Page 72 of Inferno
Gabe called me on my behavior, but not until it was already too late, and the damage was done. I promised myself I’d never allow that to happen again, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. My control, my obsession with Henry, is a pattern of behavior, only this time, this man isn’t mature enough to understand what I’m doing to him.
That’s why I’m going to have to stop. I’m going to have to take a step back. I’m going to have to be the one to end it.
Reluctantly dragging my lips from his, I sigh, stroking my thumb along his jaw as I feel his Adam’s apple move beneath my fingers at his throat. “I can’t pick you up tonight,” I say, hating each word as it falls from my lips.
“Okay,” Henry says easily.
“I have to go out of town for a couple of days.” The lie comes far too easily, but this is for his sake. I’m protecting him.
“Oh.” He sounds so sad that I do what I know I shouldn’t, I kiss him again.
When I pull back, tears are prickling the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away. I won’t cry because this is all my fault. “I’m on shift for four days from Sunday.”
“Oh.” This time he doesn’t even try to hide his disappointment.
“I’m sorry.” The two words sound so final, and I think he hears it, the things I’m saying without actually saying them. That I’m sorry about more than just having to work. That I hate thatthis can’t be. He tenses, and I know he gets it, or he hears the resolution in my unsaid words. That this is over.
FIFTEEN
HENRY
“I’m sorry.”
He says the words again, and I feel them settle over my soul. He’s apologizing for not choosing me, for leaving me, for telling me he’s falling for me, making me love him, and then walking away.
I want to rage, to shout and yell and cry, but what would be the point? No one has ever picked me. It was stupid for me to assume that Anders would. Maybe his pursuit of me was because I was a virgin. Maybe it was because I was a challenge, or an anomaly, or maybe he’s just an asshole.
It doesn’t really matter what the reason is. If it’s done, then it’s done, and nothing I can do will change that.
Lifting my hand, I touch him, placing my palm over his forearm and slowly pulling his fingers from my throat. I don’t want him to touch me there now. Before his hold was safety, but he’s ruined that. It takes him a moment, but eventually he allows me to pull his hand free, and the moment his fingers aren’t on me, I stand up and take a step back, forcing distance between us.
Taking another step, then another, I unlock the door that leads onto the street and push it wide, clicking it so it staysopen, and cool air quickly fills the room. “I have lots of work to get done. I should…” I point to the desk and the chair he’s still sitting in.
His lips purse like he wants to argue, but instead he nods, exhaling before he pushes to his feet and moves to the door that leads into the workshop. Unlocking it, he holds it open while he stares at me from across the room.
We must look ridiculous, me standing in the open door to the street and him in the door to the shop, as far away from each other as we can get, strangers once again, even after everything we shared last night.
“Goodbye, Anders.”
His sharp inhale is audible, and I see fire flare in his eyes. I wait for him to speak, to say goodbye, to hammer the final nail into the coffin of whatever it was that was happening between us, but it never comes, and instead he turns and leaves.
Hate-fueled tears fall the moment the door he walked through swings closed. He didn’t do it. He didn’t say goodbye. He should have. We both know this is over, but he didn’t say it, and a stupid, hopeful part of me flares to life, singing about love and happy ever after.
But my life has never been a fairy tale.
Closing my eyes, I allow several more tears to fall, then I suck in a reaffirming breath, wipe away the proof of my hopeless devastation and get back to work. I’ve been broken over and over before, but I’ve never been truly shattered, and he won’t be the thing that destroys me.
It takes me a while, but eventually I find some inner calm, right until Bay Barnett pushes open the office door and takes a seat in front of my desk.
“Hey, Henry,” Bay says, leaning forward in the chair, his expression serious.
“Hi, Bay.”
Scrubbing his face with his hand, Bay studies me. “Henry, you know we think a lot of you, right? I’m not sure if you know, but Penn and I used to have apartments above the garage.”
My vision starts to go dark as I silently scream. “Oh my god, he’s going to fire me.” Inside my head. I should have been expecting it, but not today, not after Anders walked away.
“We want to offer you the apartment above the garage.”
