"I do not know you at all. You might think that we know one another, but we do not. We are friends, and two people that made a sensible arrangement that must be kept to. There is nothing more to it than that."
"How," she said, the question cutting through the room before she could temper it, "can you possibly say that? After you stood there and asked me to tell you my secrets, after you listened to me say things I have not said to anyone before, not even my friends, you stand here and call it a mistake."
Julian remained still. Cowardice, she thought, though she did not say it aloud.
"And the way you spoke to me," she went on, "the things you said, were those part of the mistake as well?"
"That is not what I am saying."
"It is exactly what you are saying," she replied, anger breaking cleanly through whatever restraint she might have held before. "You are reducing all of it to something you can dismiss, something you can step away from as though it has no consequences. You cannot pretend that it did not happen, no matter how inconvenient it might be for you."
"It has consequences," Julian said. "Which is precisely why it should not have happened. I will not deny that it happened, but it should not happen again. It cannot. It will not."
The words landed hard. Eleanor let out a short, disbelieving breath.
"You kissed me," she said. "You told me I was worth more than what I had been made to believe. You told me I deserved everything I once hoped for. Do you say those things to every woman you intend to dismiss the following day, after you have gotten what you wanted?"
"That is not fair, Eleanor."
"Is it not? Did you not tell me what I wanted to hear only to withdraw after the fact?"
"I should not have allowed it to go that far."
"You should not have allowed it," she repeated, laughing emptily. "You say it as though I did something awful to you."
"That is not my intention. I have not once had bad intentions, not when it comes to you."
"It does not matter what your intention was," she said. "That is how it sounds, and you know as well as I do that there is no remedying it."
"I am sorry if I gave you the impression that there was something more between us, but you have to remember what we promised one another at the beginning. This was not supposed to happen."
"No," she said sharply, cutting across him before he could continue. "Do not do that."
Julian stopped. He looked defeated even though she did not think she was being that difficult. Eleanor thought that, given the circumstances, she was actually being fair, but he looked at her with a wounded expression as though she had been the one to ruin him, rather than the other way around.
"Do not stand there and apologize," she continued, her voice unsteady. "Do not suggest that this is something I imagined. You were there. You said those things. You– you chose to act as though it mattered."
Julian did not answer. Eleanor held his gaze, refusing to let him retreat into silence.
"Tell me plainly," she said. "Is there anything more that you feel for me than you planned?"
He hesitated. It was brief, but she saw it, and in that moment, something in her lifted again, as fragile as it was.
"No."
Eleanor did not move. The hope that had surfaced, however briefly, faded, leaving something colder in its place. She held his gaze for a second longer, as though she might find something in it that contradicted what he had just said.
She did not.
"I see," she said.
Her voice was steady, and this time, she did not argue. She had asked for clarity, and he had given it. There was nothing uncertain in his answer, and she supposed that she ought to have felt grateful, in a way, that he did not prolong the inevitable.
The change was immediate in how she carried herself. She straightened slightly, her shoulders settling as though she had drawn a line within herself and stepped cleanly to the other side of it.
Julian watched her, though he did not speak.
"You are right," she continued, her tone even now, almost distant in its clarity. "We allowed ourselves to go further than we should have. That was unwise. There is no need to dwell on it, though. It is done."