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The chill I’d tried to purge from my veins, the cold I’d thought Zoe had thawed was back, but tenfold, encasing me in ice. I could barely walk, barely think past my anger. My self-disgust.
“Mr. O’Neill?” Gloria said, as I put my hand to the knob on my closed office door.
“What?” I snapped and she flinched.
God, I was sorry about that too. How many apologies, I thought, will make my life okay? How many times do I need to whip myself for what I’ve done? I’d paid my whole life for every decision I’d ever made and it clearly hadn’t been enough.
“Zoe Madison is in there—”
Ice filled my brain and my anger was frigid. My control complete. Zoe had distracted me from my diligent command over my life and secrets. She’d been the key that had unleashed everything.
Foolishly, I’d thought it was a good thing, that her affection and love was something that might heal me. Fix me.
But I was an O’Neill. And I was broken down to my DNA.
I pushed open the door and the sight of her jumping out of a chair, a copy of the paper crumbled up in her hands, was like an ice pick right to my heart.
It hurt to see her. To smell the spicy ginger cookie scent of her.
“Carter?” she cried, racing around the table. “Are you okay? I saw the paper and—”
“I’m fine.”
She stilled, her eyes wary, her fingers fumbling with the paper. “Fine?” she whispered. “But the paper…”
“What do you want me to say, Zoe? I’m going to be disbarred, I’m dropping out of the mayoral race and I’ve been disgraced on the front page of the paper. Again.” My phone buzzed and I scrolled down the list of e-mails I’d gotten in the past ten minutes. Endless. My career was going to go down in a barrage of e-mails.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, the pain like a wind blowing right out of her.
“Answering e-mails,” I said without looking at her.
“Put that away!” she snapped. “Talk to me!”
“I have work to do, Zoe.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Like it doesn’t matter!” she cried. “Like you’re made out of ice.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” I said, “I wasn’t aware there was a protocol.”
“Carter!” she cried, and slapped the phone out of my hand. It hit the wall and skidded across the carpet.
“That was unnecessary,” I said.
“Are you…are you mad at me? Do you think…”
“That you are the anonymous source?” My anger surged and my vision went black. “It had occurred to me. Seems a pretty incredible coincidence that I keep this secret for ten years and the week after I tell you it’s all over the paper. You sold me out once, Zoe, and your mother made it very clear that you’re broke. Information like this must come with a pretty attractive price tag.”
She gasped, swallowed hard as if she might throw up, and I just stared at her. Watched her like she was a stranger, and maybe she was. In the end, maybe we were all just strangers. Love, intimacy, family, they were shams, fake oases for the desperate. And oh, God, that had been me, hadn’t it? Desperate for someone to hold me, to listen to my secrets, to forgive me, my crimes.
Pathetic.
Suddenly, I felt sick.
“You don’t really believe that.”
And she was right. I didn’t. She didn’t sell me out. This had Mom written all over it. But it was the tool I’d use to push her away.
She reached out for me; her fingers, those hands I adored so much reached for me, and I stepped away, the idea of being touched unbearable. My life—the life that her touch had illuminated, brought into focus—was over. Shattered. “Your mother—”
Of course it was my mother.
I could strike out at Zoe all I wanted, but I knew, had always known, it couldn’t have been her. Could never have been her.
But my mother had all the practice in the world at breaking my life into pieces.
And now that I was clearheaded about it, the clues all fell into place. The broken fingers. The split lip. She’d sold me out to save herself—I should have seen it coming, but I’d been too drunk on Zoe, on love and trust and belonging to someone. Belonging with someone. God, what a disaster. My mother had been right, trust was only rewarded with pain. Well, not again. Never again would I be blindsided like this.
“It doesn’t matter.” That was the truth. Nothing mattered. The chill did its job and I was totally numb. “Nothing matters, Zoe. It was only a matter of time.”
“Please don’t freeze me out, Carter,” she whispered. This time I couldn’t brush off her hands, and they touched my face, blazes of heat against my skin. Her fingers stroked my lips, my cheeks, and it felt so good, so unbelievably good that I couldn’t push her away. “Why are you doing this to us? To what we have?”
