Burn My Hart (The Notorious Harts 2)

heartbreak/'h?:tbreIk/

noun: heartbreak

plural noun: heartbreaks

example: what Asha feels without Theo

I don’t know what I expected. Probably that I’d start to feel more like myself again, but I don’t. I feel like I’m floating on a turbulent ocean with only my job to anchor me. And Kevin, who’s been some kind of godsend.

The thing is, for all the pain I feel, I never doubt I did the right thing to walk away from him. It would have been so much easier to stay. So much easier to ignore my needs and exist only in that heaven of his creation. But I have known this pain too well, this ache to be loved by someone incapable of offering it, and I cannot submit to it again. With my father, I have little choice. He’s my dad, I’m in his life by biological necessity. I have a choice with Theo and I refuse to spend any more time knowing myself to be unwanted.

I just want you.

Not enough. Never enough.

We take the cheesecake and a bottle of Prosecco into my lounge and put on The Fashion Channel, and every time a Fleurs Sauvages product is name-checked Kevin makes us do a shot of Prosecco, so I’m pleasantly light-headed when he leaves an hour later.

Not light-headed enough, though. The blissed-out feeling only lasts as long as it takes for me to be alone, and then it’s back, along with the ghosts in this apartment; Theo is everywhere I look, everywhere I stand.

I lie down on the sofa and stare at the ceiling. I don’t cry. I did a lot of that in the first couple of weeks but now I’m simply numb.

The door buzzes a minute later.

‘Hang on.’ I make my voice extra cheery in the intercom for Kevin’s sake, before buzzing him up, looking around to see what he’s forgotten. There’s nothing I can make out, so I wait with the door open an inch.

My smile drops when the elevator pings and Theo steps out, a look on his face I can’t possibly interpret. I stare at him, my mind going blank, my mouth going dry, my belly flopping all the way to my toes. My fingers begin to shake and my legs don’t feel strong enough to support me.

He stares at me when he reaches the door and his eyes are so tortured, so haunted, that I immediately forget my heartbreak and anger, my confusion, and say, ‘Is something wrong? Is it Grace? The baby?’

He shakes his head, his eyes sweeping over me. When he drags his fingers through his hair I see they’re shaking too.

‘I waited for him to leave.’

It takes me a second to realise he’s talking about Kevin.

‘I don’t know why I’m even asking this, but I just need to hear you say it. I need to know. Are you seeing that guy?’ He swallows, a look of distaste on his face, his voice gruff. ‘Are you fucking him?’

My intake of breath is harsh. It’s none of his business, but it is, because I’m Asha and he’s Theo and our lives will always be the other one’s business. Denying that is stupid and unfair.

‘You have no right to be here,’ I say instead, shaking my head, holding the door firmly in my hand.

‘I just need you to tell me and then I’ll go,’ he demands, and then, softer, ‘Please.’

I swallow, the plea bringing tears back to my eyes. ‘What are you doing here, Theo?’

His eyes bore into mine, his expression like stone. ‘I came to see...if you’re happy. And I saw that you are. I saw it with my own eyes.’ He rubs his hand over his face as though he can erase whatever he thinks he’s seen. I mentally replay my afternoon, and all I can think is that he watched as Kevin and I entered my apartment building. I try to see it from the outside, from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know that Kevin is a long-time friend and employee, and yes, I can definitely understand what conclusion Theo’s leaped to. ‘I just need you to say the words. Tell me you’ve moved on.’

I nod slowly, even when none of this makes sense. ‘And will that make you happy?’

His laugh is completely lacking in humour. ‘Yeah. It’ll make me ecstatic.’

I bristle at his sarcasm.

‘I’m sorry.’ He closes his eyes, and his voice is raw. When he opens his eyes I see so much in his expression that my heart begins to twist painfully in my chest.

I open the door a bit wider. ‘Did you want...to come in?’

He shakes his head. ‘I can’t.’ A muscle jerks in his jaw and I know him so well that I understand what he really means. He can’t come into my apartment when I’ve just been—in his mind at least—having sex with Kevin. His misery is completely unreasonable, given that I told him I was in love with him and he let me go, but it’s so patently clear that he’s in some kind of agony right now.