I held my arms out and waved them in front of myself like I was presenting. I’d lost the mask. I’d lost the facade. I was standing in front of him, vulnerable, and I didn’t know if my heart could handle someone loving the real me again, someone breaking my heart and leaving again.
“Funny that you’re more attractive as a screwup than a well-put-together doll. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’d take you either way, but this you is what I want.” He didn’t even say it as a joke.
My heart squeezed at his words, how he looked at me with genuine affection in his gaze. My body responded, but I couldn’t. “This was a fun cabin retreat, Cade. Not a relationship. I have to go back to being put together after this.”
He pulled a lock of my hair and stepped close. “Should I fight you for your mess, baby doll?”
“You wouldn’t win.” I chuckled sadly and glanced away. Why was my heart already breaking?
But he turned my chin up and made me stare into those whiskey eyes of his. They held determination and domination. “I always win, Ms. Hardy.”
“Well, it’s not a game we’re playing. We can’t do this anymore. The red line of spray paint is being reinforced.”
He shook his head. “What are you so scared of? Losing someone you care about again? You care about me?” The man was smiling as if he’d been given some type of award.
I rolled my eyes. “If I cared about you, we’d have a hell of an uphill battle. Don’t you get that? I’ve had therapy for my addiction, Cade.” I paced down the hallway to the living room, and he followed to watch me walk back and forth. “I’ve studied it and researched it—like I do with the fucking systems we dig into. I know what’s good for me. Relationships like this . . . how can they be? You’re still part of the mob, even if it’s a business now. And I’m still an addict, even if I’m recovered for now. We can’t sit here and say that how we bump heads . . .”
He narrowed his eyes, then went to take a seat at the table where he opened his laptop. “You’re avoiding the real conversation, Izzy.”
“What’s the real conversation, then?” I stopped to place my hands on my hips and glare at him and his stupid computer.
He didn’t even look up from it. “You’re using a man’s suicide to cage you in. It’s keeping you away from really living the beautiful chaos you would be if you’d let go and talk about it. So I’ll indulge you for now, and when you’re ready, I’ll be here to talk.”
“Are you kidding? Our relationship is—”
“Nonexistent. This is all fun. I get it,” he mumbled, shifting his focus to work. The man even started typing away on his laptop.
I strode over the laptop snatched it from his fingers, shutting it angrily. “I’m talking to you.”
“And I’m working”—he shrugged—“because you’re saying nothing of real importance right now. Might as well work.”
This fucking guy.
I held the laptop out in front of me and then slammed it down onto the ground.
When he smiled, I fucking stomped on it like a child. “So much for working, you jackass.”
A full-on grin spread across his face. “There she is. Now, do you need to say anything else before I take you to the bedroom and fuck you silent? I can’t stand the bullshit you’re spewing today about not being with me. I have other things to do.”
“Do you hear yourself? I just told you I was dating an older man at sixteen and he was my first love. He committed suicide, and I spiraled, and now you’re working me up into a fucking frenzy as if I might not spiral again?” My voice was well above a normal volume as I got in his face, my emotions out of control.
I felt as though my life was out of control. I’d let all my emotions run wild on this trip, and now everything felt like it was all unraveling, and I couldn’t stop it.
He rubbed his jaw, and I heard the scratch from his five-o’clock shadow, imagined the way it would feel against my skin. “You feel like you’re losing it, Izzy? You don’t want to trust yourself? Why not? Have you looked at your life in the past nine years?”
I hesitated, though it didn't matter since he was ready to dive in anyway.
“Because I have. I’ve seen how you operate over the past year. You stay up late working, you walk a tightrope of restrictions, you don’t let your hair down like you need to, and you don’t let that little Harley Quinn inside you breathe.”
“That’s not true—”
“And she needs to breathe, dollface. Or else you’ll never be happy.”
“What if my happy isn’t healthy, Cade?” I chewed my lip and glared at him.
“I’d be happier with a toxic mess of a girlfriend anyway.”
“Don’t call me that.” I stepped back. Fear slithered through me at the same time my heart soared. “I just wrecked your freaking laptop.”
“I know.” He stared down at it. “Want to apologize?”
I crossed my arms because I really didn’t. Our relationship had always entailed me giving him attitude—that was our touchstone—and even here, when I was saying we couldn’t have anything between us at all anymore, my soul was still connected to him. I wanted to be a brat, but I ground out, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Such a good girl. Does it feel as nice as holding back?” he murmured as he got up and slid a finger down my arm. I shivered as he meandered out of the room while I stared at the red roses, the beautiful bloodred roses, still so alive because I’d watered them every day. So many of them the whole island counter was full of glass vases. That’s where the thorns were hidden though, tucked away, pretending they weren’t there at all.
I saw how my little canvas had been propped up against one vase. Cade must have done it . . . he enjoyed the part of me that was artistic, like he could enjoy my beauty and my thorns, all my problems and my strengths.
He walked back in with a new laptop and sat back down.
“You had another laptop that whole time?”
“Even if I didn’t, the staff would have gotten me one.” He was back to typing.
I threw up my hands. “This is why we can never date.”
He chuckled and then took his glasses off to rub between his eyes. “You know what, Izzy? Fine. How about we entertain your idea for a week or two. Have a weekend to yourself when we get back. Sleep on your side of the bed. See how you feel, huh?”
“I’ll feel damn good about it,” I concluded and nodded my head with a jerk. “Come take this bracelet off.”
He tsked at me. “That’s not happening. It’s a gift that stays on you. Forever.”
“Even if I don’t want anything with you.”
He shrugged. “Seems you don’t right now. So, you’re getting what you want.”
I don’t know why I felt like I was going to cry, but tears formed in my eyes. So I spun around and stomped out of the room.
And that was the end of it.
Cutting off the relationship before there ever was one.
I had to deal with my family. Lilah had called me about ten times in the last ten minutes.
So I did.
I called her back, I shared my story, and she listened without judgment. It was what a sister did. And then she got super pissed that I’d never told her in the first place. I wasn't sure why that was such a relief, why she didn’t coddle me through the whole thing, but I needed it.
She even laughed as I asked her if she was worried. “Worried about my sister? Sure. But I’m not as worried now that you’ve let it out and shared it all.”
It was a gentle revelation that she believed I could be okay, that she believed in me and my sobriety. And she’d wanted my reality, not my façade.
The structure I had was falling apart. And the change scared me. I just needed to work, needed time to myself, so I took it.
I went back to the job, and I avoided Cade for the last two days of the retreat. I avoided everything, the calls from the team, from the rest of my family, and even from Cade.
But avoiding life and the feelings inside of a soul always has a way of coming out.
21
Izzy
We’d celebrated our achievements on the last day of the retreat. JUNIPER was sent out to all the cybersecurity teams in every state, and we were assigned regions to make sure they would be taken care of. I set up protocols and trained the team to handle breaches, planning with all of them to have weekly video chat meetings up until the election.
Our last night, once I’d brushed my teeth in the guest bathroom and slipped into a Beethoven the dog T-shirt, I saw Cade lying on his side of the bed reading a comic book. Dressed only in sweatpants, tattoos painting his chest, and those glasses still on, my heart hurt not being able to climb on top of him.
I sighed and crawled into my side, then pulled my Kindle app up. I needed a good romance to live vicariously through.
“What are you reading?” he murmured, sparking the first conversation we’d had that day.
“Not sure yet. I should study some—”
“You should read for pleasure,” he immediately corrected me.
If only he knew about the types of books I read. The blush that stained my cheeks with his wording probably gave me away though.
He chuckled. “The look on your face tells me what I need to know.”