Hero (Hero 1)

“My apartment?” I whispered.

There was no reply from Caine.

I sucked in a huge breath, trying to ease the tightness compressing my chest.

After hours of strained conversation I should have been relieved by silence. A person might believe that silence took less energy than forced communication, but the bristling tension radiating from Caine suggested he was exerting great control to remain reticent.

The dinner at the benefit had gone by in a blur of false niceties and banal discussions that went in one ear and out the other. Singers and dancers had entertained and yet I could barely remember the pretty turn of a ballerina’s pirouette. I’d ignored the concerned looks from Henry and Nadia while Caine had sat next to me only engaging in conversation with me when prodded. No one else seemed to notice his terseness, because he was universally known for it, but Henry was aware there was something wrong with his friend.

I was more than aware.

His attitude made me feel like my skin had caught on fire. It burned and itched as I tried to claw my way outside myself—outside this downward-spiraling evening into hell. Somehow I knew what was coming. My instincts were screaming at me to find some way to turn everything around. And then there was that little part of me that hoped my gut instinct was wrong.

Yet, as soon as Caine’s driver turned down onto my street instead of taking us to Caine’s apartment, that hope slipped out of my hands.

“Caine?” I looked at him as the car drew to a stop, wondering why that person with the coldly blank mien had come back after all these weeks. I didn’t like him. I much preferred the man who’d broken through his icy facade.

Where was he?

And why after that strange interaction with that Regina woman had he disappeared?

“I’ll walk you up,” Caine said in a monotone.

The driver opened my door and I got out, murmuring my thanks. I waited, shivering in the cool air of the early morning. Instead of coming to a stop beside me, Caine marched right by me and took the stoop two stairs at a time.

Now trembling more than shivering, I moved as quickly as I could in my heels and dress, and fought the quickly rising wave of nausea inside me.

“Keys?” He held out a hand to me.

I gazed up at him.

Still blank. Still ice.

Looking away, I dug into my purse and produced the keys. They were snatched out of my hand before I could say or do anything and Caine let us into my building.

I followed him upstairs, my heels clacking obnoxiously loud on the stairwell. Any noise in the face of his dispassionate taciturnity seemed obnoxious, if only because I was so hyperaware that to him it was obnoxious.

This was a man who wanted to be done with me as quickly and quietly as possible.

My dignity warred with my outrage.

I reached my front door to find Caine had opened it but was still standing out in my hallway. He gestured for me to go inside.

Indignation narrowed my eyes. “You first.”

Still blank. Still ice. “I’m tired. We’ll talk later.”

“You first or I’ll follow you back outside.”

“Don’t be childish.” Again with the monotone.

Earlier his overreaction, his fury, had pissed me off. Now I’d give anything to have it back. “You first,” I insisted.

With a long-suffering sigh Caine walked into the apartment. Bolstering myself for what was to come, I exhaled shakily and followed him in. I closed the door quietly behind me and strode down my hall and into my living room.

Caine stood staring out the window, reminding me of the first time he’d been in my place. Pain lanced across my chest. The silence between us was unbearable. It felt thick and cold and dangerous. Like if I slammed my fist against the air in front of me it would shatter and tear my skin.

I drew in a ragged breath. The noise caught Caine’s ear and he glanced at me. The moonlight illuminated his face, allowing me to see that his expression had not changed.

“Who was she?” I said.

He turned around. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does matter. If this conversation is going where I think it’s going, it matters a whole lot.”

“And where do you think this is going?”

“Oh no. I’m not making it that easy for you. If you want to do it, you do it yourself.”

“The agreement was that this would end.”

“I think we moved past that agreement a while ago.”

“Since when?”

“Don’t. Don’t pretend like you aren’t as deep in this as I am.”

“We’re not deep in this, Lexie. This was just … It was an affair. As agreed. And now it’s over.”

Even though I’d known it was coming, nothing prepared me for the loss I felt. My knees actually buckled and I pressed a hand to the top of my armchair for support.

My reaction caused the first flicker of emotion on Caine’s face since the Delaneys’.

“It wasn’t just an affair,” I whispered.

“Of course it was.” Monotone. Again.

It was like listening to someone touch polystyrene. I gritted my teeth in reaction. “Why is Mr. Cold Carraway back?” I wondered out loud, flinching at the bitterness I heard in my voice. “What secrets are you hiding? They must be big to bring this guy back. I thought I got rid of him weeks ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m only one man.”

“No, you’re not.” I shook my head adamantly and took a step toward him. “I didn’t fall in love with that man I met on a photo shoot. Or the man who was my boss for weeks.”