Where the fuck is she?
Finally, the private elevator chimes.
Every muscle in my body locks. I don't turn from the window yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to pivot around and watch her lie to my face once I confront her. Instead, I watch her reflection materialize in the glass in front of me. The quiet, mechanical slide of doors opening. The soft fall of her footsteps on the marble of the foyer as she steps into our home.
Despite everything churning inside me, my body responds to her presence the way it always does. All my senses lock on to her, instantly alert and electric. My chest tightens with want even as my jaw hardens with hurt.
I turn slowly.
She sees me and stops. Guilt flickers across her face—there and gone, but not fast enough. She's surprised I'm home. And something else hovers behind those green eyes, something I can't name. Another secret. Another wall going up between us.
I don't move toward her. At this moment, I hardly trust myself to breathe.
"How was your lunch with Tasha?"
My voice comes out shockingly level. The boardroom mask I wear at work, now deployed against the woman I love because anything rawer would shatter the control I'm barely holding.
She hesitates. Just a fraction of a second, but I catch it. The slight tension in her shoulders, the way her lips part and close again. She's calculating. Deciding how to answer.
The thought cracks something inside me.
I stuff my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her. "I went by Vendange before I came home. Tasha was surprised to see me. Said she hadn't heard from you all day."
The color drains from her cheeks. Her breath catches almost imperceptibly. Something that looks like resignation settles into her features.
She swallows. "You checked up on me?"
I nod and take a single step closer. "I got home and you weren’t here, so I called your studio too. No answer. The place was empty."
"Nick…"
"Where were you, Avery?" The roughness in my voice betrays me now. "Why did you lie to me?"
She holds my gaze with a courage that's so essentially her. Other than last night, she's never cowered from me, not even when perhaps she should have.
"It's not what you think." She moves toward me, closing some of the distance I can't make myself cross.
She can't possibly know everything I've been thinking. The scenarios that have torn through my mind in the agonizing time since I received her text earlier today. But underneath my anger, something darker writhes. A thought I can barely let myself form.
What if I drove her away?
The possibility takes shape with teeth. She wouldn’t be reconsidering us because there's someone else. I know that. It would be because ofme. Because I showed her last night that I'm exactly the kind of man she should run from.
What if my behavior last night—the raised voice, the fury she shrank back from—was the final fracture? What if she woke up this morning and realized she can't do this? Can't marry a man who carries his father's rage coiled inside him like a loaded weapon.
I can’t help wondering if she might have realized, finally, that she deserves someone better than me.
Someone who deserves her in all the ways I never will.
If she tells me the wedding is off, if she's decided she needs space, real space, the kind that doesn't end, I don't know what I'll do. The thought empties me out, leaves me cold as I watch her expression shift into one of quiet remorse.
"You're right," she admits softly. Her voice is calm. Calmer than anything I'm feeling. She takes another few steps forward, close enough now that I can see the faint shadows beneath her eyes, evidence of a night as sleepless as my own. "I did lie. I'm sorry. I didn't meet Tasha today."
That catches me off guard. I expected defense. Deflection. Not this steady advance, her chin lifting as she stops in front of me. She holds my gaze, unflinching.
"I went to the doctor today, Nick."
Everything stops. My suspicion. My anger. My hurt. All of it dries up in an instant.
