Page 124 of Possession

To be honest, I wasn’t certain I possessed enough strength to turn back to the desk. Just slipping the gun into my waistband had taken untold effort. My limbs felt frozen, disconnected. White noise buzzed in my ears.

Grace had my clock. The one I’d assumed was gone so many years ago. I’d grieved for it as I’d grieved for so much else.

“But we’ve fallen so far that if a door bangs open, someone has to be trying to kill you. That’s where we’re at now. Buried in secrets and lies and deceptions. Like this.” She slammed the delicate clock down on a table, and I felt more than heard the glass break. It was if something ripped to shreds inside my chest.

But the pieces left behind still ached. That clock represented her more than it did me, and that made its value immeasurable.

I jerked to my feet and rushed forward to still her hands. I was afraid she intended to rip the glass and copper apart. “Don’t. Wait. I can explain.”

“Explain what, Blake? That you built this clock and sold it to my grandmother, then replicated it in your office? That I can believe. Artist Blake finds a good design and makes it his trademark. Hard to imagine something so delicate being so strong, but that’s your specialty, isn’t it?” She traced the hairline fracture in the glass that protected the fragile hands of the clock, and I knew some part of her had to hurt at the damage. She was more of an artist than I ever would be.

But that didn’t mean I was sure she wouldn’t dismantle the rest while I watched. And I wouldn’t stop her, because I loved her.

Good Christ, I loved her, and she was looking at me like I was worthless. This Grace would never feel anything for me but disgust.

Our past, present and future had converged, and I was seeing what was to come. There were emotions far worse than hatred. She would soon reach the point where she felt nothing at all for me. I’d tried to stave off that moment, but it had arrived just the same.

Because ofthis. The testament I’d built to her of how I felt had made her despise me.

I didn’t understand, but it didn’t really matter. She’d found it and if she destroyed it, I would go on as I had for all these years assuming it was gone. I certainly hadn’t believed her grandmother would keep it.

Why would she? Back then, its worth had been in materials.

I had been a nobody. Less than.

She couldn’t have known what I would become. I certainly hadn’t. And funny, wasn’t it, that standing here while Grace dismantled me with little more than a look, I’d been tossed right back to that same place.

“Yeah, your silence is about the explanation I expected from you. That’s okay. I don’t need it.” She tapped a folded piece of white paper against the side of the clock.

It didn’t work anymore, but I could still hear the hands ticking off the time.

One second became another as what mattered most to me detonated before my eyes.

“I wondered why you’d lost your supposed fascination with me as a teenager. You were fixated. It seemed to me that if you’d really gone so far as to stalk me for years, to even buy my first piece at the gallery, that you wouldn’t have just ghosted without making a move. Not really your style.” She angled her head, and a piece of her hair slipped across her cheek. She flicked it away without a thought.

I hadn’t even had a chance to ascertain she was okay at the house. I’d wanted to give her time. To not crowd her. To trust she could handle herself for the few hours we’d be apart.

Few would become many, and my stupid app wouldn’t be able to cover the miles she traversed to escape me.

“But I didn’t ask you. I guess I didn’t want the answer. Whether you’d just been distracted by another woman, or simply focused on building your empire, it didn’t really matter, right? We’d found our way to this place. Sure, I’d lied to get to you, and you’d lied to keep me around, but none of that was important. The most important thing was that I loved you. Ilovedyou,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she slapped the folded paper against my chest. “And you sold me off like I was a business transaction.”

Her words echoed in my head as I focused on what she held. I didn’t need to read it to know the contents.

All at once, I knew.

“The contract your grandmother asked me to sign,” I said hollowly.

Chapter 30

Blake

Her grandmother had kept the clock, so of course, she’d kept the contract I’d signed too.

More nails in my coffin of glass.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Right. The contract she asked you to sign. Make her the bad guy. She paid you off to keep your distance from me, and you did it. You told me yourself you needed money to start your company.”

“I did.” It took everything I possessed to keep my voice even. I wanted to grab her shoulders and force her to see things the way they’d been for me, but I couldn’t.

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