“A spat with Axel.” It was so much worse than a spat.Go. I release you.
Joy was devastated. Her instinct was to catch the first plane home, but as she stood for her fitting, she knew she couldn’t let a man knock her off her stride again. Even if her marriage was over, her dance career wasn’t. She would stay in Berlin at least until after the performance.
How, though? Where?
She was trying to figure things out as she picked up her bag. Her phone was pinging with texts, so she glanced at the screen. There were two from her driver and another from Axel.
Your driver is here. Where are you?
Where did he think? Gawd. She silenced her notifications and dropped her phone into her bag, noticing the envelope the doorman had given her.
She opened it, mostly to put off having to go home to face Axel again. Then she had to lean on the wall, finding herself on the floor by the time she had finished reading.
She started again, trying to take it in.
My dear,
I believe you are my niece. My sister was Lorena Fontaine. I’m in Berlin on business this week. My number is below. I would very much like to meet you if you have time. I’m staying with my wife at—
“Joy?” One of her fellow dancers crouched down before her, asking with concern, “Are you okay?”
“What?” She touched the tickle on her cheek and realized she was crying again, this time for a whole new reason. “Yes.” She was better than she’d been in a very long while. “Do you have a car? I need to go to a hotel.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AXEL WOULD NEVERhave described himself as someone who snapped, but this morning that was exactly what had happened. He’d been trying to hold on to Joy since she had confessed her love, but she’d been slipping away from him, bit by bit.
I don’t want things from you. Why keep me here? I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending.
There’d been such rejection and stark unhappiness in her words he’d arrived at his breaking point. There had always been an expiry date on their relationship. She was right. He didn’t need her. Not the way he had two months ago when he proposed to her.
Even so, he’d been blindsided by the fact she felt trapped and wanted to leave him. When she had mapped out why she couldn’t, a host of emotions had accosted him: guilt at holding onto her. Inadequacy that he wasn’t offering enough. Anger that she was reducing their marriage to money and orgasms. Hurt.
Yes, he’d been hurt by the way she’d been shutting him out, so he’d snapped and told her to go. Then he’d been so stung as she walked away, he’d taken a shot that was fathoms beneath him.
She’d responded exactly as he deserved, by throwing his own words back in his face.
You never even wanted my love. So fine. I take it back. I release you.
She might as well have plunged a knife into his chest. Every breath hurt.
The buzz from the doorman yanked him from his brooding.
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“Frau Severin’s driver is here. I explained that she left an hour ago. She hasn’t answered his texts. Did you have any instructions for him?”
“Shewalkedto the studio?”
“I presume so?”
Axel tried texting her but didn’t get a reply, so he sent the driver to the studio, expecting she would need a lift home.
A few minutes later, the driver informed him she wasn’t there.
“Ask Inga to call me,” he instructed the driver.
“She was here,” the choreographer said when he answered her call. “But she left at least thirty minutes ago.”
