Conway was gone when I woke up the next morning. Since we’d been apart for days, I didn’t expect him to run off without saying two words to me. I called him, but he didn’t answer. And after five hours had passed, he still hadn’t called me back.

He was quiet when he got home yesterday, but I just assumed spending time with his family had taken a toll on him. They weren’t getting together for dinner and a celebration. They were preparing for a potential war. Tensions were high.

So, I gave him his space.

But I was hurt that he left for the entire day—and didn’t even call me back.

I worked in the stables all day then took a shower. The sun had been blocked by the clouds, so it wasn’t as warm as usual. It was a nice respite, but I still preferred the hot sun over a blanket of clouds.

When I got out of the shower, Conway finally walked through the door.

I sighed in relief when I saw his muscular build in a formfitting t-shirt. If he hadn’t returned in the next hour, I would have called him again. And if he didn’t answer, I wouldn’t have stopped calling until he picked up.

I didn’t ask him where he’d been or why he didn’t call me back. I decided to just leave it alone. “Hey.”

All I got was a look.

I ran my fingers through my hair, then moved in to him to kiss him. I rose on my tiptoes and kissed his mouth, feeling the stubble from his chin. He hadn’t shaved in the past few days, so his chin was coarser than it usually was. I kissed him, but his embrace wasn’t particularly affectionate. “Long day?” I asked.

“Something like that.” He stepped away from me the second I let go, like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

It stung. “You want to have dinner in here? Or on the terrace?”

“I already ate.” He opened the drawer to his dresser and pulled out workout clothes.

I couldn’t remember a time when we didn’t eat together, except when I first came to live with him. Once our relationship had changed, we shared all our meals at the same time, especially dinner. “Conway, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He grabbed his headphones and changed into his shorts and a fresh t-shirt. “I’m just not hungry.”

I wanted to be patient with him, but now I wasn’t buying these lies. “Conway.”

He left his jeans on the floor and dropped his phone into his pocket. Like I hadn’t said his name at all, he kept going.

“What happened with your family?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

My eyebrows almost shot off my face in shock. He gave me a backhand without actually touching me. “Why are you being such an ass?”

He finally looked at me, his gaze ice-cold. “Because I’m an ass. I’ve always been an ass, and I’ll always be an ass. I’m a fucking asshole that only wants good sex and peace and quiet. It’s not my fault that you ever expected me to be anything more than what I am.” He shoved his earphones into his canals and stormed off.

I was in such shock that I didn’t stop him. I watched him walk away, watched this man I hardly knew leave the bedroom. He looked like Conway and sounded like Conway…but he wasn’t the man that I knew. Something had set him off, and now he wasn’t a person I recognized.

Even at our worst, he’d never spoken to me that way.

He’d never treated me that way.

Conway never came back. He went on his run and disappeared.

I had dinner alone in the bedroom and waited for him like a wife waiting for her cheating husband to walk through the door.

But he never came.

If he was on the property, there was only one place he would be. His studio was his safe zone, the place where he produced beautiful pieces he was proud of. It was late, so he would normally be in bed right now, but if he wasn’t in the bedroom with me, that’s where he would be.

Unless he went out instead.

The door was shut, but light escaped through the crack underneath. Dante would never leave that light on by accident, so I knew it was occupied. I opened the door and let myself inside. Just as I expected, he was sitting at the table with his sketchbook in front of him.

He didn’t look up.

I slowly approached the table, examining the sweat lines on his t-shirt. He’d worked out hard but didn’t shower afterward. That was unlike him. Standing beside him, I waited for something to happen.

He kept sketching, making a simple black corset that wasn’t memorable.

“Conway.”

His hand stilled, but he still didn’t look at me.

“Talk to me.”

He finally set the pencil down and looked at me, but his fierce expression showed his rage. “What, Sapphire? What do you want to talk about?”

Like he’d backhanded me again, I was nearly knocked off my feet. He could say the coldest things to me, but nothing was more insulting than calling me by my first name. He hadn’t done that since he’d first learned it. I hardly identified with the name anymore. Muse was my name now. It was my identity.

And he took it away.

“Don’t call me that,” I whispered.

He wasn’t the same handsome man he used to be. Now he looked different, hostile. “It’s your name.”

“Muse is my name.”

He held my gaze, his shoulders rigid and hard. His body was tighter than usual, like he was ready for a fight to break out. He was strung tighter than I’d ever seen him, as though he could snap like a rubber band if he were stretched any further. “What do you want? I’m working.”

“What do I want?” I asked in shock. “I want you to stop being an ass and just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong,” he snapped. “I don’t have to spend every waking minute with you if I don’t want to. You aren’t the center of my world, Sapphire. You aren’t—”

I slapped him across the face. “Don’t call me that.”

He turned with the hit, his jaw clenched tight. He slowly turned away, his face turning red from ferocity, not from the mark I’d just landed on his face. His body tightened even more, but he didn’t rise out of his chair. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

I lost my temper when I hit him, and now that the dialogue was coming to an end, I knew I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do. “Conway, you leave for a few days, and you come back as a whole different person. What the hell happened?”

He slowly rose to his feet, his arms shaking as the adrenaline pumped through his veins. “Get. Out.”

This time, I actually feared him. I was afraid of the way he stared at me, afraid of the way he leered over me with his size and strength. His arms shook, like he was barely controlling himself from grabbing me by the neck.

I didn’t feel comfortable there.

Just like I had been with Knuckles, I was afraid.

I was actually afraid.

He didn’t come to the bedroom that night, and I knew he wasn’t going to.

I still didn’t understand what had happened.

It was like he hated me.

His cold treatment was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the unknown. I had no idea what was causing him to behave this way. Even a fight with his father wouldn’t make him snap like this. When I spoke to him in his hotel room, he was upset about the way things were going…but he never shut me out.

I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to ask the one person who would.

Carter.

I sent a text to Vanessa. Can you give me Carter’s number?

She sent the number immediately, along with a happy face.

It was ironic because nothing about this was happy. I called the number and listened to it ring.

Carter answered with a deep voice that was similar to Conway’s. “Carter.”

“Hey, it’s Sapphire.” My voice was beginning to crack before I even started the conversation. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…”

“Fuck, what did he do?” he asked with a sigh.

“Ever since he came home, he’s been a completely different person. He’s cold, mean… Not the man I know. He won’t talk to me, and he can barely stand to be in the same room with me. But he won’t tell me what happened. I know this isn’t your problem, but could you tell me what’s going on? Do you know anything? Did something happen?”

“Jesus,” he said with another sigh. “Conway is fucking stupid. That’s what’s going on.”

I waited for a more detailed response.

“I showed him that video where you said you loved him…”

They shoved a microphone in my face, and I’d just admitted the truth. The weight had been taken off my shoulders, and I actually felt good about it. I didn’t care whether Conway saw it or not, but I assumed he wouldn’t. He didn’t strike me as a man who watched the news about himself. “So? Why would that matter? I know he loves me too.” He didn’t strike me as a petty man who would get upset that I told the whole world first before saying it to him in private.

“Uh…” Carter paused as he tried to find the right words to say. “According to him, that’s not how he feels.”

Slowly, my heart started to sink into my stomach. I felt it grow smaller, all my joy and love disappearing. I wasn’t ashamed to wear my heart on my sleeve and love Conway openly, despite our difficult beginning, and that made this blow so much harder to take. “He said he didn’t love me…”

Carter didn’t say anything.

“That’s what he said?” I pressed.

“I don’t know. That’s what he says, but I think he’s lying to himself. I’ve seen the way he is with you, and I know he’s happy.”

“But that doesn’t matter to him.”

“He wants everything to stay the same. He just wants you to be a man and a woman. He says he doesn’t want marriage or love, because that stuff fades, and then the passion goes stale and you’re just stuck with someone you don’t want to be stuck with…”

I closed my eyes and felt two tears escape. Our intense relationship had been reduced to nothing more than an inconvenience. He didn’t think our passion would last forever because it was just lust, not love.

“Sapphire?”

I swallowed my tears and kept my voice steady. “Even so, that doesn’t give him the right to treat me this way.”

“I agree,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t think he means it. I think he’s just struggling to accept the inevitable.”

“Which is?”

“That he does love you…but he doesn’t want to.”

Another tear escaped, and I felt lower than I ever had. When I was running from Knuckles, I was scared, but I wasn’t heartbroken. Ever since Conway had become part of my life, I’d been a happy person. He gave me a home, a place where I belonged. We had such a connection, such emotion.

How could he throw it all away?

“Thank you for telling me, Carter.”

“Of course,” he whispered. “You’re a good person, Sapphire. Don’t settle for a man who doesn’t deserve you. I love my cousin like a brother, but he’s got his head shoved up his ass right now.”

Like all the other Barsettis, Carter was a good person. He was masculine and strong, but he showed affection when it mattered. Talking to me was a betrayal, but he knew it was the right thing to do. “I should go.”

“Talk to him,” he said. “You’re the only person who can talk sense into him. I’ve already tried.”

I used to have a strong effect on him, but that seemed like ancient history now. “I will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” It was a relief to hang up, so I could let a few more tears fall in privacy. It was stupid to cry over a man, but Conway wasn’t just any man. He was the man who owned my heart. When he let me go, he released his hold over my body, but I left my heart freely behind.

I wanted him to have it.

I wanted him to have all of me.

I wiped my tears away and allowed myself a few minutes to compose myself. I didn’t want him to notice the evidence of my tears, the puffiness of my face and the redness in my eyes. I controlled my emotions long enough for them to die away before I went in search of him.

My heart was beating so fast.

I didn’t know how this conversation was going to go, but I suspected it wouldn’t go well. But I hoped I could say the right things to calm him down.

There were dozens of bedrooms in this place, and I didn’t want to search one by one. Knowing him, he wasn’t sleeping.

He was drinking.

I went to his office, even though he almost never used it. I opened the door and found him sitting behind the desk, smoking a cigar and drinking scotch right out of the bottle. The smoke rose from his nostrils and drifted to the ceiling. His eyes were lidded, but he still wore the same malicious expression.

I refused to be afraid of him.

I walked across the room and stopped in front of his desk. I’d asked him to stop smoking, but my wishes obviously meant nothing to him. If he wanted to smoke and die, fine. I wouldn’t waste any more time trying to stop him. “You’re a coward.” I planted my hands against the desk and stared him down.

His eyes immediately narrowed at my words.

“You’re a coward for many reasons. Number one, you come home acting like the biggest dick face in the world. You treat me like garbage, and you don’t have the balls to tell me what your problem is. Instead, you ignore me until I confront you about it. Number two, you’re pissed that I had the strength to tell the whole world that I love you, and you’re too scared to admit it yourself.”

He lowered his cigar, his eyes contracting farther.

“You can sit there and say you don’t feel the same way, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. You’re in love with me, it’s obvious in everything that you do. It’s obvious in the way you tell me you miss me, obvious in the way you need me. You kiss me like I’m the only woman who’s ever meant anything to you—because I am. I’m sorry this didn’t go the way you wanted, but you’re going to have to get over it. You’re lucky I’m still here at all.”

He sucked on his cigar again, his eyes unblinking.

I gripped the edge of the desk between my forefingers and thumb, feeling the sweat from my palms coat the smooth wood.

“Man up, Conway. First, apologize. Then tell me you love me.”

He released the smoke from his lips, his eyes trained on my face. His expression was carefully controlled, his thoughts hidden deep within his eyes. He was calmer than earlier, but it was probably just an act. His hostility was still evident, obvious in the rigid way he held himself.

He dropped the cigar directly on the desk and slowly rose to his feet. He planted both of his hands against the desk and gave me a ferocious stare. “Sapphire.” All he did was say my name, and that told me how the rest of this was going to go. “I told you this relationship meant nothing. You’re just some woman I fuck. You’re just some woman who occupies my time. I don’t love you now, nor will I ever. Marriage and romance were never on the table. It’s not my fault you thought otherwise.”

I kept up my glare, refusing to show just how much those words hurt. I refused to cry, to allow him to witness my heart breaking in real time.

“You crossed a line when you told those reporters how you felt about me. You told the world something they never should have heard. You brought my personal life into the limelight. You had no right to do that.”

“And I would do it again,” I said coldly. “Because I meant it, Conway.”

“And I wish you didn’t.” He let go of the desk and stood upright.

“Is that really all you care about?” I asked incredulously. “Work? Conway, there’s more to life than being the best at something. There’s more to life than money. Has your own family taught you nothing?”

“Don’t talk about my family,” he snapped. “They’re mine, not yours.”

That hurt as much as anything else he’d said. I’d developed a deep affection for his family, felt like they were my own. I’d never had a sister, and I’d never had parents who were so attentive and loving.

“And yes, work is the most important thing to me. It’s my identity, my legacy.”

“A legacy should be family, Conway. You should have a wife and children, people who will remember you when you’re gone—and not the money that you made. I’ve never cared about your success or your wealth. I fell in love with the man underneath the suit, all the good and the bad.”

“And I never asked you to.”

I was talking to a monster, a heartless monster. He wasn’t even Conway anymore. “If you really didn’t feel the same way in return, I would accept that. Because that’s not what love is about. It’s given freely without expecting anything in return. But to treat me this way…is disgusting. You’re lucky I’m still standing here.”

“Or seriously unlucky.”

The insults kept piling on, but with every new one, the bruise turned an even darker shade of purple. He was stabbing me with a knife, sinking the blade in deeper and deeper. He would keep going until I couldn’t handle it anymore. “I feel sorry for you for being that afraid of love.”

He remained focused, and his expression didn’t change.

“The thing you’re most afraid of is your parents’ disappointment. Well, they’d be seriously disappointed in you right now.” I turned away from his desk, prepared to retreat to my room and sob until my eyes were swollen shut.

“Get out.”

“I’m going, asshole.”

“No. Get the fuck out of my house.”

I turned around to see the new look of rage on his face. Now he was no longer silently calm. His face was tinted red, but not in a sexy way like when we were in bed together. He was furious, the vein in his forehead pulsing. He gripped the desk like he might flip it over and break down the window behind him.

He knew I didn’t have a cent to my name. He knew I had nothing but clothes and shoes. I was completely dependent on him, and without him, I was nothing. But that didn’t matter to him. Our beautiful relationship had been stripped away like it didn’t matter in the first place.

Like I never mattered.

I refused to believe Conway was really this cruel. My last comment about his parents obviously pushed him further than he was prepared to go. But just the fact that he said it told me he wasn’t afraid to cross all lines.

I’d never been so disappointed in him. “I’ll be gone in fifteen minutes.”

“Make it ten.”

I grabbed a bag and stuffed it with my essentials. I grabbed as many clothes as I could fit and one pair of shoes. I didn’t have a lot of room, so I had to leave most of the things I loved behind.

I stared at his top drawer, the place where he kept his t-shirts. It was the stuff he usually wore around the house on a lazy Sunday. It was the first place I went for a comfy shirt to wear to bed. Because the cotton smelled like him. Because the fabric reminded me of him. I slept in his shirt every single night while he was away because that was as close as I could get to him.

I wasted thirty seconds staring at that drawer when I should have been hauling ass.

But then I made my decision.

I yanked it open and took a handful of his t-shirts. I had to ditch one of my favorite dresses in order to make them fit in the bag, but I didn’t care. I left the dress on the floor in front of the dresser and finally walked out.

I wanted to be proud and pretend I didn’t need his clothes, but I knew once I was alone, I would regret not having them. I didn’t have a picture of him or anything else to remember our time. All I had was his scent, his touch.

So, I swallowed my pride and walked out.

I headed to the entryway, where some of the men were waiting for me.

Conway was nowhere in sight.

A man in a leather jacket handed me a set of keys. “He said you can keep it.”

I stepped out to see a bright red Ferrari waiting for me. I didn’t want any of his things, but I needed a getaway car right now. I would return it the second I could.

“And Mr. Barsetti wants you to have this as well.” He held up a black suitcase.

I didn’t need to look inside to know what was there.

Cash.

I grabbed the briefcase from his hand and tossed it across the roundabout and onto the lawn. It landed with a heavy thud and snapped open, all the bills flying out across the grass. “Tell Mr. Barsetti I don’t want his money—I was never his whore.”

I got into the two-seater speedster and set my bag on the passenger seat. Thankfully, the cars were the same as they were in the US, and they drove on the same sides of the road. The engine was packed with immaculate horsepower, and I had no experience driving such a beast.

But I could pretend that I did.

I hit the gas hard and sped off, the engine roaring to life as I sped into the darkness and away from the house. I kept up a brave face even though no one could see me. I wanted my last moment on his property to be a proud one. I would hold my head high. I would keep a perfect posture. I would be unafraid.

Just like I was on the runway.

But once I was a few miles away, the sadness kicked in.

And I started to cry.

I grabbed my phone from my bag and called the first person who came to mind. It was the only opportunity that I had, and now that I was on my own, I had to be resourceful. Conway wouldn’t take care of me anymore, and I had to take care of myself. I did it before him—and I could do it after him.

Andrew Lexington picked up. “Sapphire, I have to be honest and say I wasn’t expecting you to call.”

That makes two of us. “I apologize for calling so late, but I was wondering if the offer was still on the table?” I stopped my tears from escaping over the line. No one liked the sound of desperation.

Andrew didn’t say anything for a long time, but I could feel his smile over the phone. “For a woman like you, it’s always on the table.”