The past week had been the hardest of his life. He no longer questioned whether she hated him. How could she not hate him after the way he’d betrayed her trust? But maybe if he knew the extent to which she hated him, he could gauge whether he had any chance whatsoever of earning her forgiveness. Not that he deserved it.

He’d spent the past week toiling over what he would have done differently if given the chance. The hard truth was that there was little he would change. Except for one crucial thing.

If wishes were being granted, he wished he had never left her bed the night he stole her access card. If he could rewrite the past, he would have come clean to her as he held her in his arms. He would have told her the real reason he’d taken the job at Trendsetters and would have tried his hardest to impart just how important it was to access that database.

And he would have asked her permission to use her credentials to infiltrate the security system.

There was a possibility she would have turned him down. Maybe she would have even gone to the powers that be at Trendsetters and clued them in to what he was doing, but it would have been better than him going behind her back. With that one decision, he’d shattered her trust in him. He wouldn’t get it back. He didn’t have a right to it.

Still, he hoped for the chance to tell her how sorry he was. If that’s all she granted him, that would be enough.

Daniel stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting for her to make her next move. She’d entered the building from the side door near the garage, and had been on her way to the alcove that held the mailboxes when she’d spotted him. Her steps had immediately halted. Puzzlement shrouded her expression, as if he was the last person she’d ever expect to find here.

And why should she expect to see him? He hadn’t contacted her since she’d asked him to leave last week. He’d wanted to—had erased no less than a hundred text messages before he could send them. It hadn’t felt right to contact her via text. Even a phone call seemed too impersonal. He had no idea what state she was in, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause more pain.

Instead, he’d waited until he could get a day off and booked a flight to Austin. He was scheduled to fly out on a six a.m. flight back to Virginia in the morning. Even if the only thing this trip accomplished was giving him these few moments with her, it would have been worth it. Just seeing her face again, breathing the same air she breathed, made him whole.