“So, I guess this is it,” I said, still silently begging Mia to look at me. I needed to see her eyes. I needed to watch her every feature as she told me this was what she wanted. “One more performance and the show is over.”
She tucked her hands under her thighs, looking everywhere but at me. “Yep. One more stunt and then you’re free.”
I frowned at that.
Free.
Free from what… from pretending? From the crazy travel schedule?
From her?
I never wanted to be free from her, and I opened my mouth to say so but was cut short when Isabella clapped her hands together.
“You’llbothbe free, and you’ll be able to say you successfully pulled off the craziest PR stunt of all time.” She paused. “Well, to me and G, anyway. You can’t tell another soul, or we’ll all be toast.”
Giana laughed and Mia smirked, and I felt fucking sick.
But with Mia avoiding my gaze and staying silent, she confirmed everything I should have kept in the forefront of my mind all along.
This was just a charade.
I was just a dirty little secret.
Never good enough.
Never good enough.
“What do you think, big boy,” Isabella asked, gripping my shoulder with a playful wag of her eyebrows. “Are you ready to put on the performance of a lifetime?”
One last time, my eyes slid to Mia.
Do you really want this?
Is it really all in my head?
Is this how you want the story to end?
A fierce ache rocked through me when she finally looked up, her wide blue eyes catching mine.
But she didn’t say a word.
I swallowed, nodded, and let the last of my fantasy of us die — along with my will to fight for something that had never been mine.
“Ready,” I said.
It was the hardest lie I’d ever had to tell.
Counting Trees
Mia
The last time I’d been in this condo, a hurricane had been raging outside.
Now, the storm was inside me.
I stared at where my fingers rested on the bone white keys of Aleks’s piano, unmoving, frozen. I yearned for music, ached to play something that would relieve the pressure building in my chest.
But I knew nothing would work.
