Page 128 of Keep Me Close

After stepping inside, he closes the door behind him. There’s no swagger or easy charm being deployed like a weapon. It’s just Hugh, careful in a way that feels far more disarming than his arrogance ever did.

I set the folder down. “Whatever you need to speak with me about must be important if it couldn’t wait until the morning.”

“It is.”

I gesture vaguely toward the chair opposite my desk. “Then sit down.”

Instead of taking a seat, he remains standing a few feet away, hands loose at his sides, posture composed, though there’s a tension in it I recognize.

Interesting.

When he remains silent, I clear my throat. “What did you want, Hugh?”

He stares at me for a long moment, as if deciding where to begin. “What I need to discuss has nothing to do with the team.”

“Oh?” I fold my hands neatly on the desk. “Then I have even less patience for this conversation than I assumed.”

A flicker of pain crosses his face. Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s just exhaustion.

“The penthouse is quiet without you there.”

The words land with the force of a blow as I stare at him. Outwardly, I remain still. Inside, though, something shifts enough to leave me off balance.

As much as I don’t want to understand what he means, I do. The intimate dinners he cooked for us. The way we would silently sit in the same room, reading together. The opera tickets he bought because he knows how much I love it. Sleeping side by side, never touching yet always aware of each other.

The steady, inescapable gravity of him these past months left an indelible mark on me. And the quiet has gotten to me too, and that’s the problem. Instead of feeling relief when I left, I just feel…

Lonely.

My chin lifts a fraction. “If you came here to be nostalgic, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

“I came here to say something I should have years ago.”

A chill slides through me as I push back in my chair, unable to sit still. The office feels too small, as if all the oxygen has been sucked from it. I rise and move toward the window, folding my arms as I stare out at the city. Lights shimmer against the dark glass.

“And what is that?”

Silence stretches long enough that I almost turn back before the words rasp out of him.

“When I ended our engagement, it wasn’t because I fell out of love with you.”

The world stops as I slowly turn back to him. Hugh hasn’t moved. He stands exactly where I left him, his shoulders squared.

“I’m sorry?”

His jaw flexes. “I still loved you when I ended our engagement.”

Laughter bubbles up inside me. “That is a spectacularly cruel thing to say after all this time.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Oh?” I take a step toward him before stopping myself. “Do you have any idea what it cost me to survive that? What it took to let myself believe you had simply stopped loving me?” My throat tightens as I force myself to hold his gaze. “Because that was far easier than imagining you’d loved me and left anyway.”

His eyes close briefly, as if each word is painful.

When he opens them again, they’re darker. “It was about survival.”

The air leaves my lungs in a shallow rush as confusion and dread crash over me. It’s a sick, sinking sensation because I don’t know where this is going, only that it’ll rip open the wounds I’d long thought were healed.