commanding the world without having to say a word.
Even the man in the crane hits the lever to stop the wrecking ball from a third run.
Somehow Christopher is beside me when Sutton approaches.
He holds up a piece of folded paper. “An injunction.”
“Let’s see it,” Christopher says, his words crisp. He doesn’t sound particularly surprised, nor does he sound particularly angry. This could be a discussion over the weather. He reads the length of the paper with an impassive expression.
“Turns out the Tanglewood Historical Society had teeth, after all.”
Christopher folds the paper. “This won’t hold up on appeal.”
“Maybe not,” Sutton says, accepting the possibility. “But we’re done here for today.”
Tears prick my eyes. “You’re too late.”
Sutton looks at the library where there’s no hint a painting had ever stood. Through the heavy dust and wreckage you can see the beautiful carved wall, still standing. “We can repair what’s happened here. There wasn’t any load on those glass turnstiles. Nothing permanent.”
It feels like something permanent has cracked inside me, but I force myself to focus on what he’s saying. We can fix the front of the library. It’s saved, at least for now.
“You did this?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
Sutton shakes his head, slow. “It was Mrs. Rosemont who filed with the court. I gave information in testimony, but it was her connections that made this happen.”
“But why… why would you help stop this? Why did you resign?”
Those blue eyes could reach across the entire city, that’s how far he lets me look. This man I doubted. This man I desired. He lets me see the deepest parts of him. “For you,” he says, simply.
My throat clenches hard. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do this. I couldn’t—”
“You didn’t have to ask. I couldn’t be a part of this once I saw how much it meant to you.”
“But your investment.”
He gives me a small smile. “This one wasn’t business. It’s personal.”
And then there’s no way I can hold myself back.
I launch myself at him, feeling every square inch of muscle on him, made tired from whatever he did this long night. He folds me up in his arms. There’s relief and gratitude—and love, in a form more pure than anything I’ve known before. Love without expectation. Without greed. Without jealousy, which I didn’t think was possible. There’s clapping and hooting in the background, but all I can hear is his murmured words in my ear.
“For you,” he whispers again, fierce.
He may show up with a legal document and a casual smile, but it was no small thing. It broke some principles inside him, the same way that wrecking ball broke some old hopes inside me. We aren’t whole people who hold each other. We’re each cracked and bruised, but we have each other. God, we have each other.
It’s only when Sutton turns again, holding me close, that I see Christopher’s dark form against the jarring yellow of the construction equipment. He speaks to the men in quiet terms, his movements decisive and maybe a little stiff. It must have hurt him, this injunction.
It must have hurt him, to lose his business partner.
Did it hurt him any to lose me?
He speaks to me again only when most of the crowd and the construction crew have left. I’m standing in the large foyer of the library, which is quite a bit brighter now that the whole front wall has turned to rubble. Sutton didn’t want to let me in—not until they’ve had engineers to make sure it’s structurally safe, but he let me in as long as he stands beside me. There’s probably something important about that. He’ll let me do anything as long as he can stand beside me. I don’t plan to stay long, since I’m quite certain he’ll throw himself bodily over me if a brick were to fall down.
The beautiful panes of art deco glass have shattered completely, leaving only misshapen metal in their wake, a skeleton without any flesh. It makes me shiver, looking up at that.
Rocks shift as Christopher steps into the space. He leaves several yards between us. Does he despise me now? My stomach clenches. I care about him more than I want to, even now.
“You’ve won,” he says. “For now. The crew decided to start another job.”
Sutton was the good-old boy who convinced them to wait for this project. For all his money and power and determination, even Christopher couldn’t make them wait any longer.
It strikes me again that he doesn’t seem angry. Remote, is