Page 130 of Cruel Lies

The steam is still leaking under the door.

"I think," Navi says slowly, "that I've got the wrong… Is Ronan there?"

"You said 'the Bradshaw woman,'" I hear myself mumble. It feels like deja vu. I'm in a Phoenix hotel room all over again, as an unexpected horror rears its nasty head and takes a bite out of the life I thought I had. "You said 'we can seize her shares.'"

Nothing. Just breathing.

"Iamthe Bradshaw woman," I say. "And that's my company you're talking about. Isn't it?"

"Ma'am…" But he doesn't say anything for a few moments after that. I think we both recognize that too much has been said, and it cannot possibly be taken back.

I drop onto the bed, feeling like my legs were just cut out from under me. Breathing is suddenly a chore. Justlivinghurts. It's like I have to pump my heart manually, reminding it every beat to go, go, go.

"Put Ronan on," Navi requests finally. "Please."

I look at the bathroom door. I can still make out the shape of him behind the frosted glass, and he's still humming. He has no idea yet that the phone in my hand is the wrong phone, the one I wasn't supposed to touch, and the person on the other end of it just said something that I was almost certainly not meant to hear.

When I double over to force another breath into my lungs, I hear a crinkle. That's when I remember the napkin is in my shirtpocket. I can feel the little square of it against my chest, where I tucked it two minutes ago when I was standing in the bathroom deciding to keep Ronan Akov for good.

"How long have you been working on this?" I rasp out.

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you," Navi says. "That's not because I'm trying to hide anything. It's just not mine to have. You need to talk to him."

I can't breathe. I feel sick. Am I dying? This must be what dying feels like.

"Talk to Ronan," Navi says again. And then, quieter, so sincere that it's almost like he means it: "I'm sorry it happened like this."

The line goes dead.

I stand there in the middle of Ronan Akov's enormous, beautiful bedroom, forty stories over Central Park, holding a cheap gas-station phone, and do the thing I do. The only thing I've ever really been good at.

I take the scattered pieces and I put them together into a picture.

The filing against my company. Ronan said it was Todd regrouping. Was that true?

The power of attorney I signed. Limited, narrow, revocable, he promised.Only so he could act quickly on my behalf. Was that true?

Full access to my corporate filings.So I know the scope of what must be done.Was that true?

I feel the picture assemble itself, cold and clean and horrible, click, click, click, one piece snapping into the next until the whole thing becomes undeniable.

He doesn't want me.

He never did.

I was only ever a means to an end.

The water shuts off in the bathroom. The humming stops. Through the fogged glass, I see the shape of the man I thought I loved reach for a towel. He's easy and relaxed, post-coital and happy. He thinks I'm clueless.

I take the napkin out of my pocket.

Then I take my things and I leave.

Before Ronan Akov can do any more damage to my heart.

34

RONAN