“No.”
He tilted his head, one eyebrow lifting in a look that said, “You and I both know you don’t want the neighbors hearing this.”
Shit. I really didn’t.
I backed away, and he sauntered in, his eyes scanning the space in one unhurried sweep, lingering on my abandoned book and wineglass. “Cozy.”
“What do you want, Wyatt?”
For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, but then his face fell, and there was the man I’d met on a sticky summer night at a mutual friend’s wedding. The Wyatt who’d walked me back to my hotel room that night in the pouring rain, telling me he’d never met anyone like me, that he didn’t want us to end whenthe sun came up. The man who used to tell me that I was special, that no one understood him the way I did.
I felt a sharp, twisting pain just under my ribs. I acknowledged it—acknowledged the loss of what we once had—and then let it go.
“I need you, Sebastian. How could you just—” His voice broke, his hand lifting to press his knuckles against his lips. “How could you leave me like that?”
I had waited years for Wyatt Hastings to admit that he needed me.
And yet I felt nothing now except the quiet sadness for the man I’d once been. For the hopes I’d placed in him.
“You don’t miss me, Wyatt. You miss having me at your beck and call,” I said, waiting for the familiar pull of guilt, the reflexive urge to soften the blow. It never came. “You miss my insight and how it made you better. And you definitely miss my cock. But you don’t miss me.”
His hand dropped from his mouth, and he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “That’s not fair.”
I slid past him to the opposite wall and crossed my arms. “Nothing’s fair about any of this, Wyatt.”
“Please. Don’t be like this, Bas.”
The old nickname spoken in that voice slithered over me like a snake over a grave. I swallowed past my revulsion.
“Like what?”
“You’re being contrary just to spite me. This isn’t like you.”
“It’sexactlylike me, though I understand why you might not get that.”
He took a step toward me, his face screwed up in anger. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you stopped seeing me. Stopped caring about me as anything other than someone who could do something for you. Stopped looking at me as anything other than a holeto fuck. The only time you even bothered to pretend I mattered was when I had something you wanted.”
“That’s bullshit,” he spat, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Is it?” I crossed my arms over my chest to hide the fact that my hands were shaking.
“You know damn well it is.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, widening his stance. “You’re my ... you’ve always been ... Goddamnit, Bas. You have to know that’s not true.”
“What Iknow,” I said, my voice brittle, “is that you showed up drunk on my doorstep just like this three years ago with a ring in your pocket for a woman you’d previously told me meant nothing to you.”
My laugh sounded bitter, but I didn’t have it in me to care. I’d kept all of this bottled up for far too long.
“What Iknow,” I went on, “is that when I pointed out the problems with Celine’s additions to your telecommunications bill, you said I was being petty and jealous. And then, when it blew up exactly as I predicted, you couldn’t even acknowledge how right I’d been.”
My heart was beating too fast, my hands shaking. I jammed them into my pockets, hoping he hadn’t noticed. I drew air in through my nose and counted to four before blowing it slowly back out. When I spoke again, I made sure my voice was steady.
“What Iknowis not once since you two set a wedding date have you asked me how I’m doing. What this whole fucking arrangement has cost me. Everything is always about you and what you need. At no point have you ever stopped and asked yourself whatImight need.”
“You make it sound like I’m some kind of monster. That’s not who I am.”
“I know exactly who you are, Wyatt.”
