
“Is he still out there?” I ask.
Rachael rubs circles into my back like the devout mother-figure that she is and sighs. “Nope. I told him to get lost. And I told him never to come back here again.”
I chuckle at the idea of five-foot-two Rachael giving strapping Isaiah the what for.
“But before he left, he asked me to give you this.” Rach digs into her apron and retrieves a folded, faded piece of paper and hands it over.
“I don’t want it,” I say, taking a step back.
“Ritz…”
“No, seriously. I’m done.” I shake my head, staring at a water-stained tile on the ceiling. “I don’t know why he thinks a letter is going to change anything. It’s not going to change the fact that he let me go first, Rach. He let me go first.”
“I’ll hold onto it for you.” She offers a tepid smile. “In case you change your mind.”
“We should probably head out there before we get fired,” I say. “How’s my mascara?”
“You pass the raccoon eyes test.”
I glance at my face in the mirror. My rosy cheeks and glassy eyes are a dead giveaway that I temporarily lost my cool, but a couple of deep breaths later, I’m somewhat more presentable.
Stepping out into the hallway where Isaiah stood just minutes ago, I round the corner and watch out the window as he climbs into his vintage Porsche outside the café.
A second later, he’s gone.
Gone from my life just as quickly as he came into it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Isaiah
“Hey, Ma. Brought you some lunch,” I call out as I walk through her door. The doctors put her on this new medication while I was gone and she’s been less sleepy lately, spending most of her time in the living room and taking the occasional five or ten-minute walk around the apartment complex when she’s feeling up to it. “Got you the clams casino from Bertocelli’s.”