I step toward him, head spinning, and with a hoarse voice that doesn’t even sound like mine I ask, “How long?”
He strides around the desk toward me, bringing his arms out to touch mine. I jump back, crossing my hands over myself. Bancroft takes a step backward and holds his hands up.
“How long have you known?” I repeat, louder this time.
The dark walls feel as if they are moving inward, pressing against me, trapping me here, but it’s my body pressing up against the hard surface of the wall.
He looks at the floor, then up at me with hooded eyes. “I found out after you’d broken up, a couple of months after we...” He pauses, trying to find the right words. “... when we weren’t on speaking terms. His account was flagged multiple times for sendingunsolicited pictures and I recognized the name. I didn’t want anyone else to connect the dots and bring it up to you, so I buried it.”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “And you didn’t even have the decency to tell me?”
“You weren’t talking to me. You told me you didn’t want to be friends anymore,” he says matter-of-factly. “The last thing I wanted to do was cause you more pain.”
“Well, congratulations. You did anexcellentjob.” My voice wobbles.
I feel like a handbag being shaken upside down, everything important falling out at once and rolling under the sofa never to be seen again.
His voice softens as he looks at the ground. “I just—I didn’t know how to tell you when you could barely stand to be in the same room as me.”
“And what about now? You could have told me when I was talking about him at the gallery,or when Iris told you he’d been texting me!” The words emerge through gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry,” he continues. “I thought... I was trying to protect you.” His usually bright eyes fill with a dark storm cloud glaze as they flick back and forth between me and the papers.
I spew out a laugh, emotion constricting my throat. “That’s what you’ve been doing? Protecting me?”
“I didn’t want you to get even more hurt than you already were. I wanted to tell you, but it just felt like Iwould be kicking you while you were down,” he blurts out, running a rough hand through his hair.
“Oh, so you talking shit about me in your officewasn’tdoing that?”
Hastings is a clingy psycho... She’s not worth going there, not even for a quick shag.The words ring in my head, overlapping his current words like some sick chorus.
He blinks, halting his pacing. “What?”
I open my mouth and throw my hands up in disbelief, leaning against the wall as my knees begin to shake.
“Great.” I gesture to him, trying furiously to blink away the hurt from my eyes. “So you tell your whole office I’m a psycho, I’m desperate and pathetic and you don’t even fucking remember. Just... great.”
I cross my arms, cradling the part of me that feels like taking its first breath after being punched.
He furrows his brow and shakes his head in confusion. I just stare at him until, finally, his expression softens, and he steps closer.
“Grace... I didn’t know you heard that.” He rubs the back of his neck and then brings his hand to hesitantly touch my arm, the warmth searing into my prickled skin. “Would you believe me if I told you that wasn’t what it sounded like?”
My mouth is clamped shut as I stare to the side. Now that this is out there, I know anything I say will come out jerked and teary. I don’t want to give him an answer or the satisfaction. I pull my arm away from him.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, his head lowering.
“Sure you are.” I sniff, turning my head to avoid his intense stare, knowing that it will only take one look at his pained expression for me to burst.
Bancroft looks at the ceiling, curses to himself, then lowers his gaze back to me. “Jeffrey heard about your breakup and said he was going to try it with you. I didn’t want you to have to deal with his sleaziness on top of everything else, and I panicked. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had but I said those things to put him off you. I swear to you, Grace, I didn’t mean a word of it. No one else was ever meant to hear it, I promise.”
I meet his soft, regretful gaze and sigh, feeling almost hungover from the conflicting emotions coursing through me. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.” I turn my head to wipe away an escaping tear clumsily with my palm.
His brow furrows as he takes my chin between his fingers and lifts my head to meet his eyes. “Is that why you refused to talk to me? Why you blocked me out?”
I nod, the ghosts of the shock and betrayal vibrating through my skin as though it was yesterday.
“Fuck, Grace. I thought it was because you were embarrassed about what happened with us. This whole time, we could have—Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
