“Doing what?”
“Apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.”
“But thiswas–”
“I don’t want your apologies, Min,” he cut her off, looking up to meet her eyes for the first time since he’d gotten home. Looking in her eyes was a mistake. He quickly averted his gaze again.
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
He barked out a laugh. “I want my fucking future back,” he said, balling his shirt and throwing it across the room as he spoke. Min winced at the hostility in his tone, the aggression of his throw, and that wince squeezed his heart.
Get it to-fucking-gether.
He dragged his hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be much company tonight.”
She rocked back on her heels, blinking. “You want me to leave?”
He sighed, planting his hands on his hips and hanging his head so he wouldn’t accidentally see the hurt in her eyes again. “Right now all I want to do is fight. And I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Liam…” She took a step towards him, but he held his hand up to stop her.
“I don’t have any gentleness left in me today, contessa. And you were –” he stopped, shaking his head, speaking in fits and starts, unable to put into words the horrors he had imagined happening if he had arrived at her dressing room even a few seconds later.
My fault.The blame resounded in his head. If he had stopped the dean from taking the Dietrich money, if he had fought harder to keep their name off the building, Aidan never would have been there in the first place. If he had done a million things differently – and yet he couldn’t pinpoint how he could have. He loved her. He loved her so much he had torn apart his life for her.
He realized she was still waiting, so he tried again. “He tried… Min, I can’t… you need –”
“What I need is to be with the man I love,” she said, reaching for him.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, but he held his arms away from her. He couldn’t touch her. Not like this. Not when he was so shaken, so outside of himself that he didn’t trust himself not to break her.
He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing down the knot at the base of his throat. He didn’t want to be angry with her. But he couldn’t stop the incessant stream of thoughts running through his head.This is her fault, too.If she had just reported Aidan in the first place, if she hadn’t been so goddamn perfect for him, then maybe he wouldn’t be standing in the rubble of his destroyed career. Maybe he wouldn’t be hearing his father’s voice echoing in his memory:You can’t have both.
Liam dropped his hands to her shoulders and gently but firmly pressed her away from himself. “You should go,” he grated out, dropping his hands and stepping away from her.
He felt the loss of her immediately, a blow so crushing it knocked the wind out of him. But he didn’t trust himself. His thoughts were a murky, roiling mess and his chest was so tight he could hardly breathe and all he wanted to do was smash something so he had a tangible representation of all the ways he’d destroyed everything he’d worked for.
“Liam, I –”
“I can’t do this right now!” he shouted. She winced and he hated himself even more. “I just losteverything!”
The silence following his outburst was deafening.
“You’re not the only one who had a shit night, Liam,” she said, her voice shaking with tears but her face set in determination. “Do you have any idea how many awful names I’ve been called tonight – by people I thought were my friends? How many people are talking about us on social media? How many videos are going around? None of them have anything bad to say about you, by the way. That’s all reserved for Aidan and me. I’m sure the dean was mad at you, but I’m willing to bet he didn’t call you a slut or accuse you of sleeping with someone to get ahead.”
He blinked back the tears building behind his eyes, ignoring the knives ripping through his chest and gripping on to his anger with both hands. Anger was easier. Anger didn’t hurt so much.
“I’m sorry about your job,” she said, turning to go.
“Contessa. I just need some time,” he called after her, knowing he sounded as tired as he felt.
She kept her back to him, the restraint she was summoning to keep herself from coming back to him visible in the tension of her arms, the flexing of her fingers. “How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
