Her eyes flashed. “Then what exactly do you expect?”
I glanced at her before looking back at the road. “Honesty.”
A bitter laugh left her. “From me? Do you hear how ironic that sounds?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the one who lied, Hayden.”
“And you’re the one who disappeared.”
The words landed between us with the same old ache, the same wound still open beneath every argument we threw at each other. She turned toward the window, jaw tight, gaze fixed on the passing streets as if London might offer her an escape route.
“You should have left it that way. You should have stayed in whatever life you built without me.”
“I tried.”
The admission came out rough before I could turn it into something easier to swallow. Her head turned a little, but I kept my eyes on the road.
“Didn’t fucking work.”
The car slowed as I turned into the driveway, and for a moment neither of us spoke. The engine cut off, leaving the silence to settle around us with all the things we still had not said.
“We’re here,” I said.
She did not move. Her gaze stayed fixed ahead, as if stepping out of the car meant crossing into something she had no intention of accepting. Then she turned her head, and when her eyes met mine, anger was still there, but it was no longer the only thing staring back at me. There was fear too. And pain. I hated that I had put both there.
“Open the door,” she said, her voice cold.
I unlocked it.
She stepped out first, keeping as much distance from me as the narrow space allowed. I led the way inside, and after a moment, she followed. I heard it in the sharp sound of her heels behind me, in the way the door closed after us, cutting off the outside world and leaving us in a apartment where she had nowhere to hide behind colleagues, university walls, or polite excuses. When I turned, she was still near the door, her posture straight, her face guarded, her eyes moving over the room as if she were measuring every exit.
Smart girl.
Always trying to find a way out of me.
“You can sit if you want,” I said.
“I’d rather stand.”
Her answer came fast, tense enough to tell me sitting down felt too close to settling in, and she had no intention of getting comfortable in my space. Of course. I did not push it. Instead, I moved past her, took off my jacket, and placed it over the back of a chair. Then I rolled my sleeves, using the motion to keep my hands busy, because having her here after everything did something ugly to my focus.
I turned back to face her. “You said you wanted to get this over with.”
Her chin lifted. “I do.”
“Good.”
Silence settled between us, thick with all the things neither of us wanted to be the first to say. So I chose for us.
“I want to understand something,” I said, keeping my gaze on her. “The man you were with last night, Daniel Whitmore, who the fuck is he to you?”
Her expression shifted at once. It was small, but I saw it. The slight tension in her jaw. The way she gathered herself before answering.
“He’s my colleague,” she said.
I made a quiettskunder my breath, slow enough for her to hear the disapproval in it, then took a step closer. “That tells me what you call him at work,” I said. “It doesn’t tell me why he had his hands on you like he had the right.”