Page 114 of How to Get Even

Chase shook his head. ‘You set up a hit piece in one of the biggest magazines in the art world. It nearly destroyed me.’

‘But it didn’t. We pulled it back. Tonight was a success,’ Bella cried. ‘Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve achieved… it’s all worked.’

‘How does that make it okay? How could you do that?’ he demanded, struggling to make sense of what she was saying.

‘I didn’t… know,’ she stuttered. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

‘You were willing to ruin my life and my career based on a misunderstanding? Because you all had too much cake?’ he said, his voice loud in the silence of the gallery office.

‘The moment we realised, we tried to make it right,’ she promised, but it came out more like a plea.

‘Was there anything else? Other than the article?’

Bella winced.

‘What was it?’ He needed to know.

She reached behind her and took one of the sugar sachets in her hand.

‘You put salt in my sugar? What are you, like twelve?’ he asked, shocked.

She bit her lip. ‘And the chair.’

He glared at her.

‘And you might want to change your computer password.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ he said, throwing his arms up in the air instead of reaching for her to strangle her. ‘Which Bella are you?’ he wanted to know. Genuinely. ‘The one that is passionate and powerful and soft and silly? The one who wanted…’what I wanted,he’d been about to say but couldn’t. ‘Or the spy that lied, manipulated, schemed and probably laughed with your friends behind my back?’

‘Chase.’ She came to him, reaching for him, but he stepped away.

‘You knew. The moment you discovered that Annalise had lied to Astrid that day, you knew that everything you’d done was wrong. And you chose to lie to me,’ he accused.

‘Yes,’ she said, taking the full force of his ire.

Her surrender nearly undid him.

‘I think you should leave,’ he forced out through clenched teeth.

‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged, not even raising her face to his.

‘Don’t do what?’

‘Hide,’ she whispered.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You hide when things go wrong,’ she accused, finally raising her gaze to his. ‘You put your head in the sand, pretending that everything’s fine.’

‘Don’t you dare talk about my art,’ he struck out.

‘I’m not,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘With Annalise, you walked away, to the point where she had to track you down and ruin whatever you had with Astrid. With Astrid, you let her walk out thinking the worst, because it was easier than having to explain how you feel.’

He had no words.

‘Because you don’t talk about how you feel,’ she said as if it were a simple fact. ‘You put it into your art. But you haven’t painted for months. So, what’s happened to all those feelings?’

‘You no longer have any right to talk about my feelings,’ he said, shaking his head and turning away because the sight of her was breaking something in him.

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