Page 20 of Deal Breaker
She squeezes her eyes shut and inhales, but I can feel her pulling away. Not just physically, emotionally too. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’ve been keeping her at arm’s length since she walked into my company and backinto my life. Every meeting, every passing interaction, I’ve made sure to keep my tone clipped, my words measured, my attention on anything but her. I’ve been building this wall, making her pay for walking out on me, making her pay for breaking my heart. The funny thing is, it’s not making me feel any better. It’s only making me feel worse.
She gives me a mock salute then she walks towards me, stopping before she walks back inside. “It’s amazing what you’ve built, Ford,” she says, sincerity in her voice. “This night, and all of those people in there, it’s all because of you.”
I feel her words land in my chest, not my ego. My wounded heart has been begging for a fight, but right now—just for a moment—I need to tell it to call a truce. “Thanks. You always looked at me like you saw something worth keeping,” I say, unable to stop myself now. “Even when I didn’t have anything.”
“I did see something,” she whispers. “Still do. Even if you hate me being here.”
I dig my teeth into my bottom lip. I should walk away. Instead, my feet stay rooted to the floor beneath me.
“I’ve hated you for a long time,” I admit. “For leaving. For letting me believe we meant something and then disappearing. For never telling me why.”
“I hated myself, too.”
Her words hang between us, thin and frayed, and they do nothing to loosen the knot in my chest. I’m still so damn mad at her. The kind of mad that’s been simmering for years, low and steady, burning everything it touches.
Looking at her now makes my skin feel too tight, like it’s trying to hold in something too big to contain. Every inch of me is wound up, strung between wanting to walk away and wanting to grab her just to make her feel this too.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be talking to her. Every instinct I have says to turn around, walk out, put a wall back between us that’s so high she can never scale it. But my feet don’t move, and I don’t know why. Maybe because some part of me still wants answers. Maybe because I hate that she still makes me feel anything at all.
“Ford—"
“I shouldn’t be saying any of this,” I mutter talking over her, scraping my hands through my hair.
“Then don’t,” she says, eyes lifting to mine. “But don’t pretend it doesn’t matter.”
I stare at her, at the way the moonlight dances across her skin, and I know from the charge in the air, this thing between us isn’t dead. It’s buried. Waiting.
“I’m not sure what we’re doing here,” she finally says, her gaze shifting to her feet. When she looks at me again, something flickers in her eyes. Not anger. Not sadness. Something deeper.
“We aren’t doing anything.” I snap.
“Then stop looking at me like that,” she says softly
I freeze because she’s right. I’m looking at her like I haven’t stopped wanting her since the day she left.
“I should go,” she says, voice trembling slightly. “But Ford, I want you to know that I didn’t come back to hurt you.”
I nod once, but it feels like a lie in my chest. “Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
For a long moment, we just stand there in the hush of the hallway, the only sound the muted swell of music spilling out from the ballroom.
“I should get back,” she says finally, straightening her shoulders, like she’s putting her armor back on. “Jesse’s probably wondering where I am.”
Of course he is.
She brushes past me, and I catch the scent of her perfume same as it used to be. That scent used to cling to my sheets for days. She doesn’t look back as I watch her walk away, every part of me aching with the weight of what we’d been. Of what we are now, beneath all the years and damage.
One thing I know for sure…
This isn’t over.
Not even close.
TEN
Landyn
By Monday morning, I’d mostly convinced myself that the gala had been a strange, glittery dream. A wildly unexpected, emotionally loaded, candlelit fever dream. And then I walked into Cove, and it was all right there—proof that it really had existed. Crates of glassware waiting to be picked up by the caterer, the slightly slower pace of still-tired employees. And the ache in my chest like I’d left something unfinished. Which, of course, I had.
