Page 16 of It Destroys Me

I was met with silence.

“Astrid?”

Nothing.

I turned the handle and stepped inside.

She was gone.

For some idiotic reason, I’d assumed that she would be here. That she would have called in sick to work because my tirade had ruined her day. But she was probably eager to get away from me, the way she used to get away from Bolton.

I’d never had a high opinion of myself, but it was pretty fucking low right now.

I got dressed and drove to the gallery. The car I’d loaned to her was there, a limited-edition Bugatti that an art dealer shouldn’t be able to afford. She’d lost her car in the fire, along with all her other valuables. I felt partially responsible for that.

I let myself inside and found her sitting at her desk, her eyes focused on her computer screen like she didn’t notice me, even though the door beeped when it opened. Her fingers typed on the keyboard quickly as she wrote out her message.

I stood and waited, arms crossed over my chest, my eyes hard on her face.

She continued to type like I didn’t exist.

“Sweetheart.”

Her fingers stopped, but she didn’t look at me, just took a breath. “What?”

“Look at me when you talk to me.”

She defied me and kept her eyes on the screen.

“I won’t ask again.”

With a look of raw viciousness, she lifted her eyes and looked at me.

Behind the expression of rage, I could see the pain, see how much I’d hurt her. “Let’s talk.” I nodded toward the gallery where the couches and chairs were arranged across the floor.

She stayed in her desk chair for a moment, but once she realized there was no way out of this, she stood up and smoothed out her skirt at the same time. When she walked around me, her head was held high, working her heels like they were flats. Her ass was a peach in that tight skirt.

I tried not to stare.

She picked an armchair and crossed her legs. She found something else to look at, a painting across the room, and stared at it instead of me.

I sat opposite her and stared as hard as she tried to ignore me. “I was an asshole. I have no excuse for it, so I’ll give none.” I hoped she would look at me, but she didn’t. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes remained directed elsewhere for a few seconds before she slowly turned to look at me. She was still upset but considerably less. A simple apology had cleared the smoke in the room and made it easier for both of us to breathe. “Why?”

“I won’t make excuses, sweetheart.”

“I’m not asking for excuses. I just want to understand you.” The rage in her voice had been replaced by a quiet sympathy. She somehow wrapped me in affection without touching me. She somehow healed me with the power of her tender stare.

I didn’t want to talk about Shayla. Before Astrid, I hadn’t said her name in a very long time. Now, it felt like it came up every other day. She didn’t come back from the grave, but all the suffering and pain sure did. “You’re right. I tried to sabotage this. I was different before, because we were a dead end. Didn’t have to put up a shield. Didn’t have to set any boundaries. I asked you to stay for days at a time because there was no pressure. But now, this road may not have a dead end.” It might be a highway that continued indefinitely, all across Europe, up to Russia, through China, and then India before it came back around through eastern Europe in a loop. “I thought I could try, but I can’t seem to allow myself to do so.”

“What are you afraid of, Theo?”

I stared into her eyes, hoping the answer was so obvious I wouldn’t have to say it.

But she stared back as if she needed me to spell it out like on an episode of Wheel of Fortune.

“I watched my first wife die. I don’t want to watch the same thing happen to my second.” I blamed our struggles on the choice she’d made, but I gave her no reason to trust me, no assurances. And I knew now it was just an excuse to keep her at a distance. I was a coward who was more afraid of commitment than a bullet in my temple.