Page 154 of Boardroom Mask

“What?” I squeak in confusion. “What do you mean you can’t?—”

“I’m stepping down,” he says. “As CEO. Effective immediately.” His eye circles are darker than ever.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Okay, so you step down. That doesn’t mean?—”

“I’m quitting and I’m leaving the country, Jillian.”

The playground goes very still. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

“Leaving,” I repeat.

“Leaving,” he confirms.

“When are you coming back?”

He looks past me at the empty swing. “I don’t know,” he rasps. “Maybe never.”

This doesn’t make sense. None of it does. My head is spinning in every direction at once and the ground feels unsteady beneath my knees. “Why?” I ask, shrinking back from him. “If you love me—and you just said you do, you just said it—then why are you leaving?”

“Because Idolove you. That’s exactly why.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“It’s not about the article, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “And it’s not about your daughter, either.”

“Then what the hell is it about?!”

He’s still on his knees. The grime is soaking through his pants. He looks up at me, and whatever wall he’s been building behind his eyes finishes construction right there in front of me.

“I walked into your life with an order to kill you,” he says hollowly. “And you fell in love with me anyway.”

I want to tear my hair out by the root. Big, red clumps of it. “So?!”

But he’s shaking his head. “I can’t be the kind of man who builds a life on that, Jillian. There’s blood in the foundation of us. There always will be.”

“I don’t care how it started, Kir. All that matters is?—”

He stands up and I fall quiet. “That’s exactly the problem. Youshouldcare. The fact that you say you don’t tells me I’ve already done too much damage. You should be terrified of a man who did the things I did to you. If you’re not, then…” He stops. His jaw works for a second. “Then it means I broke something in you that I don’t know how to fix. Staying will only break it worse.”

“You didn’t break me,” I sob. “I was already broken.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true!”

“It’s not, but even if it is, I won’t be the man who takes advantage of it. I’ve done enough to you already.”

“You’re not taking advantage of anything,” I whimper as my heart breaks and breaks and breaks. “Ichoseyou. Every single time, I chose you. Those were my choices, Kir. Mine.”

“You chose a mask,” he corrects. “You chose something in the dark that couldn’t hurt you.”

“The maskbecameyou. You know it did!”

He doesn’t argue, but nor does he accept what I’m saying. He just stands there with playground muck on his knees and tears drying on his face, the loneliest man alive. I can see him pulling away even though he hasn’t moved an inch. He’s already gone. He decided this before he came here.

The apology was real. The love is real.

But so is this.