Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [46]
From out on the point the view extended alongside the mountain to the south as far as the small town of North Bend and beyond, with the occasional boulder larger than a house dotting the base of the mountain. At the tip of this bluff, they were as alone as two people could be.
Nadine had broken up with Zak at the beginning of August, almost three weeks earlier. During that time, she’d been busy with her tennis tournament, and Zak had gone to eastern Washington to train on the blazing-hot roads for the twenty-four-hour race he was doing in September. Breaking up with him, she now realized, had been the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Sure, he had a chip on his shoulder when it came to people with more money than him, but she would work with him and he would outgrow it. And anyway, he had never let his attitude affect the way he treated her. She missed him; in the beginning when he didn’t call for a few days, she found herself in agony. How could she tell him she’d made a mistake, that she wanted to see him every day now? How could she tell him after she’d made such a point of explaining how important it was for her to finish school without any outside distractions, after telling him how her family was making it increasingly uncomfortable for her to be with him? Zak’s constant arguments with her brother had been a nuisance, but really, when she thought about it, nothing more than that.
When they broke up, it had been so utterly different from the hours-long ordeal she’d undergone with Scooter. She could see Zak was hurt, but he hadn’t made a scene. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, though she agonized over the speech for two days before giving it, and then did it in a fairly public place so he couldn’t put on the same extravaganza Scooter had.
“I just want you to be happy, Nadine. If you’re happier without me in your life, then I’ll have to accept that. It hurts, but if that’s your decision, I’m not going to fight you over it.”
In the end—except for the pain she saw in Zak’s eyes, which nearly broke her heart—she found his calm acceptance of her decision nearly as infuriating as Scooter’s refusal to acknowledge their breakup.
Zak showed up a week later for her tennis tournament but sat apart from her family and friends, and spoke to her only briefly afterward to congratulate her on the win and tell her how happy he was for her. When her family and friends crowded in, he slipped away. Lately, Nadine had begun calling him, and it had been during one of those calls that he’d made the mistake of telling her his plans for this weekend.
“I don’t know why we broke up,” she said, staring at the sunset.
“You said you didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“I don’t know how on earth I came to that conclusion.”
“I know how, and I don’t blame you one bit. I was irritating. I am irritating. You’re from a wealthy family, and I have this attitude that rich people aren’t part of the world the rest of us inhabit, that they’re not tuned in to reality. I know some wealthy people probably fit into my stereotype, but most probably don’t. I’ve been trying to cure myself, but I guess it isn’t happening fast enough. You were right to dump me. I wish it hadn’t happened, but objectively I think you did the right thing…for you.”
“Are you seeing anyone else now? I know we’ve never talked about it, but I would think you might be.”
“There’s nobody else. How could there be?”
It was exactly what she