My fingernails bit into my palms as the driver pulled the car down my street.

“My apartment?” I whispered.

There was no reply from Caine.

I sucked in a huge breath, trying to ease the tightness compressing my chest.

After hours of strained conversation I should have been relieved by silence. A person might believe that silence took less energy than forced communication, but the bristling tension radiating from Caine suggested he was exerting great control to remain reticent.

The dinner at the benefit had gone by in a blur of false niceties and banal discussions that went in one ear and out the other. Singers and dancers had entertained and yet I could barely remember the pretty turn of a ballerina’s pirouette. I’d ignored the concerned looks from Henry and Nadia while Caine had sat next to me only engaging in conversation with me when prodded. No one else seemed to notice his terseness, because he was universally known for it, but Henry was aware there was something wrong with his friend.

I was more than aware.

His attitude made me feel like my skin had caught on fire. It burned and itched as I tried to claw my way outside myself—outside this downward-spiraling evening into hell. Somehow I knew what was coming. My instincts were screaming at me to find some way to turn everything around. And then there was that little part of me that hoped my gut instinct was wrong.

Yet, as soon as Caine’s driver turned down onto my street instead of taking us to Caine’s apartment, that hope slipped out of my hands.

“Caine?” I looked at him as the car drew to a stop, wondering why that person with the coldly blank mien had come back after all these weeks. I didn’t like him. I much preferred the man who’d broken through his icy facade.

Where was he?

And why after that strange interaction with that Regina woman had he disappeared?

“I’ll walk you up,” Caine said in a monotone.

The driver opened my door and I got out, murmuring my thanks. I waited, shivering in the cool air of the early morning. Instead of coming to a stop beside me, Caine marched right by me and took the stoop two stairs at a time.

Now trembling more than shivering, I moved as quickly as I could in my heels and dress, and fought the quickly rising wave of nausea inside me.

“Keys?” He held out a hand to me.

I gazed up at him.

Still blank. Still ice.

Looking away, I dug into my purse and produced the keys. They were snatched out of my hand before I could say or do anything and Caine let us into my building.

I followed him upstairs, my heels clacking obnoxiously loud on the stairwell. Any noise in the face of his dispassionate taciturnity seemed obnoxious, if only because I was so hyperaware that to him it was obnoxious.

This was a man who wanted to be done with me as quickly and quietly as possible.

My dignity warred with my outrage.

I reached my front door to find Caine had opened it but was still standing out in my hallway. He gestured for me to go inside.

Indignation narrowed my eyes. “You first.”

Still blank. Still ice. “I’m tired. We’ll talk later.”

“You first or I’ll follow you back outside.”

“Don’t be childish.” Again with the monotone.

Earlier his overreaction, his fury, had pissed me off. Now I’d give anything to have it back. “You first,” I insisted.

With a long-suffering sigh Caine walked into the apartment. Bolstering myself for what was to come, I exhaled shakily and followed him in. I closed the door quietly behind me and strode down my hall and into my living room.

Caine stood staring out the window, reminding me of the first time he’d been in my place. Pain lanced across my chest. The silence between us was unbearable. It felt thick and cold and dangerous. Like if I slammed my fist against the air in front of me it would shatter and tear my skin.

I drew in a ragged breath. The noise caught Caine’s ear and he glanced at me. The moonlight illuminated his face, allowing me to see that his expression had not changed.

“Who was she?” I said.

He turned around. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does matter. If this conversation is going where I think it’s going, it matters a whole lot.”

“And where do you think this is going?”

“Oh no. I’m not making it that easy for you. If you want to do it, you do it yourself.”

“The agreement was that this would end.”

“I think we moved past that agreement a while ago.”

“Since when?”

“Don’t. Don’t pretend like you aren’t as deep in this as I am.”

“We’re not deep in this, Lexie. This was just … It was an affair. As agreed. And now it’s over.”

Even though I’d known it was coming, nothing prepared me for the loss I felt. My knees actually buckled and I pressed a hand to the top of my armchair for support.

My reaction caused the first flicker of emotion on Caine’s face since the Delaneys’.

“It wasn’t just an affair,” I whispered.

“Of course it was.” Monotone. Again.

It was like listening to someone touch polystyrene. I gritted my teeth in reaction. “Why is Mr. Cold Carraway back?” I wondered out loud, flinching at the bitterness I heard in my voice. “What secrets are you hiding? They must be big to bring this guy back. I thought I got rid of him weeks ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m only one man.”

“No, you’re not.” I shook my head adamantly and took a step toward him. “I didn’t fall in love with that man I met on a photo shoot. Or the man who was my boss for weeks.”

“Alex—”

“I fell in love with Caine Carraway. I fell in the love with the man who teases me, laughs with me, listens to me, and respects me. A man who wakes me up every morning by making love to me, and then kisses me good night every evening after fucking the life out of me—like he can never get enough. No man has ever been as deep inside me as this man, in every way. And because of that when he looks at me he sees me like no one ever has before. That first man judged me, mistreated me. Caine Carraway did not. He made me feel safe for the first time in my whole life. I want him back. I love him. I want him back,” I pleaded.

He wouldn’t look at me. He gave me his profile, staring into my kitchen.

“Caine?”

When he finally met my gaze his eyes were blazing with emotions, all so tightly knit I knew he was in turmoil. He was angry, he was distraught, he was desperate, and he was guilty, all in equal measure.

“You don’t love me.” He shook his head. His voice sounded like sandpaper rasping against stone. “You can’t because you don’t know who I am. I never really let you.”

We stared at each other and the tension between us pulled, like each of us was holding the end of a long piece of piano wire. One more tug and …

“Liar,” I bit out finally, feeling a volcano of ugliness erupting from the pit of my stomach.

“You don’t have to give me two weeks’ notice. Just give me a few days to find a replacement and I’ll release you from your contract.”

“Coward.”

His expression dulled again and he started toward me. “I’m not sticking around for this.”

The smell of his cologne wrapped around me as he brushed past me, and that along with the heat of his body flooded me with memories of our time together. I’d never felt pain like it in my life. “That’s right,” I said, the words sounding as empty as Caine’s. “Don’t choose me. I’ve come to expect nothing less.”

He hesitated a moment, his shoulders hunching up a little.

I took a tentative step toward him and whispered, “I hope your secrets keep you warm at night.”

And then just like that, he shrugged whatever emotion he’d been feeling off and marched out of my apartment for the last time.

In the dark I stumbled in disbelief to my sofa, momentarily numb.

I heard the sound of his car pulling away from my street and driving off into the distance. My belly-deep sob rose to chase after it.