Ready or not, she swung back around to see a huge roomful of people looking at her. Waiting. For something she couldn’t quite remember.
She peered at them blankly, lost.
“Maria?” The moderator glanced discreetly at his tablet, probably checking the time. “What’s coming up for you?”
It was a prod, gentle as Peter’s hand slowly circling between her shoulder blades.
“I...” She wasn’t unraveling. She was undone. “I don’t know.”
Peter’s brow furrowed, his mouth pressing into a grim line, and he quickly looked at the moderator, a silent request to end the session so he could check on her well-being. But the other man was already speaking again, already giving her a helpful prompt so she could tell everyone exactly what they expected to hear. What Peter expected to hear. What she’d expected to tell them less than two hours ago.
“Well, we all figure you’ll be based in LA rather than Stockholm from now on, right?”
The moderator aimed a knowing glance and a wink at the crowd, and they smiled, delighted for the happy couple onstage. The happy, committed couple who wouldn’t part, not for anything.
She opened her mouth.
And somehow, somehow—found herself telling the truth. “I... don’t know.”
Only thatwasn’tthe truth, was it? Because she already knew she’d be booking a flight to Stockholm as soon as she and Peter finished digging a grave for their relationship and buried it deep beneath the brown, desiccated grass of LA in July.
So far underground it would never resurface.
The rest was a babble of voices and applause and shuffling feet as the moderator did whatever he was doing and wrapped up the session, but she paid none of it any attention, because the look on Peter’s face—
Mouth rounded in absolute shock as he stared at her. Forehead creased in utter bewilderment and so much pain, she might as well have knifed him in the ribs. Stricken brown eyes pleading for reassurance, for her to tell him she didn’t mean it, that she’d misunderstood the question or misspoken.
He’d gone pale as death.
Then that vulnerable, open mouth snapped shut, and betrayal edged the sharp jut of his jaw. A tide of hectic color slashed across his cheekbones.
He closed down.
Expressionless, all emotion shuttered and tucked safely away, he stood. A single hard look ordered her to follow him, as if she weren’t already going to do that. As if now, after all these years, she could simply walk off without another word the same way she had long ago.
Earning his trust had taken so long. So much effort.
And with three very short, very basic English words—I don’t know—it was gone.
Her own heartbreak had required a three-word, hyphenated phrase:three-year commitment. Because the man she adored could apparently commit to stay among strangers for three years for the sake of a job, but he couldn’t commit to stay with her for longer than three months. Not even for the sake of her love and her presence in his daily life.
She couldn’t live with that. Shewouldn’tlive with that, because he wouldn’t be living with her, and she had other options.
Peter strode ahead of her and cleared a path through the hotel hallways, so stone-faced that not even lingering selfie-hunting fans dared flag them down, although she caught a few camera flashes along the way. Occasionally he shot a glance back, confirming her continued presence, but she hadn’t gone anywhere.
When she offered someone her heart, she was never the one who chose to leave. It was everyone else who left her. Always, with the sole exception of her family.
Step by step, she followed in his wake, silent. When he fumbled for his keycard outside their suite, his hands shaking, she produced hers and slotted it in place. The sensor flashed green, and he shoved open the door with violent force.
But he was Peter, so he also held it for her, making sure she was fully inside before letting it slam shut again.
Before the echo of that slam even faded, he’d turned on her.
“I don’t know.” It was a mockery of her voice. “What the fuck didthatmean, Maria?”
He stalked farther into the room, off to the side where he wasn’t blocking the exit. Deliberately. Because again, he was Peter.
He didn’t join her in the little seating area when she carefully perched on the edge of the too-narrow armchair, though, and he didn’t appear particularly inclined toward civil conversation. Fists curled at his sides, he waited for her answer.