She stayed in there when the room service arrived and didn’t come out until the server was gone. If he’d noticed my eyes were red and swollen from crying, he didn’t comment.
“Sorry for breaking down like that,” London apologized quietly as she approached the sitting area.
I pushed a cup of chamomile toward her. “Don’t be.I’msorry I couldn’t keep it together for you.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “You cry, I cry. I cry, you cry.”
That was true.
It always had been.
London slipped into the chair opposite me, her shaky hands reaching for the hot cup. “I don’t know how I got here,” she whispered.
I knew she didn’t mean to my hotel.
“You can tell me anything, you know. Nothing you say will ever make me love or admire you any less.”
Tears flooded her eyes again. “But I let him do this to me.”
I controlled my anger. “You didn’tletanyone do anything to you.”
“He wasn’t like this at first.” She smirked bitterly. “He was charming. I thought his confidence was sexy. The sex was great.” Self-flagellation glowed in her eyes as she looked at me. “You knew, though, didn’t you? These last few months that’s all I kept thinking was that you knew something was off about him and you tried to tell me, and I didn’t listen.”
“London—”
“Why couldn’t I see it?” she hissed. “I saw it in Hugh. I saw what a creep he was. Why couldn’t I see it in his friend? Why did I let this happen?”
“You didn’t let anything happen. This happenedtoyou.”
“It was … it wasn’t like this at first,” she repeated. “It was gradual. Little negative comments about my job and my friends. Things I let get in my head over time because they were, like, my deep buried insecurities. How did he see them? How did he pluck them out and use them against me?” She swiped at a tear in frustration. “Stuff like … how I worried I wasn’t good enough at my job. That maybe I couldn’t handle the stress or the hours. That my friends there weren’t really my friends but liked that my name could get them into places.” Shame paled her features. “That you left me behind because you didn’t love me like I loved you.”
I covered my mouth to cover a sob.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I know that’s not true.”
“I’m sorry I left you,” I apologized through my tears. “I’m sorry you’ve been going through this alone.”
London huffed, wiping at her cheeks. “I was the one who told you to go. And you had big-world shit going on, Silver. I let you down, not the other way around.”
“I don’t believe that. I will never believe that.”
“He said I did.” She turned to stare out at the city. “Nick said I was a shit friend and that I didn’t deserve you. Of course, that was weeks after he told me you were a shit friend and I deserved better.” She chuckled unhappily. “By that point, I knew he was a fucking asshole. I just …” London tentatively touched her cheek. “I tried to leave after the first time he hit me. He was being a pretentious asshole, and I was starting to really not like him. I said so. He punched me. I was so stunned I barely heard him threaten to kill me if I left. Every time I tried to leave, he would remind me he had the kind of power that meant he could kill me and get away with it. And I believed him.”
“London …” I didn’t know what to say. What to do that would make it all better.
“It was easier to give him what he wanted.” She shrugged, vacillating it seemed between high emotion and numbness. “I quit my job. Became his little arm ornament. My parents love him.” London scoffed. “They met him at this stupid fucking art gala thing last month and told me that they were so proud of me.”
I shook my head in disgust. They’d seen her last month, seen how much weight she’d lost, that she’d quit a job she loved, and they didn’t think anything was off about that?
“When Nick didn’t tell me that you got attacked … I tried to leave again. And when he hit me, I fought back. He had to go into work with scratches down his face.” London curled her lip. “It felt good. I felt like me again for a second. And I thought, I can do it. I could leave him. Even if I had to really hurt him to leave, it would be better than this hell I was currently living. He wanted me to hang around the apartment, meet up with his colleagues and clients’ wives and girlfriends for shopping and lunch. Our parents didn’t even force cotillion on us, Nee, buthewanted me to be the perfect New York socialite. I didn’t know if I was more terrified or more bored out of my fucking mind.”
The fire in her voice gave me hope because it belonged to the London I knew and loved.
“I was going to leave.” She nodded. Then desolation crushed her features. “But then he told me that he was the reason Halston had you stabbed.”
I gaped. “What?”
Guilt tightened her features. “He tapped my phone. Every conversation you and I had got back to him. And he threatened Halston to back off me but also told him that you weren’t going to stop because of the threats. SoI’mthe reason you got attacked.”
