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He looked around. At all the ugly, bloody artwork on his walls. On pedestals. Such opulent, pristine surroundings that meant less than nothing. He hated it all. What it represented. The type of man it proved him to be. He’d sold his soul for marble and plaster, for canvas and paint. For money. And now he was empty inside, while his house and bank account were full.
A damned sorry trade.
He walked over to a pedestal with a bust of an emperor on it and looked the thing in its white, hollow eyes. Eyes that probably had more substance than his own. Then he pushed it over, watched it shatter like dust on the floor. And he did the same to the vase beside it.
Meaningless. All of it. Without her, what did it mean?
He went down to one knee, the pain in his chest crippling. Ferro lowered his head and pressed his palms against his eyes. He felt it all crash in. The darkness, the shame. The hatred. For himself. For the women who’d used him. He felt like he was sinking in the mud, shrouded in darkness.
But in his mind there was one spot of brightness. One bit of sunshine.
It was Julia. She was reaching her hand down to him, offering to pull him out. Offering to free him. And he had turned her away.
Damn him to hell, he had turned away his salvation.
* * *
Julia exited the bathroom adjacent to her office and put her head down on her desk. The cramps she’d been dealing with all day had now been explained by the timely arrival of her period. Which was great, because it meant she wasn’t pregnant. But she honestly didn’t feel like throwing a party about it.
It just confirmed that her relationship with Ferro was going to be over, well and truly over, soon. There would be no link between them. No evidence of their time spent together.
Except maybe their GPS for Barrows. If that deal went through, then they would have that. But she really wasn’t holding her breath on that score. Not right now.
No. That wasn’t true. She wasn’t going to let there be nothing. She lifted her head and punched the intercom that connected her with Thad’s desk.
“Thad? Order one of those big, obnoxious life-size soldiers from Cold Planet.”
“A real one or one from a novelty store?”
“The novelty store will do just fine,” she said, cutting him off. She was going to put it in her living room. Because she liked that stuff, and she didn’t let herself have it. Because it was weird and geeky and she’d been trying so hard not to be. Because it revealed too much of her unsophisticated self. Of her real self. The self that had been battered, taken advantage of. Ridiculed.
But Ferro had shown her that she didn’t need to hide. That she didn’t need to be scared.
That it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of her, because who she was mattered. She was successful because of her focused nature. Because of her enthusiasm. She’d surged ahead of the pack and made success for herself, not in spite of those things about her that had made it hard to make friends, that had made her parents think she was weird, but because of them.
Ferro had helped her see that. He’d helped her reconcile the pain from her past. Helped her put it all where it belonged. She’d thought she’d been over it, because she’d felt strong, but it had been a lie. And she’d gone into hiding, afraid that if she was ever pulled from her cocoon again, she would be hurt again.
And she had been. But she wouldn’t hide. Not again.
She would always be thankful to him for that. Not so much for the salmon that was still in her office, or for the broken heart that still, a week later, hurt like hell.
Her intercom buzzed and Thad’s voice filled the office again. “Julia, he’s on his way in…”
Julia looked up just as Ferro walked into her office.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He had a beard. She’d never seen him with a beard. But it looked like he hadn’t bothered to shave at all in the past six days.
“I’ve had news from Barrows.”
“And?”
“They gave the account to Hamlin.”
“Oh.” She honestly couldn’t believe it. Even with Ferro’s display of macho anger, she’d felt like Hamlin had behaved even worse, and his GPS had been inferior. “I can’t even believe they picked him after that cheap family values shot. He’s so transparent and…”
