“No, of course not! I wanted to—”
“You wanted to spy on me for the record label. By poking and prodding at me, trying to get me to break so you could make sure you were there to watch me in case I fell apart. Is that why you did it? You were trying to get to the bottom of things so the label didn’t have to worry about losing its precious tour insurance deposit?”
“No! Yesterday was about helping you!”
“I never asked for your help, Poppy. If you recall, I never wanted it.” He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair.
“I know,” she said quietly, but he was too wound up to listen.
“I was doing okay on my own, right? Not drinking. Not doing drugs. Not fucking up. So why’d you have to push? Why’d you have to get in my head like that?”
“I wasn’t trying to get in your head.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You were totally angling for it. ‘Tell me, Wyatt. It’s not your fault, Wyatt. You should see a therapist, Wyatt. I just want to help, Wyatt—’”
“I did want to help. I do. I’m sorry I pushed yesterday. I shouldn’t have when I knew I wasn’t being completely honest. But none of what I said yesterday was because of the job. I said it because I meant it. Because I love—”
“Don’t!” He cut her off as another wave of betrayal tore through him. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare tell me you love me ten seconds after you tell me that this has all been an act. I don’t want to hear it from you. Not now. Not like this.”
“I’m sorry.” There were tears in her voice, tears in her beautiful brown eyes. It hurt to witness them—the last thing he’d ever want to do was make her cry. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did hurt me.”
“I know.” She reached for him again, and again he shrugged her off. “But please, don’t let this mess you up. This is my fault, these are my lies. Please, please don’t go off the rails because I screwed up—”
“Still? Even after all this, you’re still worried about the company’s bottom line? You’re unbelievable!”
“I’m worried about you, Wyatt. I don’t want to see you suffer because of mistakes that I made. It’s not fair.”
“Yeah, well, you probably should have thought of that before you slept with me, huh? Or was that all part of the act, too? Hard for me to fall off the wagon if I’m too busy fucking you, huh?”
She shoved him then, not hard enough to hurt, but definitely hard enough to get his attention. “I’m not a whore.” She looked fierce, like she was going to kick his ass. But her voice broke on the last word.
Shit. He stopped, took a few deep breaths himself. Paced a little bit as he tried to work off the worst of his temper. She might have hurt him, but that was no reason for him to say shit like that to her. No reason for him to be a total asshole. “I’m sorry,” he said after a few long seconds had passed. “That was a shitty thing for me to imply, and I had no business saying it.”
She nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she stared directly at the ground as she asked, “So where does this leave us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I apologized. You still think I’m a whore—”
“I don’t. I already said it was a low blow and I shouldn’t have said it—”
“Yeah, but you didn’t say you didn’t believe it.”
“Seriously? That’s where we’re at? You’re going to play semantics with me? After what you did?”
Her shoulders slumped, but this time when she spoke, she looked him directly in the eye. “No. You’re right. This is my fault, not yours. I shouldn’t be blaming you for anything.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Okay.”
How the fuck had he become the bad guy here? He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. He was the one she’d lied to. The one she’d pumped to get information. The one she’d talked into spilling his deepest, darkest secrets, all while she was with him under false pretenses.
So why, now that he’d called her on it, did he feel like the asshole in this equation? Why did he feel like he was the one who had done something wrong?
“I’m going to go now,” she said, after another minute or two passed in silence. “I have to pack.”
“Pack? Why?”
“I need to be out of the apartment by tomorrow morning. It’s for employees of the label, and I’m no longer an employee, so…”
“Your father’s kicking you out?”
“Don’t sound surprised. You know better than anyone that Bill Germaine is all about the bottom line.”
She turned and started toward the door that led back in to the club.
“So will you go to a hotel?” he asked. “Or—”
“I’m going home, Wyatt.”
Suddenly things felt like they were spinning totally out of his control way too quickly for him to be able to keep up. “Wait. You’re going back to New York?” How the hell were they supposed to get past this if she was running off to New York before they’d even had a chance to cool down? To get their heads on straight?