It’s that I want to spend the night on the balcony, listening to her talk about costume designers and character and literature.
“Ian?” Her voice softens. “You don’t have to answer. Maybe that is an answer. You’re scared of people knowing what you’re scared of.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“I guess so.” She runs her fingers over her fork. “I think… I guess that’s what relationships are. Letting people know what scares you. Telling them how to hurt you.” She lets out a soft sigh. “God, I sound like Addie. Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“It’s insightful.”
“Yeah, but so… ugh. She’s a romantic, my sister. She believes in fairy tales.”
“You don’t?”
She shakes her head. “Do you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever?”
“For a while.”
“When you were married?”
My stomach drops.
My calm vanishes. My ease disappears. The world is someplace ugly and tense.
Eve notices right away. “Oh.” She studies my expression. “I guess that’s… oh.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Is that why you moved to New York?”
“Yes.”
“And now… you’re still…”
“It’s complicated.”
“Do you love her?” she asks.
“No.”
She nods, believing me. “But you’re… heartbroken?”
“Not exactly.”
Her eyes stay soft. Curious. “Is that what this is? Rules. So you don’t have to risk falling in love again?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ian
I don’t answer.
She changes the subject. Costumes in movies. The difference between the way people dress on British TV and American TV.
Everything is glamour on American TV. Even the police detectives wear false eyelashes and heeled boots. Everyone is beautiful. Everything is glossy.
Even the ugliness.
I try to listen.
She tries to talk.
But it lingers in the air. I have a past she knows nothing about. An entire life she knows nothing about.
It’s how I like things.
Usually.
Right now, watching her green eyes light up as she discusses some New York set TV show. Watching her dark lips move with excitement. Watching her dig into her pesto, taste every drop, sigh with pleasure—
I want to tell her more.
I want to tell her about how quickly I fell in love with Laura. About how she brightened the darkness. Wiped away my cynical impulses.
And about how quickly the darkness returned.
Or maybe it wasn’t quickly. Work had been busy. She’d been distant. We’d been growing apart.
Still, I thought we were okay. That I still knew her. Still tended to her needs.
Then those fucking papers landed in my lap.
And all of a sudden, the voice in the back of my head, the one that whispered questions about late nights and extra singing lessons and new lingerie—
All of a sudden, it was a yell, and I knew she was fucking someone else. In love with someone else. Leaving me for someone else.
There’s no dramatic twist to the story.
Only the one person who truly knew me deciding I wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t long hours or work conflicts or even my particular tastes.
No, it was much more simple and much more complicated.
She didn’t love me anymore.
She didn’t understand me anymore.
She didn’t need me anymore.
Even with three thousand miles between us, I feel it. The heaviness in my chest, the emptiness in my heart, the lead weight in my stomach.
The sight of her hand in his. His lips on hers. Her nails in his back.
I don’t think about Laura anymore.
I don’t imagine her afternoons at the office. Her evenings at yoga classes. Her nights in his bed.
I don’t think about their new home. Or their marital bed. Or the way she looks truly at ease in his arms.
But I still feel the ache of it. That knowledge that goes all the way to my core.
The one person who knew me decided I wasn’t enough.
What the hell does that say about me?
So I ignore that other voice. The one begging me to cancel my afternoon and spend it with Eve. The one begging me to bring her back to my flat and spill my guts.
I tease her about her love of pasta. I ask her about her tattoo. I listen to her gush over The Handmaid’s Tale.
Then I send her home in the limo. And I spend the afternoon as planned. Digging into a rival company. Finding someone else’s weak spots and attacking them.
But it’s not the concentration I need.
My mind keeps slipping back to her.
Her groan, her laugh, her smile.
I find the place in Little Italy she mentioned. A New York chain that’s spreading around the country. I send her a pint of the non-dairy mint chip. Try to put her out of my mind.
But it doesn’t work.
I keep thinking of her laughing with her sister. Digging into her ice cream, utterly at ease, perfectly content.
That same look Laura had with that arsehole.
Like she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be, doing exactly what she’s supposed to do.
I try to tell myself I don’t want that.
But it’s no use.
I want Eve.
Her need, her desire, her affection, her love.
An hour at the gym calms me. A shower. Dinner.
I’m not like Shepard. I don’t have a staff to cook my meals or clean my room.