That smirk … that stupid little smirk in the face of my pain hurt worse than anything so far since he’d come back into my life. I stumbled back. “You don’t even care. You don’t even care that this hurts me.”
Something flickered in Jamie’s eyes as he straightened up from the door frame. “Do you love him?”
Would it wound him if I had? “I thought I did.”
Jamie clenched his jaw, his gaze dropping to the floor, probably to hide whatever it was he felt.
I scoffed. “You asked me if I love him. You didn’t ask me if I was in love with him.” There’s a big difference, Jamie.
His eyes met mine. “Are you in love with him?”
Did he deserve to even know the answer?
Shouldn’t I torture him a little?
I slumped, so goddamn weary, I couldn’t stand it. “No. And I never have been.”
There’s only one man I have ever been in love with.
When he continued to stare at me, not giving anything away, hoarding his thoughts and feelings to himself, I fought the urge to shove him. To slap him. To scream at him.
But that wasn’t me.
I wouldn’t let him turn me into that person.
With a snort of derision, I turned on my heel, walked toward my apartment, and stuck my key in the door. “Text me what I need to know about Elena.” Before he could respond, I stepped inside and slammed the door behind me.
Agitation boiled my blood as I stalked through my apartment, restless and uneasy. I had an urge to curl up in a ball and sob for days.
But that wasn’t me anymore.
Yes, I’d lost everything that mattered to me six years ago. However, I’d survived it.
“You survived it,” I reminded myself, fists clenched at my side.
I would survive losing Asher.
I would survive once Jamie got what he’d come to LA for and left me again.
I wouldn’t go numb to protect myself.
And no one … no one would break me.
Asher tried to call. Jamie too. He even knocked on my apartment door a few times.
I ignored all of it and attempted to concentrate on the day-to-day routine of working on set and on a painting underway at home for an art gallery in San Francisco. However, I didn’t ignore Jamie’s text with the information on Elena Marshall. After several days away from Jamie, and having worked through the weekend and most of the week on Patel’s movie, I took Thursday off. Around lunchtime, I got in my car and drove to the hospital in Hollywood.
After I parked, I strolled to the yellow building. My steps slowed as I neared it. Once inside, a receptionist directed me to the room I was looking for, but when I stopped outside the double doors and stared in through the inset windowpanes, I found I couldn’t go any farther.
As much as I wanted to help Jamie find some peace, the idea of infiltrating a cancer support group made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t go in and pretend to be there because a loved one was suffering. It was a betrayal to the others who had come to that group to find people who understood what they were going through.
My gaze zeroed in on Elena. She’d been in her late thirties when she testified against Jamie. A perfectly ordinary woman, she’d worked night shift at the twenty-four-hour mini-mart for six years before Steadman paid her to lie. Jamie and I never knew if she’d known she’d get shot that night, but we surmised it had always been part of the plan because it meant a longer sentence for Jamie.
Right then, she leaned across from her chair to hold the hand of a young woman who was crying as she spoke. It was an act of kindness. Of comfort. Elena’s eyes were sad but warm as she gave the girl’s hand a squeeze.
I remembered at the time when she testified against Jamie in court that she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would persecute an innocent man. I didn’t care then, though. At nineteen, there were no shades of gray in the case against Jamie. As far as I was concerned, everyone involved in framing him was wicked and cruel.
The rage I’d felt toward her the day she stood on the stand and identified Jamie as the man who had shot her had cooled a lot since then. Now I longed for answers. I wanted to make sense of this woman’s choices. I wanted to know if what