Page 79 of It Hurts Me

He took me in before he stepped into my room and let the door shut automatically behind him. Every time I saw him, I forgot how tall he was, even taller than Bolton. But all he did was look at me. There was no embrace with his lips or his arms. There was no warmth to protect me from the cold.

If he wasn’t going to comfort me, then why was he there?

I stepped farther into the room, a bed with a couple armchairs against the wall. My arms crossed over my chest because my own touch seemed to be the only comfort I would receive. “Did I do something, Theo?”

His eyes had been on the dresser when I asked the question, and they remained there.

“Because the other day, you showed up at the gallery when you saw me through the window. And now it’s like you don’t want to be here. You said if you wanted me gone, you would tell me, so tell me.”

He slowly turned to look at me. “I told you it’s been a rough week?—”

“You’re lying.” I hadn’t known him long, but I knew him well. “This isn’t the man I know. I didn’t expect us to fuck, but your hands would either be in my hair or on my ass by now.”

His hard eyes remained on mine, giving nothing away.

“Did you only want me because I was married?” Now, the parameters of the relationship had changed. Now, there was nothing that separated us, and perhaps that made him uncomfortable.

“No.”

“Then—then I don’t understand.”

“Astrid.” It was one of the rare times he said my name, and he said it with a tone of anger I hadn’t heard before. “I have some heavy shit on my plate right now. If you hadn’t said you weren’t okay, I probably wouldn’t have come. But I care for you, so I came. I’m sorry that I’m not much comfort right now, but all the simplicity in my life just went out the window, and I don’t know what the fuck to do about it.”

Now, I felt guilty for only caring about myself. “You can talk to me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“I know I’m not a part of your world, but?—”

“I said I can’t.”

The anger in his tone made me back away. “Then maybe you should just go.” My heart had already gone through one boxing match, and now it was going through another. It was battered and blue, in pieces on the floor.

He gave a quiet sigh, his eyes returning to the dresser as he dragged his hand down across the bones of his jawline. “Yeah…maybe I should.”

16

THEO

I sat alone in my study.

Like a gargoyle, I hadn’t moved in two days.

The sun rose and set in the same places, but my life didn’t change.

Astrid didn’t text me.

I didn’t text her.

I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

Bolton hadn’t contacted me or responded in any way. Had no idea if he knew I was the one who’d picked off his men one by one on the street. Maybe he didn’t care as much as he should because he was distracted.

Distracted that his wife had left him.

The woman I’d bedded was married to my enemy. His last name was her last name. It was hard to shake, hard to look past. When I was in the same room with her, she felt like a different person. She was innocent of any crime, but I still felt betrayed by the association.

And I felt blindsided by it too.