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Tamara barely glanced Raven’s way, and only to say goodbye. “She didn’t look at you any sort of way.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Fire rises in Raven’s green eyes. “She might be fine with us, and might’ve known, but seeing it in stark, living proof in front of her very eyes is quite a different thing. And you didn’t see how she looked at me,” she repeats. “She had that mom look, like she’s disappointed in me, like she thinks I’m sleeping my way to the top.”
This again.
“Are you?” I ask, and Raven’s brows furrow together sharply. “Didn’t think so,” I say quickly. “And you and I both know that. It was a surprise, it was shocking, but it’s not a big deal unless we make it one.”
She drops her chin, looking at the floor and thinking. I’m hoping she'll see reason because this truly isn’t the issue she’s making it out to be.
“I thought we were going public?” I ask her, and the look she gives me back isn’t what I expected. My brow raises. “Aren’t we?”
“Not at the office,” she answers, and it takes me by surprise.
“Why not?” My voice is harder than it should be, but I’m on edge.
“I’m embarrassed,” she says finally, her voice quiet.
“By what?” I ask, on edge. “Me?” My voice is harder than I mean it to be, but she’s digging at thosescars I thought I’d healed over. The scars that formed over stabbing words like ‘you’re not enough’ and suggestions that I’m too-this or not-enough-that. They came from Olivia and Evan, but also much further back, to my childhood and my parents.
Raven’s hitting on damage I want to leave in the past.
Her mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. She’s as gobsmacked as I am… by both of our reactions.
“I don’t want people to think–”
I cut her off, fully fucking uninterested in anyone else. Doesn’t she realize how little their opinions mean? They don’t know us. “If they want to judge, fucking let them.”
“You may be okay with that… but I’m not,” she answers back, exasperated.
“When will it end, Raven? At what point will you feel like you’ve made it on your own and be proud to stand at my side? After all, you just had a seven-figure day with zero input or assistance from me. Is that not a sign to you and everyone else that I have nothing to do with your success? That it’s all you, all yours?” I swallow thickly. “Or will you forever be so worried about what everyone else thinks?” I wave a hand, gesturing to the world at large.
“Dylan, I?—"
“I think you have some thinking to do, Darling. You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that there is a power imbalance between us in which you are the lesser party. To be clear, that only exists in your mind. To me, to everyone else, they can see that I’m so far gone for you that I would destroy the world for you. I would destroy myself for you.”
I grit my teeth, the words spat out, wrenched from me without consideration, simply pouring forth from my soul with violent force. Raven looks like I’ve struck her. Honestly, my words probably did hit with painful impact, but it can’t be helped. We have to move past this if we’re ever going to move forward, and I want that with Raven.
I want her desperately. Loudly. Completely.
“I’m gonna go,” Raven whispers, her eyes filling with tears.
Fuck.
“Raven, wait,” I start and reach out to her, but it’s too late.
“Don’t come after me,” she warns, and although I want to, chasing her down in the office is the last thing she wants. She doesn’t want to go public.
She spins and virtually sprints from my office, leaving me standing here, lost to what just happened.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 27
RAVEN
Ilasted all of an hour before I texted Dylan, and he told me his driver would come around to bring me to his apartment. Riding in the back, I twiddle my fingers, wondering how stupid I must look. “Vince?”
From up front, Vince’s eyes cut to me. “Yes, Miss Hill?”
