I considered my answer for a long time. “What does it matter if it’s true? If she says I’m the only man you’re going to love, then you should try to make this work with me. You should fight for me.”
She stepped away, moving to a different side of the kitchen island. “No. She said it would never work—and it won’t work.”
I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t picture my life without her. I couldn’t imagine going back to the whores I used to pay to bed me. I didn’t want to go back to that numb existence. I couldn’t do it. “Please.” I’d never begged for anything in my life.
“I despise you.” She said it without skipping a beat. “I don’t trust you. I don’t respect you. And I’ll always hate you for what you did to my innocent father.”
“He’s still alive—”
“Because of Damien. Not you.” She kept the knives in front of her, as if she would actually draw one on me. “I hate you.”
“You don’t hate me. You love me.”
She refused to acknowledge those feelings ever existed. “No.” She stared at me with a hard expression, ice-cold. “You mean nothing to me, Heath. I know where my allegiance lies…and it’s not with you.”
I kept the same expression, but I was falling apart inside, knowing this woman was already gone even though she was still in my home. That all I had of her was a memory, not the real thing.
“I don’t care about the way you make money. Damien and Hades aren’t upstanding citizens. But they don’t hurt innocent people like you. You’re my enemy as far as I’m concerned. What we had…it’s in the past. It’s like it never happened at all. Because I see you for what you really are. I just wish you were man enough to be honest with me, so I didn’t have to learn this lesson the hard way.”
“Baby—”
“Call me that again, and I’ll stab you.” She spoke calmly, like it was a matter of fact rather than an emotional outburst.
My breathing started to speed up because I knew she was about to walk away from me forever—and there was nothing I could do to make her stay.
“Don’t come to my apartment. Don’t fucking use your key to come and go as you please. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t show up at my performances and confront me backstage, because I will make a scene. You’re my enemy now, and I won’t make the mistakes I made before. I won’t stop Damien from killing you. I’ll even help him if I can. So, it’s in your best interest to disappear from my life.” She turned her back to me and headed for the stairs.
I was paralyzed on the spot, my chest caving in with agony. I’d never felt pain like this, not from a stab wound, not from a bullet, not from any physical injury in my life. It was indescribable…like my entire purpose for being alive was walking away. “Catalina.”
She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look at me. With one hand on the rail, she held her position, staring at me with icy coldness. The spontaneous and passionate woman I used to know was gone, dead the instant she knew what I did. She didn’t look at me the way she used to, like she was so deeply in love that it completely consumed her. Her fire was out, the fire that used to keep me warm.
“I love you.” I only got to say it to her a few times, and I’d thought if I ever did, it would happen much differently, with her in my arms and then underneath me, making love all night as she whispered it back to me. But I’d never gotten to hear the words echo back at me…and now I never would. “And I always will.”
Twelve
Catalina
I walked to my trash can with the leftovers from my sandwich and pressed my foot on the pedal at the base so the lid would pop open. Before I dropped the scraps, I saw the sunflowers I’d dumped days ago.
I dropped the sandwich right on top of the last visible petals then walked away. The dish was placed in the sink so I could wash it later. Then I walked to the couch, my hair pulled up in a bun, and I drank my wine as I watched TV.
I felt so numb.
The body had fascinating ways of protecting itself, of turning off everything when life was too traumatic to experience in full. Maybe that was why I didn’t feel anything at all, as if nothing had happened. Or maybe Heath’s betrayal was so potent that it changed my feelings instantly, made me see that relationship from a different perspective. Because I didn’t think about him. I didn’t miss him. I didn’t question my decision.