“I didn’t,” he says.
“I told you!”
“When?”
“When you… When I… It was that time when…” I suck in a breath and clamp my lips together as my heart pounds.
I told him. Didn’t I?
“I never told you I wanted to perform,” I hiss.
“You never told me you didn’t,” he replies calmly. He’s already composed himself from the surprise of seeing me again. Yet my insides have turned to jelly.
I hate that he has the upper hand. That he’s talking to me in his business voice. The voice he uses when it doesn’t matter how much the other person protests, he knows by the end of their conversation he will come away as the victor.
“You were verging on being inconsolable when you found out that your song was stolen,” he says.
His phone rings in his pocket, but he ignores it.
“I wasn’t inconsolable!” I scoff as my cheeks flare with heat. “I was fine. You calmed me down and then spent the night?—”
I grimace, clawing back the words before it’s too late. He spent the night taking care of me, telling me I didn’t need to do a thing. It was the first time in my life I felt treasured by anyone who wasn’t my mother, father, or Ashley.
The first time I’ve felt truly loved by someone else.
“I hated seeing you hurting,” Sullivan says, tenderness creeping into his tone and bringing with it a flash of the man I thought I knew.
He clears his throat, his features hardening again. “Whatdid Liberty Records do? I’ll call Jones. Whatever it is, he’ll help you get your contract amended. You can do different shows. Smaller ones. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Throw money at the problem, of course that’s his answer.
I rub my temples and screw my eyes shut. “Please stop talking.”
My head pounds, made worse by the fact the scent of his cologne, mixed with his warm skin, is reaching over to me and making memories flash to the front of my mind.
Memories of intense gazes and whispered words as he kissed me and covered my body with his.
“But it’s your dream,” he says slowly, like he’s explaining it to me.
“No. Me being gone wasyourdream. You didn’t care about whatIwanted. You made that clear when you ended things between us.”
“I thought performing your songs was what you wanted.” He scowls at me like it’s my fault that I’m back here.
Anger builds inside me until my veins are practically vibrating with it. Sullivan stands perfectly calm in a new designer suit I don’t recognize. He looks incredible in it. He always does.Asshole.
“No! I hated it. God, do you not see anything?”
His eyes narrow. “I see clearly, Tate. Believe me. I make hard decisions because I can see the consequences of what can happen if we are too weak to make them. If we allow ourselves the indulgence of wanting something we cannot have.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He told me he had to end things because he couldn’t give me more than what we had. That him and Molly had to stay as they were, and that he can’t love me the way he wants to.
It was all just a fancy bullshit way of saying he didn’t want to try.
That what we had wasn’t special enough.
He purses his lips, his eyes blazing into mine.
