Page 93 of The Truth of Us

“She does not want to talk to you,” he countered.

“You don’t know that.” I definitely whined.

“I do.”

My chest tightened. “Did she tell you that?”

Thomas stared at me, giving nothing away. Like a vault. A smug, well-dressed, impossible vault.

“When is she coming back?” I tried ‌a different tactic.

“I don’t know,” he replied. Did he just check his cuticles? Like I am boring him...

“That’s a lie.” I ground out.

“Yes.”

At least he was honest. I exhaled sharply and looked past him into the narrow slice of entryway I could see. No sign of Harper, or her perfectly selected shoes by the door, or her couture coat on the hook. No hint of her perfume lingering in the space… Nothing. The emptiness made my throat feel tight.

“I’d go anywhere,” I said before I could stop myself.

Thomas’s expression finally changed. Not pity, something worse. Sadness.

“I believe you.”

Hope sparked stupidly in my chest. Then he added, “I also believe that would have mattered more before.”

For a second, I couldn’t move. The words sat between us.

Before.

Before I hurt her.

Before, I needed to know where she was.

Before I understood what it felt like to have her gone.

Thomas stepped back. “She’s not here, Mr. Vale.”

“I can see that,” I murmured.

“And if she were, I still would not let you in.”

He closed the door, and I stood there on the front step like an idiot. People passed on the sidewalk behind me. I remained there long enough that Thomas eventually opened the door again just enough to say, “Do not make me call Mr. Black.”

That snapped me out of it. Mostly because the idea of Rowan collecting me twice in twenty-four hours was humiliating. So, I left. But I did not go home right away. I was beginning to hate my elevator and my penthouse. So instead, I drove. Past restaurants, hotels, and the corner where Harper had once laughed so hard in the back of my car that she snorted, then threatened to exit the moving vehicle if I ever mentioned it. Past the bookstore where she had paused in the window long enough for me to notice, the florist where I had ordered flowers because I did not know how else to say I was thinking of her. Everything in the city had been touched by her. Which was impossible. We had only had thirty days. Thirty days should not have been enough time to ruin Chicago. And yet there I was, driving through a city that had become a monument to all the ways I had fucked up.

By the time the start-of-the-month meeting rolled around, I was not in a good place. That was putting it mildly. I was in a boardroom for a company I loved, a company we all built from the ground up, completely distracted because Harper Lane had ruined me.

How was it February already?

How long had it been since I saw her?

Since I smelled her?

Since she was in my arms?

Since she looked at me like I was something worth choosing?