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He steps back and allows me in his office. It’s every bit as luxurious and masculine as I’d thought it would be. Wood paneling and a mega desk along with a bar in the back that has only the most expensive of single malt Scotch. The floor-to-ceiling windows show off the buildings around us. It’s everything he dreamed of.
“Nice office.”
He smiles, a genuine expression this time. “Yeah. It feels good. You can’t beat the view. It’s kind of what we dreamed of, right? When we talked about someday moving Jensen Medical to the East Coast.”
I turn and face him. “Yes. A lot like it.”
We’d talked about one day moving Jensen Medical into a posh office. I’d wanted a place on Park Avenue, somewhere close to that mansion Harper, Anika, and I dreamed about. It’s funny how dreams can change, how we figure out what we really want in life.
“I imagine you’re upset about the article,” he says with a nod, as though I’ve caught him doing something juvenile and not committing a couple of different felonies. “I should have known you would hear about it. You might not believe me, but I was going to warn you.”
I was sure he’d been planning on calling me a couple of hours before the sucker came out. “I don’t care about the article.”
“They decided to post it online early,” he says as though he didn’t hear me. “There’s not a lot I can do about stopping it at this point. Are you here to threaten me with defamation?”
“No.” I shake my head because spending a shit ton of money on a lawsuit that would drag on for years isn’t my plan. Though I’m pretty sure I could win given what I found in the data he’d left behind. “I came to apologize. I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship and how I treated you back then. I’ve been seeing this new guy and being around him has made me change the way I think about what a good relationship means.”
He sniffles like he’s caught scent of something he doesn’t like. “Marino. Yes. I did some research into him. Seems to be very creative but a little slow. I’m afraid Taisir is going to end up being the better bet. He’s moving fast. You know it’s all about who moves the quickest in our business.”
I ignore the obvious bait. I didn’t come here to fight with him. I came for closure. “Good luck with that. Our patents should be filed soon.”
“Well, then it’ll come down to whoever has the best lawyer, won’t it?” He’s staring at me like we’re about to throw down because the sexual tension is far too much for either of us to deny.
I feel nothing for this man. How could I have not seen it? I hope I’d felt something in the beginning. I can’t remember because he didn’t matter. How awful is that? He could have been any guy. With the exception of how he screwed me over in the end, I would barely notice he was gone.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t fair to you,” I say quietly.
I notice when Heath’s gone even for a couple of minutes. I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. I know he’s probably thinking about me, too.
I love Heath, a love that lives inside my bones and makes my eyes work differently than they did before. A love that I can trust.
A brow rises over Nick’s dark eyes. “Wasn’t fair?”
“I didn’t love you the way you loved me, and I should have known that. You tried in the beginning.” He wasn’t very good at loving a person, but he tried at the start of our relationship, and then what he’d felt for me had turned nasty.
He starts to open his mouth, his expression turning ugly, and then he stops. A moment passes. “You used me. I was a fucking prop to the great Ivy Jensen.”
I shake my head, though I know there’s a kernel of truth to his words. “You were something I thought I needed. A smart, gorgeous guy at my side. I thought we could conquer the world.”
“We could have. That’s the sad part. We could have had it all, but you wouldn’t listen to me. You cut me out.” He points a finger my way, shooting accusation across the room. “You didn’t want me to sit in on interviews with you or big meetings because it might make you look weak. Your feminist bullshit held me back.”
“And my emotional distance hurt you,” I acknowledge. I don’t mention that no male CEO would be expected to bring his partner to interviews or meetings with investors no matter their work relationship. It doesn’t matter. He’ll never understand. “I’m sorry for that. But you have to acknowledge that coming after my new company isn’t going to make that better. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I’ve recently realized that letting go of past hurts is the only way we can really move forward. So I apologize for hurting you, Nick.”
