Was it enough if I loved him, even if he wasn’t sure about us? Could I be strong enough to keep us together? Or did I do the right thing when I walked away?

“I told him how I felt. I laid all of my cards out on the table. I can’t make him love me. I can’t make him take a chance on us, and I’m not going to keep waiting around for him to choose me. I love him. I’ll probably always love him. But that’s not enough if he doesn’t believe in us.”

I’d been with a guy who wasn’t all in with me before. It sucked. And in this case, I would rather be alone than be with someone who didn’t love me the way I loved them. It was a recipe for heartbreak, and I didn’t have it in me to face another loss.

“He’s an idiot if he let you go,” Will interjected. “If he couldn’t see what was right in front of him, then you’re better off. Any guy would be lucky as hell to have you.”

I struggled to smile, even though there was something a little sad about your future brother-in-law trying to build up your self-confidence; but at this point it was the least of my problems.

“And Kate?” Jackie asked.

I groaned. “Is this, ‘talk about Blair’s dysfunctional relationships’ day? What’s next, a chat about my parents?”

Jackie winced. “Sorry. I know I can come on a little strong sometimes.”

Will choked on his margarita, shooting her a bemused look. “Sometimes?”

I grinned.

“Fine. Most of the time.” She made a face. “I’m just concerned.” Her gaze held mine. “You’ve been through a lot lately, Blair. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I know. And I love you for it. But I don’t really have the answers right now. I can’t change Gray’s mind and I can’t change Kate’s either. I don’t understand the choices she’s made, and while I can forgive her for selling me out to Capital Confessions, I’ll never agree with her reasons.

“This isn’t the first time there’s been tension between me and Kate, and I doubt it’ll be the last. I love her, but at the end of the day, she’s an adult, and if she’s not going to listen to reason, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

“I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by political machinations and bullshit, and I know you love that stuff, but I don’t. I’m tired. I just want to be Blair without the stupid Reynolds notoriety hanging around my neck. Kate wants to bind our father’s darkness to her and I just want to let go.

“I want to be happy, and right now, my happy is finding some peace in my life. Maybe that makes me weak, but it’s what I want.”

Jackie looked skeptical. “You’re never going to just be Blair in this town. You know that. Your father casts a long shadow. And your parents raised you guys to be in the spotlight practically from birth. Maybe it would be different if they hadn’t. You have that last name trailing behind you, and it’s going to be impossible to shake.”

“I know. I need a fresh start. I need to go somewhere where I can breathe. Where I can figure out who I am, independent of all the other stuff that drags me down.”

“You’re thinking of leaving D.C.?”

I felt horrible because we’d just started getting to know each other, but yeah, I was. I didn’t want every relationship I had to end up on the front page. Didn’t want to fend off irate calls from my mother when I wore an outfit she didn’t approve of, didn’t want to wonder if people liked me for me or for my last name. Outside of D.C., my notoriety faded to a casual afterthought. But here I was collateral damage for whatever war my father was embroiled in.

“I need to. It won’t be right away; I want to take some time, make sure I’m making the right decision, line up a job before I move. But yeah, I need a fresh start.”

Jackie sighed, reaching out and squeezing my hand. “I get it. It sucks and I’m going to miss you a lot, but I do understand.”

“I’ll keep in touch. And I’ll come back and visit.” I smiled at both of them. “Besides, I have your wedding to come back for. And I’m definitely throwing you the best bridal shower ever.”

“I’d like that,” Jackie replied with a teary-eyed smile.

Despite my problems with Kate, my sisters were the best things to come out of my messed up family. At least in that my father had done something right.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Senator Reynolds’s ties with the private security company, Intech, have recently been called into question. Has Senator Reynolds been using his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee for ill?

—Capital Confessions blog

Gray

The weeks that passed since Blair walked away—since I let her go—were their own brand of hell. I’d thought I’d been through hell before, but this was a special degree of suffering, one I wouldn’t wish on even my worst enemy. It was a drying out of the worst possible kind, and considering I’d gone cold turkey, the withdrawal was sheer fucking torture.

I went through the motions of my day—somehow—but I couldn’t help feeling as though someone had ripped my heart out of my chest, leaving a gaping hole that was impossible to fill and a bleeding I couldn’t staunch.

I’d lost count of how many times I’d pulled up her number in my phone, my finger hovering over the option to call her. Or how many times I’d woken up in the middle of the night and reached for her, only to come up empty. The times I stared at a bottle as if the numbing of the alcohol would obliterate the pain in my chest that wouldn’t fucking go away.

I waited for it to get easier, waited for me to slip up, waited for something, anything, convinced I couldn’t exist like this, craving escape like a man dying of thirst needed water.

And still, nothing changed, and each day was rinse and repeat, as I was Sisyphus trapped in a hell of my own making.

I’d thought I’d done the right thing, the good thing, thought the only way she’d ever be happy was if I’d let her go. And the minute I’d done it, a little voice in the back of my head had started up . . .

You love her. She loves you.

You make her happy. She makes you happier than you’ve ever been.

You’ve fucked this up spectacularly, asshole.

She’s probably moved on to some guy who wears polo shirts and pants with fucking whales on them.

The voice was the worst. The doubt that plagued me, that woke me up in a sweat in the middle of the night, chipped away at my resolve, little by little, like water over stone.

I’d never been more unsure in my life. Nobility didn’t sit well on me. Not ever. So I wasn’t sure if this feeling—the fear that I’d picked the wrong fucking door, and I was left holding a clock radio that broke after one use when I could have had a Ferrari—was one I should listen to.

The hardest part was knowing if I’d made the right choice because I’d loved her, or the easy choice because I was scared. Although nothing about this felt easy. It was death by a thousand pricks, each moment without her added to the weight of my loss.

I busied myself with making plans. I called old law school acquaintances, professors, colleagues, struggled to piece together the shambles of my professional life. Through all of the bullshit I hadn’t liked about practicing law before, the one thread that had kept me afloat besides the money, was the genuine feeling that I was helping people. Helping them recover some financial compensation for the wrongs that were done to them.

Most of my clients had come from working-class backgrounds like my own, and life had simply knocked them down one too many times, and the medical system they’d relied on had somehow failed them. And while I could never really make them whole, not in any sense beyond the financial, it had been my job to make someone pay, to get them the money they needed to live out the rest of their lives the best way they could. And in some cases, to send a message to a hospital, or doctor, that this wouldn’t happen again.