“People in my line of work value privacy.”
“So do people in mine.”I let out a low laugh.“Though I’m learning I’m not particularly good at protecting it.”
Her expression softens.“What you discovered today—it’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it?I own the building.I hired the staff.I trusted the wrong people.”I pause.“Trust is the one currency I’ve always spent too freely—investors, partners, lovers.Each promising permanence; each eventually selling the illusion back to me.”
“You’ve been running a legitimate business,” she says gently.“Someone else had a side hustle.”
The server returns with tea.Brie wraps her hands around the cup, drawing warmth from it.Her sleeves ride back an inch.A bare strip of wrist.Ridiculous that something that small can feel obscene.Her fingers—long, elegant, ringless—stir memories: her touch, her music, her breath against my skin.
“You could’ve asked where I lived,” she says.
“Would you have told me?”
“Probably not,” she admits.“But asking is more civilized.”
“Then asking my driver was necessary.”
“It was invasive.”
“Brie, I need to know—how much of what happened between us was real?”
She sets down her cup with surgical precision, the china clinking against the saucer like punctuation.“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me—more than it should.”My voice comes out rough, with more emotion than I care to let on, but that doesn’t hinder me.“Because if it wasn’t real for you, I’ve been grieving a woman who never existed.And I need to know if I’m unhinged or just...unlucky.”
“You’re surrounded by beautiful women who probably fawn over you.You have everything you want in spades.”
“Do I?”I gesture to the window.“I searched for a woman who didn’t exist.Dated others.Each one felt like a counterfeit.”
“That’s dramatic.We had a weekend.”
“I had hope.”
And I didn’t know hope could bruise like this.
“You’re not that good an actress, Brie.Why vanish?Why stay gone?”
She studies me, long and measured.“What did you see when you looked at me?”
“Freedom,” I answer before I can edit myself.“You moved through that world like you belonged but weren’t bound by it.Everyone else at those parties—including me—we were performing.You wereplaying.Like you knew the rules but refused to be impressed by them.”I lean forward.“And when you played piano, you stopped hiding.That’s when I knew—whatever name you gave me, whoever you were pretending to be, whatever you claim—thatwas real.”
Her lips purse, faintly.“But I was playing a role.”
“Were you?When you listened to me share things I hadn’t told anyone?When you fell asleep with your head on my chest?Or when you left without saying goodbye because goodbye might’ve hurt?”
Color drains from her face.
Bull’s-eye, and I hate that it feels like one.
She looks down at her tea, and for three seconds—maybe five—she doesn’t move.When she speaks, her voice is quieter.“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?”I keep my tone gentle, not triumphant.“You left because staying would’ve meant something.And you couldn’t afford for it to mean something.”
Her jaw tightens.I’ve crossed a line, but I’m not backing down.
“I know you feel it too,” I say softly.“It didn’t die when you disappeared.”
