You Were Meant For Me

"You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. " ~ Steve Jobs

KADY HEARD THE KNOCK on the door and forced herself to stir, pushing herself up to a sitting position on the couch. "That must be room service."

"Just stay there," Catherine said. "I'll get it."

"I should get dumped more often," Kady managed to joke, "if it means having you spoil me rotten."

Catherine's nose went up in the air. "I won't even dignify that with an answer." Horrible child, to suggest that she was only nice in such occasions! Didn't Kady know such truths were never to be spoken out loud?

After taking a couple of twenty-dollar bills from her purse, she made her way to the door, thinking once again how it was just like her daughter to base her food order on some cultish thing like shufflemancy, which apparently was a form of musical divination that Kady's other boss had unconsciously practiced.

And since earlier, they had heard the music video of Jewel's playing on the TV, Kady had asked for eggs, pancakes, and maple syrup.

Catherine's lips pursed disapprovingly. Whoever heard of eating breakfast at night?

There was another knock on the door, and Catherine frowned. What an unusually impatient bellboy!

She opened the door, intending to give the young man a piece of her mind, but instead of a uniformed teenager, she saw an exceptionally handsome man in plaids and jeans.

Slade tensed as the older woman stepped out of the room without a word and pulled the door shut.

Catherine subjected the man to a more thorough inspection, taking note of the stiff outline of his figure and the desperation in his gaze.

Kady's mother lifted her chin. "Mr. Wyndham, I take it?"

"Mrs. Abrams." He bowed his head in a gesture of respect, but Catherine was only the slightest bit mollified. He had good manners, but it didn't erase the fact that he had made her baby girl cry.

"I'd like to speak if Kady—-"

"So you could hurt her again?"

Slade's jaw hardened. "I don't know how much she's told you—-"

"Nothing much at first," she said coldly. "You had her crying so hard she could barely string two words together when she came here." She saw his face whiten, but it still wasn't enough.

Images of Kady crying flayed him, and the billionaire could feel himself drowning in self-contempt and desperation. God. He had never meant to hurt her that way. And he would never ever hurt her again...if she only gave him one last chance.

"I was an idiot," he said hoarsely. "I hurt her when she only deserved to be cherished. But it's different now—-"

"My daughter has been with you for weeks," she flared at him angrily, "and you told her it wasn't enough for her to fall in love with you. Now you're telling me that you've had a change of heart in a matter of hours?" Catherine's lip curled as she watched the truth hit him like a punch to the guts, and a sickened expression fell on his face.

"I was wrong." Slade's voice was taut. "And she was right."

"And that's it?"

"And now," he said forcefully, "I'm here to beg for her forgiveness."

"Because you love her?"

"Yes." The admission was swift and hard, the gaze that met Catherine's unflinching. "I love her. I probably even loved her before she fell in love with me. And even if..." A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Even if she doesn't take me back, I doubt it would make me stop loving her. I've always been an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and Kady... " He breathed deeply, the mere sound of her name driving a terrifying point home, now that he had accepted she was everything to him.

Maybe, maybe one day Kady might be able to find someone else to love. It could happen. Because she had loved Slade with all she had, and that kind of love was what made people tough and enabled her to move on.

But it wouldn't be the same for him.

Because he had been the one to fuck up.

And people who fucked up...

The way he had fucked up with her...

If she never came back, then he was lost. Fucking lost without her, and he would never find his way back.

KADY HEARD THE DOOR open. "Mom?"

"Who else?" Catherine's voice was its usual tart tone, but there was something a little off, like a faint tremor in the end, and Kady bit her lip, remembering how she had caught her mother crying in the bathroom, thinking that Kady wouldn't see her.

"The room service we ordered still isn't here, so I'm going to speak with reception."

The words startled her into turning on the couch, and she was confused to see her mother hurriedly zipping her purse shut. "You could just call reception—-"

"But I don't want to." Catherine's tone was weirdly petulant, and even weirder was how her mother couldn't quite meet her eyes. "So will you please just stop asking me these things?"

Alarm bells started ringing inside her head when she saw Catherine practically run towards the door. She jumped to her feet. "Mother—-" But this only made her mother pick up her speed, and her suspicions grew. Laramie might not be the nation's most dangerous city, but what if someone had managed to sneak inside the hotel and threaten her mother at gunpoint?

The door slammed shut behind Catherine, the sound making Kady jump. Oh no. She broke into a run and threw the door open—-

Slade.

Kady stumbled back a step.

"Your mother says she'll be at the lounge downstairs," he said quietly.

Just seeing him, just hearing him...oh God, just knowing that he was under the same roof as she was...

She backed up another step.

Anything to place more distance and stop her heart from breaking.

But then he followed her inside and closed the door behind him, and she realized there was just no escaping this.

"What are you here?" she whispered.

"I thought you'd appreciate the chance to throw all my words back at my face."

"I don't understand."

"I was wrong. You were right."

Kady only stared at him.

"You were - are - everything you said you were. Different. Special. The whole nine yards and then some." He was hoping it would make her lips crack with even the slightest smile, but Kady only kept staring at him, and his chest constricted.

Please. God. Please.

Don't let me be fucking late.

He tried moving forward to close the distance between them but had to stop when she tripped and nearly cracked her head against the edge of a table.

Shit.

"Kady." His voice was hoarse and uneven. "I'm in love with you."

But she just kept goddamn staring.

"And I know now...you're in love with me."

Like he could never reach her again.

"Kady. Please. Say something. Please."

He saw her jerk, pain flashing her face, and a moment later he saw her swallowing convulsively, and he realized that she would rather hurt herself - would rather force herself to speak - than see him beg.

"I'm sorry, Slade."

She saw his face whiten, and she tried, oh God, she tried so hard not to cry, but she just couldn't.

"There's something you should know about me," she heard him say.

Kady shook her head. "Please, Slade, it's just not—-"

"I'm not...I'm not someone who manages a cafe."

She watched in confusion as he typed something on his phone before giving it to her.

"Please."

She bit back a sob. He was begging again. And it hurt.

Her fingers shook as she took the phone, and her tears fell faster at the painstaking care he took to prevent their fingers from touching, almost as if he felt that his touch would sicken her.

Oh God.

That was so far from the truth, and that he would actually think it was so...

Her tear-blurred gaze fell to his phone.

The moment her head jerked up and he saw the stunned look on her face, he started talking - fast - knowing he was on borrowed time. Make or break, all or nothing. He had just this one last shot to keep her in his life.

"I know my money doesn't mean a thing to you, but if you could consider—-" He saw her lips part as if she was about to speak, and he bit out, "No." Because he knew she was only going to tell him that this meant nothing, and that just couldn't be fucking true.

"Slade—-"

"I'm just asking you to consider —-"

His voice was as savage as it was desperate, and it only made Kady cry harder.

"My being a billionaire would mean everything to your parents, and don't you want to make them happy? And think of your former best friend. Margaux, isn't it? Think of how good it would feel to introduce me to her and see the look on her face when she realizes that all she has is a small fish in a big pond while you've got the person who owns all the fucking ponds. And think of Humbug. Wouldn't it fucking feel great—-"

"Please stop—-" He had already won. They were over. So why was he doing this?

Just consider it, Kady." His voice shook. "Just fucking consider—-"

"You want me to consider using you?"

"I'm telling you I love you."

And he was looking at her like he did mean that, and oh God, she couldn't...how could she believe him, after everything?

" I love you , to the point that the thought of never having you back makes me feel like I'm about to shit in my pants. I'm telling you I love you, to the point that I want to be in your life in any way possible."

His voice cracked, and hearing it made her own heart crack.

"Any fucking way, baby."

And the crack kept getting bigger.

"I'm so scared," she choked out, "to believe you."

"I know." His voice was bleak. "And I wish...I fucking wish there were words I could say to take the fear away. But there aren't. All I can tell you is that I've got the same fucking fear inside of me, and I don't think it will ever go away either. Because I've known the pain of losing you, and there will always be a part of me terrified as fuck that one day you'd come to your senses and walk away. But even with all that...I'd rather live with all of those fears, as long as I have you back."

And this time...

This time, her heart completely cracked open.

So his heart could be a part of hers again.

And they could heal together.

Slade tensed but forced himself to keep still when Kady slowly walked to him.

She took his hand, and his whole body went rigid.

Her gaze lifted to his.

"You once taught me how to know if I was making a certain face," she said tremulously, "when I'm looking at the person I wanted."

Slade jerked at the words. Was she saying...that she could talk about such a thing now...did it mean...

"I thought I'd r-return the f-favor this time." Her voice shook, and her fingers shook harder as she lifted his hand up and slowly pressed her cheek against it. "When a woman d-does this," she whispered, "and she's looking at a man..." The tears flowed in silence, but not a single one of them hurt. "That's how you know she's looking at the man she loves...and who loves her back."