me in with the tip of his hat and a look that said he knew something. I didn’t have the courage to ask if Brock was home or if she was there, didn’t want him to pity me. I’d find out soon enough. The elevator beeped slower than I ever remembered, filling the metal box with its countdown. And when the doors finally opened, down that hall I went. Emotion swept over me, fresh as it had been when I’d last been in this place. My busyness was a facade, thin and temporary over the truth.
I was not okay. And this was not okay.
My keys rattled in my hand, slick as I unlocked the door and opened it, my eyes clicking to the wall where he’d fucked her last night, catching on the nick in the sheetrock from my outburst. The empty space was thick with ghosts. The apartment was quiet.
I sighed my relief and closed the door.
“Lila?”
His voice, tired and worn, from the dark living room. A shock, cold and sharp, down my spine.
“Of course it’s me,” I said, my acerbic tone shellac over my pain. “Who else would it be? I didn’t figure you’d given Natasha Felix a key, but you’re just full of surprises these days, aren’t you?”
The shadows shifted as he stood and turned on the light. I didn’t wait to hear him out. Instead, I marched toward the bedroom to do what I’d come to do. There was no backing down, nor was there any running away.
“Let me explain.”
“Explain what?” I asked dryly, flipping on the light before opening the closet.
He stopped inside the door, sliding his hands into his pockets, leaning on the doorframe. I didn’t chance a look at his expression. My periphery was enough.
I thunked the suitcase on the bed and turned for my dresser.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said quietly.
A bitter, severe laugh shot out of me. “That’s what you’re going with?” I loaded an armful of panties, bras, and chemises and dumped them unceremoniously in the gaping suitcase.
Ignoring the jab, he continued, “We met at the engagement party—”
“I know when you met, asshole. I introduced you.” To the closet I whipped, trying to calculate outfits and shoes with the tiny percentage of my brain that wasn’t consumed with Brock the Cock and his excuses. I gnawed my lip so hard, I could feel the throb of blood at the point of contact.
“She’s just … she’s different, Lila. I’ve never met anyone like her before. Natasha is unpredictable when everything in my life seems planned out until I die.”
It was then that I finally turned to him, a painfully slow twist. Our gazes met. He didn’t look sorry, but he wasn’t happy either. There was no regret, but there was no defense.
“Like me,” I finished his thought.
“You and I are comfortable, easy. On paper, it makes sense. But that’s been my whole life. My parents had my application to Columbia filled out when I was in diapers, and I went along with it. I’ve done everything expected of me. I made them happy, but I won’t become them. Sleeping in separate rooms, never speaking beyond what’s required of them. Cold and loveless. I need more. I need passion.”
Fury. It was fury, unbridled and wild, lashed through me sharp enough to draw blood. “No,” I said on a shaky breath.
His fine brows drew together. “No?”
“You don’t get to break up with me. You don’t get to blame me, to make this my fault.” I stepped toward him as I spoke, my voice deadly calm and my body tight as a bowstring. “You weren’t happy? Fine. But don’t pretend like fucking a twenty-year-old child in the apartment we shared was the way to handle it. Self-destruct, if that makes you feel in control of your life. But you don’t get to break up with me. Because I’m leaving you.”
His face was still as he watched me approach, unafraid and unfazed. Pity flashed behind his eyes, and I resisted the impulse to grab the closest inanimate object and brain him with it.
“I don’t give a shit why you did it or what revelations you had when you had my goddamn client nailed to the wall of our foyer. Just leave me alone so I can pack my things in peace and go.”
A sigh, thick and deep, set his chest in a rise, then a fall. “I should have expected this,” he said, pushing himself upright. “But deep down, I thought you