Her throat was raw, and she couldn’t make her voice work.
“Riley?” He grabbed his shirt from the floor, where it had been tossed aside the night before, and tugged it on. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She swallowed, still unable to form words, and handed him the phone.
He glanced at it and sank back onto his heels. “Oh. Shit.”
The shift in his tone cut through her confusion. That wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. Her question was a dry croak. “What?”
“That’s horrible.” He set the phone on the coffee table, then took her hands in his, concern etched on his face. Something else was there too. She’d gotten far too familiar with it, since he came home. The way he didn’t quite meet her gaze. The catch in his voice that meant he was hiding something. “They’re morons. They don’t know what they’re talking about.Unpolished, my ass. You’re more talented than anyone else ever,” he said.
Something wasn’t right. “I don’t understand how she got my work. I only finished touching up the lines a couple of days ago. I haven’t scanned it yet.”
His jaw worked up and down for a moment, before any sound came out. “You’ve got a Deviant Art page. Maybe you’ve got a reputation.”
No. Dread crawled through her. That couldn’t be right. She hated herself for thinking it. There was no way he’d betrayed her trust like that. “Literary agents don’t go crawling the Internet to have an excuse to reject random people. How did she get my artwork?”
He stood and took a step back, his gaze anywhere but on her. He rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know?”
He was lying to her, but why? “What did you do?”
He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts, watching his toes trace lines in the carpet. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. You’re skilled and fantastic, and you were getting cold feet, and she was supposed to see how talented you are, and it would be perfect.”
“Zane.” Please let it be anything but that. A deep, gouging ache of pissed-off started in the center of her chest and spread. “What did you do?”
He finally looked at her again. “I sent her your story, from your email address.”
Holy shit, he hadn’t. Fury coursed through her, stemming from his nerve—the assumption he had a right—and she clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms. He’d lied to her about this and gone behind her back, after she told him what she wanted. “That’s why you kept my sketchpad for so long.”
He shrugged. “I tried to give it back before you missed it.”
She rubbed her face, so much happening in her head, she didn’t know what to focus on. “You went behind my back.” She stood. “I told you I was working on it. I laid out exactly how I felt.” She took a step toward him. “After everything we talked about, what made you think you had the right?”
“You deserve this. You weren’t taking any steps, and you’re better than that. This is motivation. I did it because you deserve better. You need to believe in yourself.”
“But that’s not up to you.” No matter what he said, it couldn’t make this better. “All this does is humiliate me. It shows the world how completely and totally untalented I am.”
“You’re none of that.”
“I’m all of that.” She was toe to toe with him now, anger flooding her. “You told meno more secrets. You said you were done going behind my back. I thought we covered this last night. It’s not up to you to decide what is and isn’t good for me.”
“You covered this last night.” A mask slid onto his face, carving his features in stone. “I didn’t agree. Not before, not now. If you can’t make up your mind, you’re going to miss out.”
“And that’s on me.” Frustration lodged in her throat. “Besides, I have made up my mind. I knowexactlywhat I want.”
“Really? Enlighten me.”
“You.”
His impassive expression faltered for the briefest second before hardening again. “That’s not an option.”
His rejection dug deep inside, and left an empty pit. But she promised herself and him this was the last time she’d do this. She made herself clear, and he wasn’t interested. Except she couldn’t find it in herself to walk away graciously.
“Fuck you.” The brush off was easier than giving into the tears stinging her eyelids. She stormed from the apartment and slammed the door behind her, rattling the windows. It took everything she had to make it to her car before the sobs threatening to escape racked her body. Her chest ached, and her throat was raw from biting back the sobs.
Was she more upset with him, for pretending this didn’t hurt him as much as her, or with herself, for reading into things that weren’t there? Fuck. And why did she want to go back inside and make things better again?
No. They both made their decision. She’d be there forthemfor as long as he wanted, but if he didn’t, she couldn’t help that.