Page 54 of Into Pitch

“Do what?”

Right, I was the one who stepped forward.

“Stand there like you’re… calm. Like you didn’t lie to my face for weeks.”

He sighs, “I really did think we were past this. I didn’t lie to you, I withheld.”

“I stand corrected, you lied with better PR.”

He chuckles, amusement threading through his expression. “You didn’t come to your session because you’re angry.”

“That doesn’t take a therapist to figure out, Alex. What do people even pay you for outside of stating the obvious?” I grind out past the tightness in my jaw.

“It’s okay to be both angry and afraid, Sadie. It is only natural that you feel that way considering everything.”

“Oh please, you aren’t the voice of reason now. And I’m not scared of you.” I huff.

One step.

That’s all it takes for him to make the air change around me. His fingers raise and I stiffen as they land on my jaw.

“You should be,” he murmurs quietly.

“Not because I hurt you, but because you know what I am and still let me bend you six different ways around this bus.” He continues, tone deceptively even despite the words he spews.

“Fucking you and needing you are two entirely different things.”

He chuckles, his fingers gliding down to my pulse where it flutters just beneath the skin. “I know they are, but the great thing is you can do both at the same time.”

“I don’t want to do either,” I refute.

“That’s a lie, and we don’t do that anymore. Not with each other.”

I scoff. “I don’t know how many times we have to discuss this, but you don’t get to set what we are or aren’t anymore. The sex? It was nothing.”

He hums and slowly slides his hand to circle my throat, his thumb pressing into the bottom of my chin to tilt my head back. His eyes slide across my face like he’s able to see directly into my skull and pick it all apart.

“You were painting to regulate your nervous system.”

What?

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You’re avoiding my office because it doesn’t feel neutral anymore. So we don’t use the office.” He murmurs.

“You can’t bulldoze through what I just said because it’s not what you want to hear!” I scoff.

“You don’t get to disappear, Sadie.”

A chill slides through me at the warning in his tone. “I can, and you can watch me do it.”

Something dark slithers into his gaze beneath the calm. “If you run, I will follow.”

“Don’t threaten me,” I whisper in face of that darkness.

“I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you what will happen.”

I glare up at him, chest heaving through the thickening tension between us. “So what, you think you can just—move therapy into my bus?”