“Apologize?” I asked incredulously. “You should have told her you were in a relationship. You should have deleted those photos. All of this happened because of you.”
He turned back to me, his gaze dark. “You shouldn’t have fucking snooped through my phone in the first place.”
“Wouldn’t have happened if you’d just told the woman you weren’t available—”
“And none of this would have happened if you fucking trusted me.” He grabbed his wallet and keys off the nightstand. “Yes, I could have handled that better, but so could you. And your response to all of this is far worse than what I did in the first place.” He didn’t look at me again before he walked out, slamming the door hard behind him just to remind me how pissed he was.
A week passed.
He didn’t text me. He didn’t stop by my apartment. He didn’t come to my performances.
He disappeared.
I was too stubborn to apologize for it, so I held on to my silence, spent my evenings at home alone, making dinner for myself with the groceries he’d dropped off last time he was there.
But after days came and went, I started to look at my phone more often, expecting him to text me.
He never did.
When the full week came and went, I began to get scared.
What if he’d moved on? What if he’d called Dynasty? What if he’d stopped waiting?
What if I’d lost him?
The fear was so overwhelming that I swallowed my pride and drove over there, not caring that it was almost midnight, terrified he would have another woman at his place when I walked inside.
I didn’t park in the garage because I felt like I’d lost that privilege and parked at the curb. I entered the code, relieved he hadn’t changed it, and stepped inside his home.
It was quiet.
I took the stairs to the main floor, listening for the sound of the TV, the sound of life. I reached the main room, seeing nothing. The kitchen was untouched, and the living room was vacant. “Heath?” I raised my voice, hoping he wasn’t in his bedroom…with a guest.
I heard nothing in response.
I moved into the hallway and stared at his bedroom door. It was wide open. “Heath?”
Nothing.
I turned to the stairway and moved to the third floor. My last hope was he was in his gym, and if not, he just wasn’t home. I approached the glass walls and spotted him in front of the mirror, lifting heavy dumbbells as he did his curls.
I closed my eyes in relief, so thankful he was home, thankful he didn’t have a visitor watching TV on his couch or lying in his bed. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
His headphones were on his ears, so he didn’t notice me, not until I stepped farther into the room and made a reflection in the mirror on the wall. His eyes flicked to me in the mirror, his arms by his sides as he continued to grip the weights.
He was still, staring at me for several seconds, not the least bit happy to see me.
Was I too late?
He carried the weights to the racks and set them down before he pulled the headphones off his head. “About fucking time.” He set his headphones on the bench then loosened his black gloves from his hands. He pulled them off and tossed them on the ground, turning to face me and stare at me in the flesh.
His heart hadn’t softened in our separation. He was just as angry as he’d been the day he walked out. He wasn’t even impressed by my appearance, by my short dress and heels. He was normally so infatuated with the way I looked that he couldn’t keep his hands off me. That attraction had disappeared.
He stared at me coldly, sweat on his forehead and his chest from his workout. “You have something to say to me?” he barked.
God, he was terrifying when he was mad. I came closer to him, my arms over my chest. “I wasn’t going to apologize…but then I got scared.”
His chest continued to rise and fall from his heavy breathing, from lifting those heavy weights.
“I got scared you would be with someone else…”
He didn’t confirm or deny my fear. “This is a shitty apology.”
I dropped my gaze, feeling the pain start in my chest and move up my throat. “I know why I reacted that way, and it’s just because I was so hurt, so jealous, so…scared. I panicked. I know I overreacted. And it’s because of exactly what you said…because of the way I feel about you.” I lifted my gaze again, feeling the tears start to burn my eyes.
His expression didn’t change—at all.
“I don’t know how it happened, but you’ve become so important to me, giving me a relationship I never thought I would find. I sit in the bar alone and feel so numb…because there’s no one else in this world I’d rather be with. I just want to go home and be with you. You protect me. You make me happy. And I just… I can’t even stand the idea of you being with someone else—”