Page 181 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

When Atlas had told Oliver he was using her to get the better of him, she had heard a certain truth in it, but she’d believed their connection went deeper than that.

As the silence dragged on, ringing with his refusal to say he returned any scrap of her feelings, she had to accept that he did not.

She swallowed, trying to assimilate the agony of being in love with a man who was letting her down. She had overturned her life for him, allowing herself to become dependent on him emotionally as well as financially. She had sworn she would never let this happen, but she had. What a foolish, horrific, devastating mistake.

“I…” Her voice didn’t want to work. She blinked, trying to clear the hot sheen from her eyes. “I’ll go see my family.” Run away. That’s what she would do.Again.

She pulled out her phone and began tapping.

“I’ll arrange the jet,” he said in a graveled voice.

Oh, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her, could he?

“There’s a train in two hours that connects in Paris. It will get me there by morning.”

“You’re not taking the train overnight.”

“Excuse me, Atlas, but you just told me to look after myself because I can’t trust you to do it.” Her voice was ragged but hard as she snapped her focus back to him.

She heard his breath hiss in as though he’d been punched.

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself and I will.” She booked the sleeper, already anticipating crying her way across the continent. “I have to pack.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HE HAD TOlet her go. It destroyed him to do it, but he had to.

If you care enough about me to want to protect me, then you’re not a bad person.

It was a paradox, though. How could he protect her if she wasn’t where he could see her? Touch her? Feel her asleep beside him and know she was safe and warm and happy?

How could he be a good person when he was hurting her by pushing her away?

“Text me when you arrive,” he said as she shouldered a small bag on her way to the door.

She only released a choked noise, barely acknowledging him as she left with her chin high and her mouth trembling.

She did text, though, while he was staring at his breakfast, incapable of swallowing a bite.

Here.

If she had been able to think of a shorter word, he was sure she would have used it.

He drew a breath that held more acid than relief.

Sleep had eluded him. He’d kept pushing himself to go over the points he would make to the board this morning, but his heart wasn’t in it. What was he trying to prove? Yes, he believed he was better equipped to lead DVE into the future, but did he expect to feel validated by being awarded that role? Legitimate? Accepted? Was he still trying to get what he thought his mother had deserved from her very brief affair with Oliver?

He was making a case that he was better than Oliver, but if he was using his father’s underhanded tactics to achieve his ends, did he deserve to run the company?

He arrived at the DVE building still unsettled and had a brief meeting with his assistant, Derik, and other key personnel. When they made their way to the boardroom, he bumped into Carmel in the hallway.

“I didn’t expect you,” he said. She usually voted by proxy, typically giving her support to Oliver, so there was no reason for her to be here unless she was hoping to gloat after Atlas lost.

“It’s only my future that’s being decided.” She touched the diamond stud in her ear, still looking wan and brittle from her stay in rehab, but her eyes were clear, her color good, and her appearance impeccable. “I was going to stay home and watch reality television, but I finished that book Stella gave me and thought she’d like to read it. Is she here?” She looked past him toward the office they’d just left.

“No. She’s in Switzerland.”

“Oh. Is everything okay?” She almost sounded sincere in her concern.

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