“I told you I’m not the company.”
“Not the company. You’re a liar and a thief, just like Warren Cade. He took things that weren’t his, just like you did.”
“Everything of yours I have,” he says, anger burning in his glare, “you gave freely and you know it.”
“To Maxim Kingsman—not to you.”
“It’s all the same. It’s all me,” he shouts. “Maxim Kingsman Cade. That’s who I am. I can’t change that, Nix.”
“You should have told me the truth and let me decide for myself if I wanted to be involved with you, because that means being involved with your family, connected to your father. That’s too complicated for me. And you lied.”
“Let me tell you the truth now.”
“It’s too late.”
“Too late?” He points to the conference room table. “That just happened. We are still happening. I can’t be in the same room with you for ten seconds without wanting that to happen, so don’t tell me it’s too late. You still want this, want me. And I want you so fucking much. When I was in Antarctica—”
“Don’t.” I close my eyes and cover my ears. If I think about the way my heart broke when I thought he might die, I’ll lose my anger, my indignation and I’ll hold him all night. I might try to hold him forever. “Don’t talk about that.”
“You don’t want to hear that when I wondered if we’d be rescued in time, all I could think about was you?” he asks softly. “That after only a week with you, it wasn’t my family or the memories from twenty-eight years on this Earth that kept me sane, but it was a matter of days with you? Reliving your kisses and our conversations. The hope that I could make it back to you and convince you we shouldn’t walk away. That I was wrong. A stupid bastard to think I could.”
“I’m glad you made it out alive,” I say, such a pale reflection of the knee-weakening relief that came when I heard he’d been rescued. “But don’t you get it?” I ask, blinking back tears. “You did the one thing I am so tired of everyone doing. You lied to get what you want.”
“If you would just let me explain—”
“How will you explain? You’ll use that bright mind and that silver tongue to convince me? To persuade me? You’re all so good at tricking us, aren’t you? If you care about me at all, don’t convince me. Don’t trick me out of my convictions. When you tell the truth now, it only reminds me that whatever we were before, it was a lie.”
“You expect what? That I’ll just walk away?”
“Wasn’t that the original plan?”
“Before this, Nix. Before us. If you hadn’t left Amsterdam early, I would have told you the truth. I would have told you I can’t walk away.”
My insides are melting again. The longer I’m around him, the longer I stand in this heat we generate when we’re together, the harder it is to hold onto my anger. My fingers slip and slide around my indignation when he’s inside me, when he tells me all the things I wanted to hear from the first night we made love.
I’m weakening when something bright on the floor by one of the boxes catches my attention. It’s one of the neon fliers we posted searching for Tammara.
Tammara. Another girl lost. Gone.
Mama. Lost. Gone.
Our land, our traditions, our language—they’re lost and gone. Stolen. A cycle of thievery and scorn and cruelty that began with an invasion, one act after another that evolved into the systems that never give us a chance.
Liar. Trickster. Thief.
That’s who I was falling for. That’s who I gave myself to. The son of our oppressor. The heir to our spoils.
Liar. Trickster. Thief.
I let the mantra reverberate through me, reach all the places Maxim claimed for himself, and I take them back.
He shoves his hands through his hair, away from his face, exposing the neat row of stitches at his hairline. I steel my will against the parts of me weakening, thinking of him in danger.
“Get out.” Even I hear the new resolve in my voice, the starched determination of my words. “I never want to see you again.”
“Nix.” He strides over, his hands already reaching for me, but I evade him and open the conference room door.
“Go,” I say. “This was the plan from the beginning. We said we’d walk away and I’m sticking to it. Go to the Amazon, the Antarctic. You go off and change your world.” I point to the campaign logo on my T-shirt. “And I’ll change mine.”