Page 82 of Tempt

“Maybe, but it sure isn’t enough.”

“Yes it is.”

His eyes flicked up to mine looking for answers.

“You love them,” I said simply. “That’s what they need more than anything.”

His face fell. It was mostly with relief, but it was also mixed with an epic sadness that I knew all too well. It was how I felt about Theo. I desperately wanted to snap him out of wherever he was, but so far nothing was enough. I wanted to believe love could cut through everything and fix it all, but it couldn’t. It was only one ingredient and I was going to have to learn to live with that.

He pulled the book back to the edge of the table and looked at the article again. “This was the beginning of the end. I have a feeling if I turn this page I’ll see what came next?”

I nodded, my anger rising again.

He shook his head and then shut the book. “It’s all fucked up. If you’re looking for answers that make sense, you’ll only be disappointed.”

Of that I was sure. “I just want to understand.” Because I didn’t understand why Theo would intentionally go back to what he wanted to escape so desperately.

He tapped his fingers on the cover of the book, deep in thought, pulling his lower lip through his teeth over and over. “Because it’s how he sees the world. It’s poetic and symbolic and all that shit that really doesn’t mean much to the rest of us. I have a feeling you’re like me. When something bad is in the past, you just walk the fuck away from it all and put it in the rearview. But not the Sutherlands. Not Theo. Nik’s back there right now in one of her runs. She’ll draw until her fingers fall off.” He wiggled his in the air as he spoke. “She has to get everything out, or it drives her mad. And all she sees is the past. I don’t know… maybe it’s post-traumatic stress. She’s stuck reliving that time, drawing it out, like she still hasn’t made sense of it all.”

I could see Nicki out of the corner of my eye, wiping away her tears and pushing back her hair. She was so much like her brother.

“It really is poetic though, even to me.” Higgins said. “Theo’s trying so desperately to paint over the past with a fresh newly renovated future.” He tilted his chin toward me and his eyes flashed with something like jealousy. “A future designed by the woman he loves. How fucking perfect is that?”

Chapter 30

When I got back to the flat Theo was home scarfing down a sandwich and a beer. I’d sat in the car at the curb outside for a good thirty minutes. Joe had watched me nervously in the rearview mirror but didn’t say a word. All I did was sit and think.

And think, and think, and think.

What did I do with this information? If I confronted Theo with it, we were going to fight and I didn’t know if I had a fight in me. But it was going to slowly eat me alive if I kept it to myself. Maybe at another time or with someone else this wouldn’t seem so monumental, but with us, and what we were dealing with, it seemed like the biggest thing in the world.

This building I’d poured my heart and soul into, that he’d hired me to design, that Toni had stalked me in, was tied to the past that was haunting us. How could he keep that from me?

Or better yet,why? What good did it do any of us?

That’s how I knew I needed to tell him. This wasn’t a secret we could have standing between us for another minute.

“There you are,” he said over his sandwich. “I was just about to call Joe and find out where you were. You weren’t answering your mobile.”

“I turned it off.”

He frowned and set down his food. “Why?”

“I needed to think.” I set my bag down on the table, but didn’t take off my coat or my shoes. “I have a present.”

“For me?”

I nodded and dove in before I lost my nerve. “My friend Elizabeth did a full historical write-up on your building and made it into a book.” I pulled it out of the bag and handed him the official copy.

He was absolutely delighted to look through all the old pictures and skim over the chapters. “Babe, this is amazing. Thank you.” He shook his head as if he’d never had a better gift.

Maybe he hadn’t.

I set the second book on the table in front of him.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the same book. Except there’s a different chapter.” I flipped it open to the page in question.

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