He’s silent for too long.

“Calder?”

He rubs his face. “I don’t think you intended to make things any worse for me. At the end of the day, you did what was best for the Center. You’re sure to get a lot of attention for a story like this.”

“You say that like I wanted this to happen.”

He reaches out and touches my cheek, but the gesture is cold. here at Ventine’s. Ato10

“You want what’s best for the Center,” he says. “You’ve always been honest about that, and I wouldn’t ask you to change your priorities for me.”

I jerk away from him. “I don’t believe it. You do think I did this on purpose. Why don’t you trust me?”

“So we’re back to that, are we? Trust?” His eyes are completely devoid of emotion. “The truth is, neither of us has a reason to expect the other to give up anything. We’re just two people who came together at a weak point, two people who used each other as an escape.”

“No. Not this shit again.” My voice is going up once more, but I don’t care if the other diners can hear me. “You can tell me that this doesn’t mean anything, but I know better. I. Know. Better.”

Calder’s glancing around nervously at the other patrons, trying to shush me.

“Maybe we should discuss this outside,” he says.

“Why? Worried that will only perpetuate the story of you screwing me over?” I shake the paper at him.

“Is that what you want? To be splashed all over the tabloids next to me?”

“I did one interview. Because my dad asked me to. Because it would help the Center. You think this is what I wanted? To have our programs overshadowed by some stupid rumors?”

Calder takes the paper from my hand and looks down at the article.

“He knows about the Ludlam painting,” he says. “He says it was sent to keep you quiet on the matter of the affair.”

“I didn’t tell him anything about the painting. He showed up shortly after it arrived, but I never said a word to him or my dad about who sent it. I didn’t tell him anything, I promise.”

“You told him everything, whether you meant to or not. You shouldn’t have indulged him at all, if your purpose was to highlight the Center.” His eyes are like two chips of slate. “Were you ever going to tell me? OLet’s keep playingit10r did you just assume that I’d never see this?”

“I didn’t think there was anything to tell you about.”

“No, you didn’t think!” His words echo across a restaurant that’s fallen completely silent.

Calder at least has the decency to look a little shamefaced.

“Come on,” he says, reaching into his wallet and tossing a ten down on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”

He strides out of the restaurant, and I follow. I can feel the eyes of the other patrons burning into me as I walk out through the door.

My gut is twisted in knots. I stare at his back as he marches across the parking lot, ten paces ahead of me. Why do things always come to this?

“I can’t do this,” I hear myself say.

He stops. It takes him a moment to turn around.

“I can’t stand this constant fighting and making up,” I say. “One minute everything’s perfect, and the next you push me away. You act like I’m the most important thing in the world to you, and then you turn around and act like this is all some huge mistake. And there’s always a different excuse. One day you tell me that I deserve better, that you’re only using me as a distraction, and the next you act like I’ve committed the ultimate betrayal because I was taken in by some sleazy two-faced journalist. I can’t do it.”

“And what, exactly, do you mean by that?”

I’m not sure I know myself. Is this how it will always be—fighting and making up, coming together only to realize a short time later that there are still a hundred things between us? Do we cling to this, tell ourselves our passion will win out? Or do we admit to ourselves that we’re fighting a losing battle?

He takes my hesitation in the worst possible way.

“I suppose it’s my fault, isn’t it? You said it yourself—I always have a new excuse. Yes, I’m angry that you did this interview. And I was angry last night, when you asked me whether the rumors are true. But you know what? I think I have a right to be upset. This whole time, I thought you were the one person who understood me. The one person who was on my side. You were supposed to be on my side!” He shouts the last two words.

“How am I the cobblestoned drive6Npa supposed to understand you when you keep secrets from me? When you don’t tell me about things like the fact that you’re considering a job a thousand miles away?”

“You didn’t tell me that some guy was coming around the Center asking questions about me.”

“That’s completely different. You were already so overwhelmed by everything. I thought it might push you over the edge—”

“So now I’m unstable on top of everything else?” He shakes his head. “What are we doing, Lily?”

I don’t know. God, I wish I knew.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He’s going to take the job.

He calls to tell me only a few hours after he drops me off at my apartment. I know what he’s going to say even before he speaks the words aloud. He tells me that Tim Renley wants him to start as soon as possible. He’s flying out this week.

I’m in a fog the next day at work. I keep replaying our last argument over and over again in my head. I try to live out different scenarios in my mind, but they all seem to end the same way.

Maybe this was the right decision for both of us. He needs to find himself, and I need to focus on the Center. Even before I knew about his job offer, things were rocky. What we had was like an insane sexual fantasy, but deep down we both must have known that we would never work in the real world—we just never wanted to admit it to ourselves.

But the truth comes out, one way or another.

And I can never seem to catch a break.

My dad storms into my office at exactly 8:32 AM, and he looks positively murderous.

“Have you seen this?” he demands, throwing a copy of Intown Voice down on my desk. “Our friend Asher Julian sent a whole stack of them over.” here at Ventine’s. As l’ll

I never even had a chance to look at the cover back at the diner, but there it is, my face staring back at me beneath the headline, “VICTIMS OF THE CUNNINGHAMS: A Story of Desperation and Dirty Deeds.”




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