her drafting table had been cleaned up as well, her brushes and pens back in their holders. Her knees weakened as she strode over and saw that the half-finished sketches and scrawls she had crumpled and tossed had been carefully smoothened out. There it was, her failure out in the open on display. Like a bleeding wound.
“Dutchy?” Krieger rushed to her side. “Dutchy, please—” He tried to touch her, but her fox lashed out. “What did I do?”
“What did you do?” Her eyes narrowed at him. “Are you mocking me? Showing me what a failure I am?”
“Jesus, Dutchy, no!” He scrubbed his palm down his face. “No, no! I’m not. I only wanted to show you how proud I am of you. Of how talented you are—”
“Were,” she corrected.
“Stop it,” he said. “You are talented. And I came here to show you. To—”
“Fix me?” she finished. “Is that what this is about? I’m like some broken toy you want to fix?”
“No, I—”
“I’m never going to design again. Can’t you see that? Never.”
His jaw hardened. “Yes, you will. And if you don’t, then it doesn’t make you any less of a person. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
That should have comforted her, but it didn’t. Being in here was a painful reminder of what she once was. And how lacking she was now and how her fox continued to hate him. “You don’t know that.” As he came closer, her vixen opened its mouth and let out an angry bark. “And how can you possibly fix me when you can’t fix yourself?”
That comment hit its mark, and the look of hurt on his face couldn’t have been more evident. But it was like she was riding a rollercoaster, and she had reached the top and couldn’t back down now. Her fox, too, goaded her on. “When are you going to tell me what happened to you back in Kargan?” Had she forgotten about yesterday’s incident? Her fox sure didn’t. It reminded her about how he had lost control when she asked him during breakfast. “I didn’t even know that you were in the army and Damon was your commander. I had to find out from Anna Victoria. Do you know how humiliating that was?”
“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.”
“None of it matters?” she echoed, her voice rising. “Stop patronizing me and treating me like a child. Are you going to keep things locked up from me and then lash out when I say or do something wrong? Were you even planning on telling me?” His silence said it all. “So, you lied to me when you said we would talk about it! Did you even think—”
“I said it doesn’t matter!” he roared. “Just forget it. I’m past all that. I’ve already changed for you, is that not good enough? Am I not enough now? All I wanted to do was to be left alone up there, then you come along, and now I’m doing all these things for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to change!” she shot back. “No one asked you to do these things!”
He charged toward her desk, swiping the Vogue magazine off the top. “Is he what you want? Someone who’s handsome and rich and whole? Why don’t you go back to him then?”
Her rage boiled over. “Fuck you, John, this is not about Ian, and you know it!” Tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let him see it. Whirling around, she hugged her arms around her stomach. “You … you should go.” She closed her eyes, the tears already tracking down her cheeks. Heavy footsteps thudded out of the office and thundered toward the front hall. The slamming of the door made her jump, and she sobbed into the back of her hand, then sank against the wall.
The tears wouldn’t stop, and she continued to weep, her chest collapsing in on itself and the pain making it hard to breathe. How did they end up like this? Maybe it was inevitable. The rush of desire and the headiness of the sex was like a fog covering up all the underlying issues still between them. He refused to open up about his past. And she was still so afraid that he was going to hurt her.
Yet his words echoed in her mind even now.
It doesn’t make you any less of a person. I’ll take care of you, I promise.
Wiping her tears away, she glanced around the room. He must have woken before her