“No.” He brought the word down like an axe, hard and final. Severing. “I won’t force this conversation on her, but if she asks me, I’ll tell her the truth. It’s the least she deserves.”
Tansy’s lower lip quivered. Her eyes filled and spilled over. She didn’t make a sound.
Nick stood motionless, wondering if he’d ever seen her cry before. He couldn’t call a single time to mind. And yet her tears summoned absolutely nothing in him, just a blank wall where compassion should have been.
“I know I screwed up your life,” she said, “but all I ever did was put Paige first. Before you, yes, but before me, too. And I’m not sorry for that.”
“Do you have any idea?” Accusation weighted his words. “What you took from me?”
“Yes.” She tipped her chin up. “And the honest truth is I’d do it again. Because if someone held a gun to Paige’s head and told me to stab you, the only thing I’d stop to think about is where to aim the knife.”
He laughed. Actually laughed, somehow. “And I’d do the same to you. In a heartbeat.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I chose you.”
It was the most honest conversation they’d ever had. And for a moment, just one, he looked down into her face and found her beautiful.
But that didn’t change the fact that she’d taken away his choice. Though maybe that was why she’d pushed him toward Aubrey with such gusto—as some kind of consolation prize, a peace offering for all she’d stolen.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
“I want to make one thing clear.” His voice dropped. “I’ll stay a little longer, for Paige’s sake. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to help her through this. But I want a divorce, a real one, and I won’t live with you anymore. You’re the mother of a child I still love like my own, one I’d die for, but I don’t owe you a goddamn thing.”
Tansy squared her shoulders. “Fine.”
He left her there.
In his bedroom, he dressed with record speed, then climbedinto his truck and headed for the mill. He needed heat. Fire. He needed the volcanic roar of the blast furnace to melt him down to numb, dead ash.
And then, when Paige was ready, when she came and asked him, he needed to have a very, very difficult conversation. And somehow, he had to make sure they both survived it.
34.
Aubrey spent the day at the desk in her bedroom, working on her manifesto. Leftover energy from her morning with Nick infused her, and she jabbed at the computer keys, churning out the words that would prove her innocence. She needed to finish this. She needed her job back. She needed to get out of this town. She needed...
Oh, god, she just...needed, so very badly that even her hair throbbed with the intensity of it. But every time she closed her eyes, her mind betrayed her. Flashes swam into focus—upswept black eyes, holding hers. Perfect skin stretched over hardened muscle.
Because holy hell, Nick’s body. Running her hands over him two weeks ago had been one thing, but watching him undress, gathering him close, had proved quite another. She recalled every dizzying line—the graceful rise where his shoulder joined his neck, the shadow etched beneath each abdominal muscle, the ridges scored along his side, visible when he raised his arm.
Aubrey slapped the laptop closed and buried her face in her hands. This was pointless. More than pointless, it was destructive.I love Gallant, not Nick. Gallant, not Nick.
Yet something had happened to her this morning. When she’d opened her eyes to find Nick’s gaze already locked on hers, her entire being had sighed in fulfillment. Waking up to him had plunged her into a sort of nirvana she’d wanted to float in forever.
Which she absolutely couldn’t think about, because getting wrapped up in him could only end one way. It only ever endedone way.
She wheeled away from the desk and went to the window, but that only reminded her of the countless nights she’d slid up the pane to let in her Romeo, so she abandoned her bedroom for the kitchen, where she filled the electric kettle.
Gallant, she reminded herself. Bubbles rose into existence through the water, whispering his name.Gallant, Gallant, Gallant.
She needed to see him. She needed another letter. She needed to slake this horrible need that singed her fingertips and made her hair stand on end.
Aubrey slid her cell from her pocket and punched a few buttons.Are we still on for tonight?
Gallant pinged back in seconds.I was just about to ask you the same. I want to see you so badly I can’t concentrate. Everyone at the office keeps asking if I’m okay.
She smiled. Yes. This was what she needed.What time do you get home?
Five, he wrote.
