Page 28 of Conquer

He needed something, and was too chickenshit to ask. Or maybe he’d intended to and had taken one look at my face and seen that today was not the day.

I tried to cover, but I knew my edges were frayed so badly that even Gordon could see it. That fraying, the pain that came with it, had only gotten worse in the days since I’d seen Adrian.

How could I have been so stupid, so blind?

I was a pretend investigator with terrible taste in men.

That was the objective truth of it, but my heart still tried to reject the idea. I knew that I’d been onto something with Santo.

I laughed out loud again before I looked around, relieved that no one else seemed to notice.

That was a fucking joke.

The only thing I’d been more sure about was me and Adrian, and I saw how that had turned out. Proof that I needed to stay in my lane and leave the stuff like real investigations and real relationships to people who weren’t me.

That thought rang through my head as I continued filing. I kept working far into the night and only stopped when I was so tired I could barely see.

I stood, my muscles protesting how long I’d stayed in one place.

I logged off my computer and grabbed my purse. I didn’t necessarily want to go home—too many memories—but where else could I go? My mother was gone, off on a six-week cruise around the Mediterranean, and I wasn’t in the mood or frame of mind to talk anyone else.

I couldn’t hide from home either. I’d have to get used to it sooner or later, had to hope that maybe someday, and soon, the memories of being there with Adrian would fade.

The drive home passed in a blur. I didn’t pay attention to anything, just moved on autopilot until I reached my house. I paused for a spilt second at the front door, my memories of the first time he’d come here almost undoing me, but I pushed them back and entered the house. I deposited my keys in the bowl next to the door, set my purse in its designated space, and put my gun in the gun safe. Then I made my way to my bedroom and changed clothes. All as I had done countless times before, but never when I’d been so broken.

I went toward my dining room, still moving on automatic pilot. When I entered, instead of going directly to my desk as I so often did, I stopped and stared at the stacks of files I had carefully organized.

Suddenly, I was gripped by a rage. I swung my arm into the pile, feeling a bizarre satisfaction as the papers scattered.

So I did it again, and at the same time I let out a low, guttural scream.

The emotion of these last days, of being so wrong about the investigation, of making a fool of myself in front of Adrian, of having him leave like he had—all of it became too much.

My strength left me, and I sank to the floor, letting the tears that I had been swallowing back for so long come.

My body was racked with the ferocity of my tears, and I didn’t do anything to fight it.

I cried for my stupidity and for what it felt like I had lost with Adrian.

I had known him for so little time, but what I had felt for him had seemed so real, and so life altering that I couldn’t quite convince myself that it had been all in my head.

It wasn’t possible.

How could it be?

But, as I lay there, I was left with one undeniable fact.

He was gone. And he wouldn’t be coming back.

For some reason that thought had the power to stop my tears.

Instead I lay there, bathing in the moonlight that filled my paper-strewn living room, my eyes puffy and swollen from tears.

I rolled to my side and looked under the corner of my desk.

I found a dust bunny colony and decided I should probably clean that up. At least that would be something productive. Lying on the ground crying because a man had left me definitely didn’t qualify as productive.

That got a chuckle from me, reminding me of how quickly things changed.

---