Chapter Fifteen Distance and Denial

Her calls went unanswered by Michael.

The silence was more deafening than any argument they could have had, and three days had gone by since that café kiss. It was always him Lorna hoped her phone would buzz. She thought she was silly for hoping each time it wasn't.

It was obvious in her office that his name was missing from her schedule.

He simply failed to show up for their sessions; he hadn't formally canceled them. Not a word. No good-bye. It was merely a disappearance from a man who, even in his suffering, had once been open.

She knew, of course. Fear had taken control. However, that didn't make it any simpler.

With her arms folded tightly across her chest, Lorna paced her tiny office. This was no longer solely about a patient. There had been too much kissing. A professional one. A sentimental one. And worst of all, even though she hadn't acknowledged it until it actually happened, she had wanted to cross it.

Face down on her desk, her phone stayed on silent. She didn't want to be that woman, waiting, hoping, and losing herself over a man who had rejected her.

Michael, however, was not doing much better.

He was sitting by himself in the penthouse library, staring blankly at a book he couldn't get past page two of, whiskey unopened at his elbow. A vicious cycle of thoughts ran through his mind.

You kissed her, but why?

What made it seem real?

Why are you afraid of that?

His world had never changed the way it had in that one unplanned, stolen moment with Lorna, even though he had kissed Heather hundreds of times. It went beyond the physical. It was something more profound, something vulnerable and personal.

And he was afraid of that.

He wished to avoid ever needing anyone again.

He didn't want to think that the pain could be relieved only to be replaced by something worse.

He buried it, then. Put an end to your emotions. threw himself at his work with the vigor of a man fleeing his own pulse. Mergers, meetings, pointless phone conversations—anything to block out Lorna's voice in his head.

However, it was unsuccessful.

In the silence, her laughter resounded. In boardrooms, her soft, resolute tone haunted him. She followed him through every restless night with her steady, stormy, and perceptive eyes.

He didn't call, though.

Lorna waited and waited.

But not indefinitely.

She decided it was time to let go on the fourth day after taking out her planner and drawing a single line through his name.

But when she did, her hands shook a little.

Because it was harder than she wanted to think to let go of a man like Michael Hudson.

Not when something had already established itself in their mutual silence.