It was a low blow, and my chest wrenched at Xavier’s resulting flinch.

I didn’t want to hurt him, but if that was what it took, that was what I’d do—no matter how much it destroyed me in the process as well.

“Maybe, but there’s a crucial difference between me and Mark.” Xavier stepped toward me, and I instinctively took a step back. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, and though he hadn’t officially entered my apartment, his presence permeated every molecule of air until all I could see, smell, taste was him.

His earthy scent grabbed hold of my lungs and squeezed, and the memory of his skin beneath my touch was so vivid that, for a moment, I felt as though I could reach out and trace the echoes of our shared moments in the air.

“Let me tell you a secret,” he said quietly.

I crossed my arms, but it did nothing to stave off a cascade of shivers when he spoke again.

“You kept asking me why I called you Luna. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would send you running for the hills. Even before we kissed, before we were anything other than a publicist and her client, you were a light in my life. A persistent, sometimes scary one, but a light all the same.” Xavier’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Luna is short for mi luna. My moon. Because no matter how dark the nights got, you were always there, shining so brightly that I always found my way through.”

Prickles swarmed behind my eyes. My chest was a tightly wound spool of emotions, but I didn’t touch it, afraid that a single unraveled thread would send me crashing down.

“I don’t know when it happened. One day, you were someone I was stuck with if I wanted to keep my current lifestyle. The next, you were…you.” A sad smile touched Xavier’s lips. “Beautiful, brilliant, and so damn caring beneath that mask you present to the world. You can try to hide it, but it’s too late. I’ve seen the real you, with all its perfect and broken pieces, and I love every single one of them.”

The prickles reached the point of unbearable. They danced in front of my vision, blurring Xavier’s face and turning my world into a watercolor of emotions. Every dot stabbed at me, and I was sure that if he kept talking, and I didn’t escape, I would bleed out right here on my living room floor.

“Stop,” I whispered. He didn’t.

“I’ve been falling in love with you day by day for years, and I didn’t even know it,” he said, his voice thick. “Well, now I know it.”

“Don’t.” The room constricted around me, squeezing the air from my lungs, and the simple act of breathing became an arduous task.

My head swam. I wanted to hold on to something for steadiness, but Xavier was the only thing within reach, and touching him would obliterate me.

He pressed on, uncaring that he was flaying me alive.

“I love you, Sloane. Every fucking inch of you, and I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel the same. Tell me you aren’t running because you’re scared of getting hurt again. Tell me you truly believe we can’t work when the past two months have been the best of my life. Even with my father’s death, and Perry, and a dozen things that went wrong, they were still perfect because you were there.”

Trembles racked my body. The pressure was getting worse, and I couldn’t contain it for much longer.

“That doesn’t matter.” The lie tasted so bitter I almost choked on it. “I want you to leave. Please.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” he said fiercely. “You’ve always been honest with me. Don’t—”

“I am being honest!” Something heavy and frantic seized control of my body and pushed at Xavier’s chest. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t see me when I broke, and I knew with bone-deep certainty that I was on the razor’s edge of breaking. “I don’t want you here. You love me, and I don’t feel the same toward you. So go!”

Pushing him was like shoving a brick wall, but a tidal wave of panic imbued me with superhuman strength.

I didn’t see it happen. I just knew that one second, he was in the doorway; the next, I’d slammed the door in his face. The lock had barely clicked shut before I sank to the floor, my limbs quaking as I tried to tune out his knocks and pleas.

The prickles coalesced into a sheet of white and gray, and the hollow ache that yawned inside me was so overwhelming, it felt like my very core had crumbled into dust.

I’d never felt this level of despair, not even when I walked in on Bentley and Georgia all those years ago.

I give a damn about us and the fact you’re lying to me.

I couldn’t see Xavier through the blur in my eyes at the end, but I’d heard the anguish in his voice and felt it in the air. It’d mirrored the same pain rushing in to fill the emptiness in my chest because he was right. I had lied to him.

I cared. More than cared.

He made me feel everything when I’d thought I could feel nothing, and that realization led to an undeniable truth: I loved him, so much so that I couldn’t breathe, and I’d pushed him away because I knew love would only end in heartbreak.

The journey wasn’t worth the destination.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there, my back to the door and the weight of what I’d done anchoring me to the ground, but it was long enough that Xavier’s pounding had faded into silence.

Something warm and wet slid down my cheek.

It was such a foreign sensation that I didn’t touch it, afraid of what I’d find, until it dripped from my chin.

I pressed my fingers to my face. A drop of the substance trickled onto my lips, and it wasn’t until I tasted its salty grief that I realized what it was.

A tear.

CHAPTER 41

Xavier

My family hadn’t called me pequeño toro for nothing.

Last night, I’d stayed outside Sloane’s apartment until her neighbor came home and threatened to call the cops. Normally, that wouldn’t have deterred me—the worst they could do was charge me with loitering—but Sloane wasn’t going to change her mind and throw herself into my arms the same day we broke up.

I needed a new strategy.

I spent the entire train ride to DC that morning agonizing over it. Sloane said she didn’t love me, but her reaction hadn’t been that of someone who didn’t care. I’d never seen her so distraught, and as much as it killed me to know she was hurting, her pain was a good thing. It meant she felt something; if she didn’t, she would’ve simply dismissed me the way she had Mark.

Ironically, the stronger her feelings, the more likely she was to shut down and pull away. Sloane was afraid of getting hurt again, but no amount of reassurances on my part could convince her she wouldn’t get hurt somewhere down the line thanks to Fuckface Bentley. She had to come to that conclusion herself.

The question was, how could I get through to her?

Because there was no way in fucking hell I was taking our breakup at face value. Not when it looked like it’d destroyed Sloane as much as it had me.

I don’t want you here. You love me, and I don’t feel the same toward you. So go!

A vise squeezed my chest. I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to wipe the image of Sloane’s tortured expression from my mind.

“Would you like another moment to daydream about frivolity, or can we commence our meeting?” A cold voice dragged me back to the present. It was as welcoming as a sea of cacti, but at least it successfully banished thoughts of my breakup—for now.

Alex Volkov observed me from the other side of his desk. He radiated displeasure, but he was here, which was a semi-good sign. “I had to postpone a family trip to the zoo to be here, so let’s make this quick,” he said. “You have ten minutes.”

I tried to imagine Alex pushing a stroller around the zoo, but the only way I could see him stepping foot in the place was if he was magically transformed into one of those vicious jungle cats they kept in locked enclosures.

“Look on the bright side,” I said, attempting levity. “I’m sure the zoo will still be there in ten minutes unless the Smithsonian really pissed someone off.”