I shake my head again. There’s a manic quality to my words, to the unloading of emotions. “I really love my job.”
“I know that,” he says. “Fuck, don’t you think that’s—”
“You’d say that, but how would I know if you really mean it? I won’t come work for the Winter Corporation. I won’t be a trophy wife, I can’t, and I won’t deal with the pressures of in-laws again and you slowly resenting me because I can’t cook you warm meals and then finding you withheragain, or someone else, because you think marriage is just a contract and not a—”
“Sophia,” he says. His voice is harsh. “What the hell is all this?”
“It’s our future,” I say, “and I don’t want it. This is for the best.”
“That wouldn’t be our future.”
“Yes, it would. I know it would,” I say, but I can see that he doesn’t believe me. Why can’t he see what I can, so clearly?
His mouth tightens. “So you would just give up, then? On us?”
“We were never an us,” I tell him, my steps speeding up. We’d started by faking it, and then it had been a day-by-day thing. A go-slow thing, and a test-the-waters thing. Well, the waters have been tested, and they’re shark infested.
“Then what were we?” he demands.
“Something fun on the side while we worked together.”
“That’s not how I saw us,” he says. “Not once.”
I think of his mother’s party, and of the comment about the two of us having kids. I see myself trying to appease his mother and around me, the sound of a cage rattles. “This just isn’t a good idea,” I say.
His voice turns colder than I’ve ever heard it. “I see. This is because of Percy.”
“What? He has nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, but he does, doesn’t he? Because you’re still in love with him.”
I turn to look at Isaac. “What?”
“Your reactions, every single time we’ve met him, clued me in. But I had hoped…” He shakes his head. “So that’s it, then. You’re still in love with him, and now you’re usingmy mistake from years ago to run away from a good, new thing.”
“You’re delusional,” I say. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“I don’t think I have. I think I’m finally seeing all of it clearly, for the very first time.”
“Then you need to get your eyesight checked,” I say. Beneath my coat, my blood boils. I want to run away and I want to fight him.
But then Isaac’s eyes widen.
Shit. His brother.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say.
“I know,” Isaac says, but his voice is harsh. “I wish you could just forget about Percy. I wish you could let him go, finally.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I have. The only thing Percy has to do with this is how much I’ve realized you’re just like him.”
“I’mnothinglike him,” Isaac says. “And I’m sick and fucking tired of you comparing me to him.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are, and you have been since we met.”
“Correctly, then, it seems.”