Page 173 of One Wrong Move

But it’s also the anxiety that I’ll never feel how I did with Nate. With anyone.

There was such freedom in being with him. The easy conversations and the laughs. How he listened to me. How he opened up to me.

I miss him.

It’s only been a few days. Five, in total, and I hate that I’m counting. Three since I heard the sound of his voice. He hasn’t called since we spoke on the phone, hasn’t texted, and more than anything else, that makes me want to sink through the ground.

I had been the one to storm out.

But still…

I flip another page in the catalog and struggle against the pounding headache in my temples. Sleep was hard to come by last night. I called my mom, poured out everything I was feeling and then some, and she listened to all of it. When I told her about Dean and the cancellation fees… she was horrified.

And was furious that she allowed him to call her, had let him make her feel sorry for him.

Why didn’t you tell me?

So I told her the painful truth. I was embarrassed.

I was embarrassed about how much I let Dean get away with. By how much I let him pay for, and then he used that to control me. And by understanding too late how he manipulated me, my life, my choices. Our relationship turned unbalanced quickly, and I had no voice, and lost my agency.

But the worst part—I was too blinded to see it because I cared for him. And he used that against me.

Since I moved away to live with Dean in the big city, my mom wasn’t around to see all of this unfolding around me. And being a wonderful and constantly busy professor, I didn’t want her to worry. But as a mom, she still did, and I told her everything was fine. I was fine. Everything was perfectly, amazingly, fine. Until that fine became a cage I couldn’t get out of. Because how could I even begin saying that things aren’t fine at all?

Mom cried a bit. I cried, too. And she promptly booked a trip to visit me in late July, during her summer break. Greg could come, she’d said, but then suggested that it may be more fun for the two of us to drive through the countryside and pretend to be Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë.

A clearing of the throat a few feet away draws my attention. I look up from staring at a blurry page to see Aadhya standing in the office. She gestures back toward the front of the gallery.

“Your client is here. Nate Connovan?”

I close the catalog with a hollow thud. “He’s here?”

“Yes. But he made a strange request…” She frowns. “He said to ask if you’d like to join him for lunch, to discuss a few paintings he’s interested in buying, unless you have other lunch plans, that is.”

“Unless I have other lunch plans,” I murmur. It’s hard to think straight. Nate’s here. At my work. Unless I have… His way of giving me an out? It has to be. Telling me he’s here but he’ll leave if I don’t want to see him.

I rise so fast that my chair wobbles. “I don’t have plans.”

Aadhya puts her hands on her hips. “Right? That’s what I was thinking. When a big client walks in, we’re always available.”

“He was just being polite.”

Her eyes narrow a bit. “You okay? You seem…”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I…” It’s a split-second decision to tell Aadhya the truth. But I go for it, jump off the ledge and hope there’s a parachute. “He’s actually the friend I’ve been staying with.”

Her mouth opens.

“Yeah. I’m sorry I’ve been coy about it. It’s just… with him being a client, too…”

“No, no, I get it.” She shakes her head. “It makes sense. For what it’s worth, I think that’s brilliant.”

That makes me smile. “You do?”

“Of course. Marry him, and his art collection is yours!” She winks at me, all Aadhya, calculation and poise and smiles. “Go have fun. I’ll finish the Seattle research.”

“Thanks, I owe you one.”

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