“Who?”
I turned my fierce gaze on her. “Don’t play that fucking game.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze narrowing on my face. “If this is a joke, it’s a bad one.”
“Do you see me laughing?” Another sweep of the apartment told me there wasn’t any sign of him, of his shoes kicked off on the rug or his jacket hanging from the back of a chair. He would have come out of the bedroom at the sound of our voices by now.
“Conway.” She slowly crept into the living room, eyeing me with sheer disappointment. She was in a long t-shirt that reached her knees, covering her bottom. It was a man’s t-shirt, and I wondered if it was his. “You’re absolutely pathetic. I can’t believe I ever respected you.”
Like she’d punched me in the gut, I was winded.
“You break my heart and then have the nerve to throw a tantrum when I start seeing someone? Are you two? I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, Conway. I told you I loved you and I wanted to marry you, but you left anyway. You have no right to be jealous. You have no right to show up on my doorstep at four in the morning huffing and puffing. Now get the fuck out of my apartment and don’t come back.”
I’d taken a bad situation and made it worse. Now she despised me even more. I’d waited too long to get my shit together, and I’d pushed away the one woman I adored. Now she was sleeping in someone else’s arms.
Because I was a fucking idiot.
“Go, Conway.” It was the second time she’d asked me to leave.
But I didn’t move. I stayed still, feeling the searing pain across my heart. I wanted to be the man between her legs. I wanted to be the designer who used her for inspiration every day. I wanted her to live in my mansion, enjoying a life of luxury only I could provide. “I’m sorry—”
“I don’t care. Please leave. I can’t even look at you right now…” She stepped back, putting more distance between us. “I’ll call the cops if I have to.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to think of the right thing to say. I didn’t come here with a plan, so coming up with something on the spot was difficult. My chest swirled with emotions, but I couldn’t articulate them. “Muse, let me tell you what my life has been like for the past three months.”
She didn’t ask me to leave again, but her guard was still up.
“I’ve been miserable.” I slid my hands into my pockets. “The bed we used to sleep in together has never felt more uncomfortable. I hardly sleep. I don’t eat. Dante is constantly trying to shove food down my throat because I’m getting thinner by the week. Nicole is pestering me to submit a new line of designs, but I haven’t sketched a single idea. I spend my nights with my scotch and stare at the fireplace. I think of you constantly. My father told me to get my shit together and get you back, but I was too stubborn to listen. Vanessa is pissed at me. Carter thinks I’m an idiot. My whole world has fallen apart since you’ve been gone. There hasn’t been anyone else…” I watched the way her eyes changed, the slight look of relief. “I’ve gone out with the intention of picking up a random woman, but I always go home alone. I jerk off to the lingerie pictures of you I see in magazines…” I felt like a teenage boy doing it, but it was still better than fucking a stranger. I should feel ashamed for saying the truth out loud, but I didn’t. “I keep telling myself this is the only option, but this option has left me devastated. When Carter showed me the article with you and…him, something snapped inside me. It kills me to see you with someone else. It kills me because…I miss you so goddamn much.”
She tilted her head slightly as she examined me, the ferocity slowly fading away.
“I don’t know what I expected to accomplish by coming here tonight. But…I wasn’t thinking.”
The silence fell between us, and she kept staring at me like she was waiting for me to say something else.
But that was it. I had nothing else to say.
“What do you want, Conway?” she whispered. “Do you want me to pack up my things and fly home with you right now?”
It would be a dream come true. “Yes.”
“Well, you know what I want. That hasn’t changed.” She stared at me with her pretty eyes, pressuring me to say the words she wanted to hear.
I held her gaze but remained silent.
“You still won’t give me what I want…”
I already knew how I felt about her. It was perfectly clear. I could keep fighting it, but that hadn’t gotten me anywhere. The last three months had been wasted in a painful depression. I’d never been so low in my life. I was happy before this woman walked into my life, but now that she was gone, I couldn’t find happiness again.