Hurt bled across his features for all of a second before he schooled his expression. “We’re back to this?”
“Did we ever stop being about this? You tell me nothing about your life, and you promised this time.” That might be what gutted her the most. He’d promised to do better, and she’d let herself believe him.
“I tell you about my life all the time! You were the one who showed up today and said you wanted to forget about the outside world. Was I supposed to tell you about my day before or after that?”
She scoffed. “Like this all happened today?”
“It all came to a head today, yes. I thought I had another couple of months, and then I find out today I only have weeks.”
“But you still knew it was coming. Yet you never managed to bring it up in conversation once—”
“I tried!” He actually threw his hands up in the air at that. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to tell you about what I’ve been doing with my days? But every goddamn time, you change the subject.” His voice rasped, grating and awful. “You say you want to know about me, yet when it comes down to it, you don’t want to know anything that fucks with your precious little poor girl starving artist worldview.”
Her breath caught in her lungs. “That’s not fair.”
A raw, angry huff of a laugh escaped his throat. “That’s rich after all this…this bullshit.”
This time, she felt like the one who’d been punched. She reeled, tightening her hands into fists. Her vision swam, and shit, crap, she hated this. This was why she’d sworn she was never going to do this again.
“I wanted to get to know you,” she said, and it hurt. “I wanted to know who you were. I asked you time and again about your life, your family. At your father’s house the other day, you had a million chances to show me anything at all about your life, and—”
“I took you to my father’s house.” Every word dripped poison. “Do you know the last time I did that? The last time I went there, even?”
“That’s not the point.”
“That’s exactly the point.” His nostrils flared, his eyes burning. “I make overture after overture, but it’s never the one you want. It’s never enough.”
And she heard the dull, rasping echo of the words he didn’t say. I’m never enough.
Well, she could relate to that, at least.
But she held her head high, even though her insides were churning. “You’re right. It’s not enough.” Her voice shook. “Because I deserve better. You know who told me that?”
The darkness in his eyes said he sure as hell did.
And she remembered it so vividly. The two of them, naked in that bed together in Paris, and she’d clung to him, crying with abandon as he told her she deserved the whole world.
But he wasn’t willing to give it to her.
She turned away from him, pushing off the wall. She was half blinded by tears all over again, but they were angry tears. Hot tears.
And achingly, impossibly sad ones, too.
He was right. They’d ended up right back here again, and if that wasn’t a sign, what was?
This wasn’t going to work. They were never, ever going to work.
She shoved past him trying to get to the door, bracing herself in case he tried to stop her. And he did, but it wasn’t with a hand or a grab. It was with a word.
“You know, I always thought to myself how brave you are, Kate.”
She froze a half dozen feet from the door. She’d felt brave. Every time he’d pushed her to overcome another one of her hang-ups. Every time she’d dared to let him in a little further.
“But you’re a coward.”
Her ribs squeezed hard, choking her.
And he wasn’t done. “You got hurt, okay? I get that. Your dad was a monster and your exes were assholes, but I’m not any of them. I’m the guy—” He sucked in a breath, and it rattled and it ached. “I’m the guy who loves you.”
She couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes and put her hand to her mouth, trying to swallow the pained sound forcing its way past her throat.
He loved her. And she loved him.
She’d imagined she had. Back when she thought she knew who he was.
“And I’m trying for you, Kate. But you’re so damn scared of getting hurt again, of letting anybody even have a chance of getting in your head, that you’d rather end up alone.”
It was a hot knife tearing through her abdomen.
That weekend, with her mom, Kate had practically accused her of the exact same thing. Of wrapping herself up in all this pain and fear and refusing to let herself feel anything.
Her father had always said they were so much alike.
But this wasn’t that. This wasn’t fear. This was Rylan disappointing her again. Exactly like she’d known he always would.
“You’re wrong,” she said, the words shredding her throat.
“Bullshit. After what we did today, after what we’ve been doing all this time.” They’d been so close that afternoon. So connected. “And then you come up with this crap. You’re just trying to push me away.”
She whipped around. “And so what if I am?” Maybe she was the problem. Maybe she always had been. Maybe they had been. “God.” She tore her fingers through her hair, and her scalp tugged. Her hands trembled. “We were a fantasy.”
Those were the only times they had ever worked. In a cloud of a dream as they floated through Paris, and today, skipping their way through a museum, all because she didn’t want to face the honest criticism of her work, and he didn’t want to face…whatever the hell was happening to him. That he refused all over again to explain to her.
In the real world, they fell apart. They got into fights and caused scenes in galleries.
They were reduced to this. Two strangers who’d come together for this brief moment of time, and maybe they’d made each other feel good. Maybe he’d shown her things no one ever had—things no one ever would again.
But they didn’t work.
She looked up at him through wet, stinging eyes, her chest collapsing. Just like this dream. “That was all we ever were. A fantasy.”
He took a step back, and it felt like a mile.
He’d been so persistent. In her head, there had always been this part of her that had thought he’d follow. That he’d fight.
“Maybe for you,” he gritted out. “But for me, it was real.” He gazed at her with haunted, hollow eyes. “And if you don’t believe that, then maybe you should go.”
What. The. Fuck.
Rylan shook his head. This was a dream. This was a nightmare. It had to be. They were still spread out on the carpet, full on love and sex and grapes and bread and cheese, and he’d fallen asleep. Even better, they were still naked and entwined on his bed, drowsing in the post-sex haze. It was the only explanation. All he had to do was wake up, and everything would go back to normal.
An hour ago—hell, fifteen minutes ago—he’d been the happiest he’d ever been in his entire fucking life. And now it was all crumbling.
Kate stood in front of him, his words echoing on the air. Her whole body was one long line of outrage, and his was, too, his jaw aching with the restraint it took to not step forward and shake her. He dug his nails even harder into the flesh of his palm, and it hurt, it bit, sharp pressure on tender flesh narrowing his focus and honing his senses.
But he didn’t wake up. This wasn’t a dream. This was real.
And all at once, he wanted to pull his ultimatum back. She should go? The last thing he wanted was for her to leave, for this to have the chance to fester.
And if he spent one more second staring at that accusing look on her face, he was going to snap.
How dare she? Everything had been going so well. They’d been the closest they’d ever been, intimate and open with each other, and she was going to trot out this bullshit?
He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t hiding things from her.
Fifteen minutes ago, he would have given
her anything in the world to make her happy. To make her stay.
But he wasn’t going to put up with this again.
He took an unconscious step forward, he wasn’t even sure what for.
It broke the spell.
Her defiant, furious expression shattered, tears that had been so close to spilling over this entire time finally falling, and it made the very heart of him ache. But before he could so much as begin to react, she turned on her heel.
She didn’t say a single thing as she ran. Just scooped up her bag from where she’d dropped it by the door, and kept on going. Out of his house and out into the night, and the whole house shook with the slamming of the door. Like his heart. Like his life.
And then there was silence. Emptiness.
For a long moment, all he could do was stand there, fighting against the crushing pressure in his chest, struggling just to get a full breath. Every muscle was hard.
Right until the trembling set in.
Oh, hell. Fucking fucked-up fucking—
His legs gave out on him first. He stumbled backward, scarcely managing to control his fall. A rocking thud jolted through his body as his ass made contact with the floor. Burying his head in his hands, he fought back the urge to scream.
How dare she. He’d given her everything he had, he’d come crawling to her on his knees and offered her his money and his time and himself—the one thing he’d never really given to anyone before, and she’d tossed it all right back in his face. Christ. This was why he never did this. He’d avoided ever letting anyone see past the trappings, and the one time he did—
The trembling became a shaking became a wracking shudder, destroying everything in its wake.
He couldn’t breathe.
The déjà vu of it all had him tearing his fingers through his hair, pulling hard at the roots until his scalp lit up with the pain.
Love was a trap. That was the one lesson he’d learned growing up the way he had. People saw it in you and they used it and they threw it away. His parents had done it with each other, and they’d done it with him, time and time and time again. It was his mother packing up her things and leaving in the middle of the night.
It was his father convincing him he had to fit himself into this box, do this, work like that, become this spitting image of him, and for what?
His father had left him, too. His father had burned the crops and salted the earth. On his way out the door, he’d destroyed the only thing he’d ever created, leaving Rylan to pick up the pieces. The shattered remains of something he’d never asked for in the first place, and which he’d given his entire life to.
Now Kate was gone, and all Rylan had left were these fragments of the world he’d tried to build around her. This hollow, echoing mockery of a home, and still these responsibilities…
The ones he’d been half assing. Refusing to commit to.
The ones he’d been so ready to run away from, if only Kate had said the word.
He laughed out loud, the sound raw and biting at the back of his throat. Maybe that was exactly what he should do now. Leave tonight, get on a plane and never come back. God, Lexie would kill him, but what did he care? His sister was so distant anyway, and she’d survived the same bullshit excuse for a childhood he had. She’d get over it.
He squeezed his eyes shut tight, clasping his hands at the back of his neck as lightning seared him to his bones.
She’d survive his doing exactly what their mother had and what their father had and what he himself had done a year and a half ago…
As he became what he had promised he never would. Faithless. Cruel. Unworthy of anyone’s trust.
No wonder Kate had been repulsed.
And yet, if he stayed…His heart sank in his chest, heavy as a stone.
He opened his eyes to look around him, and the whole place shivered.
How the hell had he ended up here?
What was he going to do?
He dropped his hand from his neck to rest against the center of his chest. His fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt, clutching at nothing, trying to grasp at something that wasn’t there…
His father’s ring.
Fuck. Sitting up straighter, he tore his hand away, but it was too late. The empty space above his ribs burned.
How many years had he worn that ring around his neck? It had been this symbol of the hope he had for better times, but it had all been hope for other people. It had turned into a noose, keeping him from making any choices, from pursuing any kind of happiness for himself. The night before he’d come back to New York, come back to the work and the life and the people he’d left behind, come back for Kate, he’d taken it off.
That one small act had felt like freedom. In the first real breath of air he’d had in years, he’d boarded a plane to face all of his mistakes.
And yet he hadn’t, really. There were some he’d left alone.
Some he still hadn’t been able to really talk about. Not even to Kate.
Her accusations burned into his lungs.
The world around him still spun as he rose to his feet.
He knew what he had to do.
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
It didn’t matter that Rylan got in to the office an hour earlier than he usually did. Lexie was there, looking fresh as a daisy where she sat behind her desk. And across from her, entirely too big for her tiny office chairs and too rugged for his suit, was her new “assistant.” Dane.
Inconvenient, but whatever.
Rylan knocked on her door with three sharp, harsh raps.
She didn’t even look up from her screen. “Good, you’re here. We’ve got work to—”
“Get your stuff. We’re going upstate.”
That made her pause. Her head tilted to the side, the tick in her jaw the only sign he’d caught her by surprise. “Upstate?”
“Upstate,” he confirmed.
Bracing himself for a fight, he crossed his arms over his chest. Dane’s gaze darted between the two of them, and there was something in his posture that went tense. Rylan ignored him, keeping his attention on his sister. Keeping his shoulders back and his chin high.
Just go along with it, he prayed. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her about this.
He’d slept like shit, mind circling over every damn thing Kate had accused him of. Reliving the moment when she’d run out his door. Maybe he should’ve chased after her, or at least called her after she got home. Maybe he should’ve kicked her out sooner.
So much of what she’d said had been total bull, but some of it had hit its mark.
Kind of like the things she’d flung at him on her way out the door in Paris. When she’d told him he needed to figure out what he wanted.
He dug his fingers into the meat of his biceps, acid burning the back of his throat.
That’s what he’d thought he’d been doing this whole time since he’d returned. Really, he’d been skirting around it, doing every possible thing he could not to.
Well. Not anymore.
He’d face his future, all right. But first he had to face his past.
He just really, really didn’t want to have to do it alone.
Lexie’s considering stare softened out of nowhere, and Rylan squared his jaw. Fought to school his expression. She saw through it anyway.
“Well it’s about damn time,” she said.
Every muscle in Rylan’s body sagged in relief. “You’ll come?”
“I half considered dragging you there myself, but there was never a free minute.” She was up and out of her chair and stuffing files and her laptop into her bag. “I should’ve figured McConnell making his move would flip the switch.”
Rylan didn’t exactly love being that predictable, but at the moment he’d take it.
He focused on Dane, who’d stood as well. “Sorry to interrupt,” Rylan said, beginning to make Lexie’s excuses for her. “You can reach her on her cell, or—”
“Or from right across the car, since you
’re coming with us.”
Rylan’s brows reached for his hairline as he turned back to Lex. “Excuse me?”
Looking at him like he was crazy, Lexie shook her head. “It’s like a two-hour drive. We have work to do.”
He should’ve known this was all going too smoothly. No point pushing his luck. Turning around, he led them down to the garage, where a car was waiting.
In the end, he was almost grateful Lexie was so insistent on making the trip a working one. With the morning rush under way, it took forever to get out of the city, and if he’d had nothing to occupy himself he’d have gone out of his skin—or out of his mind. Talking shop was a good distraction, and Dane was a buffer that kept either of them from having to put words to what they were actually thinking.
The guy was a steadying influence, too. Big in presence and sparse of words, nodding when Lex told him to do something, asking questions where it made sense to and derailing her a couple of times when she was starting to get too worked up.
If that involved Dane putting a hand on her knee or her arm once or twice, Rylan could look the other way. Lex was a big girl, and she could navigate that particular minefield on her own.
When the car finally slowed and pulled off the highway, it almost came as a surprise. Rylan jerked his head up. His throat went dry as the sign came into view. Without a word, he and Lexie started packing up the work they’d spread around the seat. Dane’s brow furrowed.
If Rylan were a better man, he’d tell the guy what he was in for. Instead, he shifted in his seat. Directed his gaze out the window and set his jaw.
As it was, he’d barely had a sense of what he was in for himself.
A man thought he had an idea of what a prison looked like from articles and movies and TV. Iron bars and gray cinder-block walls. Dead-eyed, agitated, nervous guards. But the reality of it hit even harder. Everything moved like molasses, and if Rylan found the searches and the waiting and the silence dehumanizing, the concept of being on the other side of it all made him cold in his very bones.
Christ, how did a person bear the reality of fifteen years of this? An endless swath of idle time, lost time.
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