I let myself slide lower in the water until it closed over my ears, muffling the world. My tears kept coming, sharp and endless, until my body ached with it.I stayed there until the water went cold. Until my skin wrinkled. Until I had nothing left to give.
When I finally dragged myself out, wrapped in a towel, my eyes were raw and swollen. I padded barefoot into the suite, exhausted.
A knock at the door startled me.
I padded over, tying the sash tighter around my waist. “Kelsey?” I called softly as I turned the handle.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t my friend’s face I saw.
It was his.
“Elise,” Nathan said, his voice low and rough, like gravel dragged across glass.
And just like that, the air was gone from my lungs all over again.
Nathan stood there, eyes blazing, hair mussed like he’d ran his hands through it a thousand times. His suit jacket was gone, his tie loose, and his chest rose and fell too fast.
“Elise.” Relief broke across his face when he saw me, but then he took in the redness of my eyes, the thick robe wrapped around me, and the fragile mess I was in, and his jaw locked. “Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Please,” he said softly. “I just need five minutes.”
Nathan’s gaze found mine again, and just like that, the whole room disappeared. It was just him. And me. And everything broken between us.
I nodded once and stepped aside, letting him in.
The suite felt suddenly too small, air thick with tension. Nathan moved closer, his hand twitching at his side like he wanted to touch me but knew better.
“How did you find me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I always know where you are, Elise.”
My heart lurched. Not from the sweetness of the words, but from the sharp edge beneath them.
The floor swayed under me. My heart clawed its way into my throat. I knew he was powerful. Everyone knew that. Nathan Edge wasn’t just a CEO. He was the man who could make or break careers or make a man disappear with a single phone call. But hearing him say it like that, as if my attempt at distance had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience for him to untangle, made me realize just how deep his influence ran.
“You tracked me.” My words wobbled with disbelief.
He didn’t deny it. “I have contacts everywhere. A woman who books under your name, pays in cash, and asks for privacy? You may as well have put up a neon sign, Cupcake.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold even in the thick robe. “That’s not normal, Nathan. That’s—”
“That’s me making sure I know where you are so I can fix us,” he cut in, voice hard enough to shatter glass.
I laughed sardonically. “Us? There is no us anymore, Nathan. You made sure of that.”
“I can explain.”
For one fractured second, I wanted to let him. God, I wanted him to spin me some beautiful lie I could live inside. But lies were what got us here in the first place.
My laugh broke, jagged and hollow. “Explain? You chased after me because you were going to lose a lot of money and lose the record company.” My chest heaved. “Not because you liked me. Not because you wanted me. Because of some stipulation in a will.”
His face crumpled. “No. That’s not true.”
“Don’t.” My voice cut like glass. “Don’t lie to me again.”
He flinched, and I hated that I noticed. That part of me still ached for him even now.
