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“I’ve been carrying it around with me for the past year. I figured it was finally time to let go.”
Time to let us go. I don’t have to say the words out loud. Nick’s gaze holds mine, penetrating and intense, still powerful enough to cleave me wide open if I’m not careful. But I am careful. I have to be, especially with him.
It’s been a year since I spoke to him—since I’ve been close enough to feel the warmth of his body and breathe in the spicy, intoxicating scent of him, which even now seems to trip all of my senses. A year since I’ve known Nick’s touch, yet I feel the memory of it as if I had been in his arms only yesterday.
I don’t want the memories anymore. He can’t possibly know how hard I’ve worked to move past them, to get on with my life after he shattered my heart with his betrayal.
But he does know.
I can see that knowledge in every nuance of his handsome face. I see a hundred questions in his eyes, a hundred things we both should have said in Paris. Things we need to say to each other now, but probably never will.
“You look good, Avery.” He studies me as he speaks, and I’m not sure if it’s surprise or disappointment I hear in his subdued tone. “I’m happy for all your success. The gallery showings, the accolades from the press and critics. The six-figure acquisition of your last painting. Congratulations, by the way. You’re headed for even bigger things, I have no doubt. I’m impressed.”
And I’m astonished. I can’t deny that his praise affects me, but I’m more taken aback to hear that he’s aware of everything that’s happened with my career this past year. Evidently, he’s been paying attention.
I’d be lying to myself to pretend I haven’t been curious about him too. Not that he’s made it easy to ferret out even the smallest information since we’ve been apart. Nick’s reputation for privacy in his personal life is almost as notable as his staggering net worth. The “shadow mogul” has been practically invisible the past year. Not a single photo in the media, not a hint of gossip in the society pages or the Internet.
In the absence of facts, I indulged in countless spiteful fantasies about him. Imagining Nick haggard and despondent, with an overgrown, unkempt beard and midsection paunch. Reveling in the idea that he might be suffering as profoundly as I had after I returned home from Paris alone, an inconsolable, shredded mess.
But Nick has never looked better. Still flawlessly fit, devastatingly gorgeous. And he’s staring at me as if he can see every imperfection in me, every fissure in my carefully constructed facade. As if I’m still the heartbroken, foolish woman he treated like his plaything.
The woman he once claimed he loved.
“Are you happy, Avery?”
“Happy?” The question catches me off guard, another of his specialties. I force a smile and a nonchalant shrug. “As you pointed out yourself, things have never been better.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
A scoff erupts out of me before I can hold it back. “The way I recall it, you’re the one owing the answers, not me.”
“You’re right.” He grunts, sounding almost contrite. “You didn’t seem ready for anything I had to say then. Are you now?”
“You’re a little late, Nick. None of it matters anymore.”
“Would it have then?”
“No.”
It’s the truth, even though I’ve told myself he should have at least tried. He should have come after me that day in Paris or any of the hundreds that followed. Some pathetic part of me had been certain he’d come after me. Dominic Baine isn’t one to let something that belongs to him slip through his fingers.
He should have forced me to listen. Regardless of my capacity to forgive him, he should have explained why he chose me to manipulate the way he did.
But he did none of those things.
He let me go.
He watched me walk out the door of his flat and out of his life, and in all this time he never even attempted to bring me back.
That alone was answer enough for me.
It still is.
I step back from him, a retreat his keen ga
ze doesn’t miss. “It’s been nice seeing you, Nick.” The lie sounds as tight as my smile feels when I look at him. “Enjoy the rest of the reception.”
I hold out my hand the way I would to any other acquaintance or colleague. He takes it, but there is nothing casual about the way his fingers close around mine.
