“No,” he snapped. “I’m not going to listen to this.”
“Well, I had to endure it! And the whole time, do you know what I kept thinking? What was wrong
with me that I wasn’t enjoying it? I was so brokenhearted over you abandoning me, I wanted nothing
more than to forget, but I couldn’t. For two weeks I thought of little more than dying, and then my
fake friend showed up and I thought, wow, at least he cares. But he still wasn’t enough. I hated you for hurting me, and I hated you more because I think you broke me.”
“Evelyn, you’re not broken. That’s love. It makes it impossible to want someone else.”
“Well, I don’t want to love you,” she snarled, jumping to her feet and dumping her coffee in the sink.
Lucian turned and slowly lifted himself off the floor and onto the bed. His knees parted as he braced
his elbows there and cradled his head. “This is making me crazy.”
“I think it’s time for you to call Dugan.”
He glanced at her, shock and fear warring in his expression. “Don’t ask me to leave yet.”
“It’s getting late, I have work soon, and there really isn’t any point in us rehashing things we can’t
change.”
His head shook. “Evelyn, this isn’t the end of us. I can’t accept that. I won’t.”
“Your declarations are a little late and hollow. I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind.”
“What about how happy we were? What about how compatible we are, how well we compliment
each other? Do you think it’s easy to find someone like that, someone who does it all for you?”
“I’m not looking for that. I never was. All I want is a home to call my own and my independence.”
It was getting harder to argue with every passing second, because while her head knew what was best,
her heart wanted him more than her next breath.
His brow kinked. “But you were happy.”
“I was. But that all changed the minute you left me. For as happy as I was, the sadness of being
abandoned by you was great enough to make me never want to love again. Life’s hard enough. I
choose to live it alone.”
“You aren’t meant to be alone, Evelyn. None of us are.”
She’d heard the theory of coupling a hundred times before, yet her experiences left her heart
severed, and she never wanted to chance feeling that way again. “Maybe I’m not like everyone else.
I’m a nomad. I can’t do things the normal way. I never could. I think,” her chest tightened and she
swallowed back the pain. “I think you need to move on as well.”
“Fuck that, Evelyn. I don’t want anyone else.”
“Well, you can’t have me.” She needed to get away from him. His presence was suddenly too much.
“I’m going to take a bath. When I come out I’d appreciate it if you were gone. Please lock the door on
your way out.”
“You’re fucking dismissing me?”
What if this was it? There was really nothing more to say. “I get paid at the end of the month. I’ll
drop a payment in your office soon after that.”
“Consider the loan forgiven.”
“You know I can’t do that, Lucian. You gave me your word you’d treat the loan as such. No favors.
It’s business.”
“This is absurd.”
“This is the reality of it. The sooner you accept it, the better we both will be.”
He stood. “You’re wrong. Don’t forget I was your first, Evelyn. Your first kiss, your first lover,
your first true friend. You can’t claim to know the outcome with things you’ve never experienced
before. You’ll see.”
What was there to see? The agony of losing him compared to the joy of having him brought about
so much turmoil, she couldn’t take the risk again. Her trust had been shattered and she wasn’t sure if
there was any fixing that. What else could there possibly be to experience? Their time together was
over.
They stood silently for a minute. “Well . . .” she said, edging her way to the small bathroom.
“Thanks for coming to make sure I was okay, but as you can see, I’m fine. It was scary, but I
managed.”
Her shoulders shivered as she sensed his hand brushing over the back of her hair, barely making
contact. “You could have called me. You can always call. I know you can handle yourself for the most
part, but . . .”
“My phone got wet somehow. I took it to the phone place, but they said there was no fixing it.”
“When?”
“When it first stopped working.”
“Which was when?” he asked again.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all a blur.”
“You called me when I was in Paris. Service was terrible there. It went right to voicemail, but I
called you back shortly after. Was the phone broken then or did you deliberately not answer my call?”
Breath sucked deep into her lungs and she pivoted. “You called me back?”
“Yes, I fucking called you back. I was halfway across the world, cursing myself for leaving. Then