“Leo,” she whispered, shaken, her stomach roiling. “How can you ask me that? I liked you the second we met. That’s why I couldn’t ask you for anything. That’s why I tried to walk away—”
“Even after everything I told you. About Tate Dillinger,” he said, not really hearing her. She could see that. His emotions were in control and she couldn’t blame him. “You were just waiting around for the right opportunity. God, you must have been laughing at me.”
The genuine hurt on his face stole her breath. “No, Leo. It isn’t like that.”
“Oh no?” His voice dropped in volume. “Would we have met if you didn’t want a shot at meeting my father, too?”
Her pulse pumped in her ears. “No. We wouldn’t have met. Not initially. But, Leo…” The lump in her throat wouldn’t allow her to swallow. She didn’t know where to start. How to clarify her motives. How to make him understand why she’d done what she’d done. “I was going to tell you everything tonight. Please believe me.”
“Why should I? You came to my bakery with the intention of using me.” He laughed without humor, raking a hand through his hair. “Hold on. Why did you need to audition for my father? You have a job.” The delivery of his words slowed toward the end, probably thanks to her slow, outward cringe. “You’re not in the Daliah’s Folly chorus line. Are you?” A sound puffed out of him, his gaze shuttering, closing her out. He turned away from her, paced a few feet away. “Well at least it makes sense now. Why you didn’t want me to watch you perform. You weren’t performing at all. Jesus, what have you been doing this whole time?”
Her lips were stiff. “Open calls. Classes. Anything I could find.”
Visibly, he recalled their time together, piecing everything together right before her eyes. “All those times I set your alarm so you could make the curtain call?”
What could she say to that? Nothing. She had no defense against his disgust. His anger. The center of her chest was going to cave in. It hurt so badly, she pressed a fist there to keep it from splitting down the center. “I had two weeks, Leo. It’s all I could afford and I just…I don’t know, I didn’t want you to think of me as a failure. As the girl who gets cut at every open call. It takes a bite out of me every time. Every. Time. It’s painful and personal.”
Leo shook his head, only seeming to partially process her words. “The fact that you were going to use me…the fact that you lied so easily—”
“Not easily,” she stressed. “Not at all.”
“—that’s the opposite of who I thought you were. God, I’m a fucking idiot.” He started to walk away, but came back, the lines around his mouth pulled taut. “I’d rather be an idiot than a liar, though. That’s what you are. Good luck with your next victim.”
“Leo, stop,” she implored, running after him. “I’m the idiot. I never imagined you’d find out like that. It was supposed to come from me. You have every right to hate me, but…”
He was only walking faster and she couldn’t keep up. Not in her heels. And not with the weight of disappointment and failure and shame pressing down on her shoulders. She tripped to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing revelers passing her on both sides, their joy the antithesis to her heartbreak. This searing pain in her middle was nothing short of what she deserved. Having to live with his hurt and Leo’s parting words ringing in her ears was the price she paid for deceiving him. She’d let it go way too far without coming clean. She was at fault. He had every right to walk away without a backward glance.
And with nothing left keeping her in the city, with shame biting at her heels, Reese could only stumble blindly downtown toward her building, her fingers fumbling on the screen of her phone to book a bus ticket back to Wisconsin. As soon as possible.
Chapter 19
Leo pounded his fist into the dough, leaving dents in the shape of his knuckles.
He’d come straight to the Cookie Jar after walking away from Reese, losing himself in the routine of pastry making. Seeing the color drain from her face over and over again when she realized she’d been caught. Hearing her voice implore him to stop—that got to him most of all. What the hell did she care? Why ask him to come back? Wasn’t it obvious she wasn’t going to get what she wanted? He’d been right to be wary of dancers. They were all the goddam same. Always looking for a way ahead, ready to step on necks to get there.
He left the dough to prove and moved on to the next task, refusing to pause, jumping from one job to the other. If he stopped, he would have to acknowledge the gaping hole in the center of his chest. The place where his fucking heart had been ripped out. Hours and hours he’d spent with Reese, falling in love, even becoming a better person, a better business owner. How the hell could she have been misleading him?