Page 34 of The Art of You

“Nothing to say. He’s made himself clear.” I blinked back tears. “You know Hudson, and he’d never go back on his word.”

Chapter 12

Hudson

Walkinginto that conversation had been like stumbling in front of a freight train, having never seen it coming.

The straw that broke the camel’s back wasn’t the accident. It wasn’t even the fact I had an agent gunning for me, looking to slap me with cuffs on any given Sunday.

No, it was my best friend’s belief about me.“Can’t love you back.”Those four words were the final nail in the coffin of whatever was left of my beating fucking heart.

Well-deserved, because what he’d said was true. And yet, hearing Constantine say what I’d spent most of my life believing hurt like a son of a bitch.

Google the definition for “can’t love you back” and you’d find my face next to the re´sume´ of reasons to not fall in love with me. He wasn’t wrong about me, but Alessandro used to be?—

I immediately ditched that dangerous line of thought. I couldn’t latch on to the hope that if Alessandro could change, so could I. We had different stories.

I dropped my head, falling back into the past. To 2010,when my life flipped upside down because of an email. If my father’s message had come one day later, or my orders to spin up had come one day earlier . . .

At the sound of the back door opening, I lifted my head up. I didn’t want to come across to anyone as a man on the verge of snapping.Like I am.

Adelina joined me on the deck beneath the unwelcomed rays of sunlight. “Isabella and Constantine said you needed a minute, but it’s been five.”

“Sorry. I needed?—”

“Time?” She zipped up her black leather jacket and closed the space between us on the massive deck. “Are you okay?”

“No.” The honest answer spilled from my mouth a bit too quickly. “I mean, yes. Confused the words.”

“English is my second language, not yours.” She lifted her brow, waiting for me to get my shit together. If only. “I’m not used to seeing you like this.”

“What, bruised and banged up?”

“Wearing your emotions so plain to see.” It was less of an observation and more a statement of fact.

“You saw me in the kitchen for all of five minutes,” I grumbled, not looking for anyone to help walk me off the cliff of crazy right now, even if I needed it.

“I’m talking about now. You were fine in the kitchen.” She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing me. “You look like a man who just found out the love of his life is getting married to someone else.”

“Stop profiling me. I’m not on your suspect list. Well, at least, I better not be.” And that reminded me, we had work to do. “Aren’t you short on time? Places to go and all that?” I gestured for her to walk inside, but she didn’t budge.

“I can afford a few extra minutes to make sure you’re good before we get to work.” She ate up the remaining spacebetween us, maintaining eye contact. The woman was trying to hypnotize me into speaking the truth. I’d seen her do it to cold-blooded killers before.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you can stop. Isabella is just a friend.” Did I need to wear those words on my sleeve since I didn’t exactly have my heart there?

“Just friends” was becoming one of this weekend’s themes, somehow sending a double homicide to the back seat.

Just. A. Friend.

Period.

Throw in some extra punctuation there, too. A fucking exclamation point if needed. Whatever would get the job done to convince everyone to drop it.

Between the bullshit from Kit at the party Friday night to Constantine serving up those tough-to-stomach words on a silver platter of kill-me-now this morning, I was done.

“Well, I wasn’t questioning your relationship with Isabella Costa, but I am now. If there’s something between you two, it might be relevant to the case.”

Shit.I unintentionally cracked Pandora’s box with that one. Now she’d try and use her heightened special powers of observation to try and lure me into opening up. Nope, not happening. Not today, at least.

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