But Con would have noticed the wine breathing on the counter and the candles flickering outside, bright against the bruising twilight, and asked, “What’s all this?” The stranger’s eyes moved over the scene—and me—without interest. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I—” I floundered. “We were going to have dinner together, I thought.”
“Were we? I forgot.”
His voice was completely devoid of emotion. Anger lit inside me. Surely, he had to see that I’d gone to some trouble. Surely, he knew he was two hours later than he’d said he’d be. And surely, he knew that I would worry about him. Even if the whole world was ignorant of that fact, he knew.
I put my hands on my hips, digging my fingers into my hip bones for strength. I had to ask him a question, and I was afraid of the answer. “Con, what the hell is going on? Are you—were you with someone?”
I hoped the question would snap him out of this strange daze. That he’d look at me with his true eyes and say, “For fucks sake, Lily, of course I wasn’t with anyone else. You know how I feel about you. It was work shit.”
But instead, he lifted a shoulder. Casually. Elegantly. Cruelly. The corner of his mouth twisted down, as if he was annoyed I was asking.
My stomach flipped over. Nausea churned in it. I didn’t recognize my own voice when I said weakly, “I thought you loved me.”
“You did?” his eyes skimmed over my face, dispassionate. “Why?”
Why? Well because of a million things. The way he touched me. The way he looked at me. The things we had shared with each other. But the way he was looking at me now, and the way he wasn’t touching me, made me realize something. I’d told him I loved him, but he’d never said it back. Not really.
“Because I’m an idiot,” I said in that voice that didn’t sound like mine. Too shrill. The syllables strangled with pain. I walked past him and jabbed at the button to summon the elevator. I thought he’d reach for me as I passed. I thought he’d said, “Oh come on, don’t leave,” when the door slid open.
But he did none of those things. He only turned to watch me go with mild interest. Behind him on the terrace, the candles still flickered on the table. The clouds were underlit with the hellish red glow of the city lights burning below. Against that backdrop, he looked like the devil. He looked like the pain written all over my face didn’t mean anything at all.
Until the elevator door slid closed between us, I refused to let the tears come to my eyes. A hard kernel of hatred gave me the strength, but as the elevator began pulling me down away from him, it dissolved. The tears were flowing down my face in uncontrollable streams by the time the door opened on the lobby.
Even if he was the devil. Even if I did hate him now. I still loved him.
And I was afraid that I always would.