EIGHT
Levi
The moment I cut the engine off, I sag. My hands grip the steering wheel as I try to calm myself down.
I’m picking Cece up for her parents’ anniversary party, but all I can think of is the conversation we had the night we signed the contract with Miller-Moore.
She could see the guilt on my face and perhaps that is why she gracefully gave me a chance to explain myself. But it had gone downhill fast.
??????
“You knew, huh?” My voice is low as I sit beside her on the couch. That’s where I found her when I went to her place after wrapping the day.
I’d wanted us to talk sooner. Perhaps even take the day off, decompress, and just… be us. But she’d politely declined, said she needed to be at the Wentworth office instead.
She nods, still staring at her lap.
The silence between us is sharp, brittle. I reached out, clasping her hands in mine, hoping the contact will somehow break her out of the slow collapse of her trust in me. “I’m sorry,” I say helplessly. “I… baby, I should’ve told you. I panicked. I’m so sorry.”
She finally looks at me. Her eyes shining unnaturally, not in a way I ever want to see. “Why didn’t you?” she asks quietly.
I hesitate. “At first, I was scared of how you’d react. And then, it just felt unimportant. It’s been ten years, Cece. That’s a long time.”
Her frown deepens and she pulls her hand away. And I already miss the contact.
“Do you still have feelings for her?”
I’m taken aback—my mind rejecting the question. I’m already shaking my head, but she doesn’t look at me. “Cece, I have feelings for you. I-I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have.”
She blinks. Once. Twice. “Fine, I get it.” She sighs, like she’s given up the fight.
I don’t like it one bit. “Listen, I already knew about her, sure—but not because you told me. And when she brought it up today, I would’ve been blindsided.
I would’ve wanted to hear it from you, Levi. You understand that, right?”
Panic rises in my throat.
Iris brought it up? Why? Christ, this is a mess of my own damn making.
I manage to shift closer to her even as my whole frame slumps with guilt. “I should’ve told you. I didn’t, and that’s on me. But I swear, I won’t make that mistake again. I mean—it’s not like I have a long list of serious exes popping back into our lives—”
Wrong fucking thing to say.
I see it immediately, the flash of pain gleaming in her eyes. The remembrance.
Back when we had just started dating, we discussed exes. I’d mentioned that I only had casual girlfriends. That was true, to some extent. I never dated anyone longer than maybe a couple of months. That had been the last decade of my life.
But I never mentioned a serious ex before that.
Shit. The right time would’ve been to tell her then. But I honestly didn’t think to bring up my first heartbreak. How I had been abandoned by a girl who chose her career over me. I felt inadequate. And that was a feeling I already had in abundance from my parents.
Her pain suddenly sobers to a deadpan look. “Thank you for telling me now,” she says, voice clipped.
“Fuck. I mean, I don’t have any skeletons left in my closet. I promise. Nothing else that would blindside you.”
She shook her head, exhaling shakily. “Just… talk to me, Levi. The timing of this, it’s been… God! She came back three weeks ago. And for the past three weeks, you’ve felt distant. Don’t you see that?”
Her words land hard. She is right, I hadn’t seen it. The pressure from my parents had ramped up during that exact stretch and I’d been spiraling, juggling damage control.
“It had nothing—nothing—to do with her,” I tell her, urging her to believe me. “Baby, my parents were escalating their tactics and I was… I was trying to hold the line. Their interference nearly cost us the Coquitlam deal and—”
My eyes widen, the realization crashing into me. “God, I should’ve told you. I should’ve given you the details. We’re partners. And I dropped the ball. I’m sorry.”
Her expression softens just a fraction. But pain still lingering beneath it.
“This won’t happen again. I won’t shut down or pull away. I’ll share the pressure of the merger with you. Like I should’ve from the start. I thought I was gonna be fine handling it all on my own, but…”
She nods slowly. “I think I know why they’re upping their game.” She pauses. “Sebastian’s been investigating them these past few weeks.”
Sebastian Blackthorn. I remember her telling me a few weeks ago that she was good friends with him. At first, I was stunned. She knew the owner of one of the most globally revered security firms. But she’d explained quickly that she went to Harvard with him.
Shit. My parents are probably catching on. Or scrambling to hide what we’re trying to dig up.
We sit in silence for a while. I hesitantly lean toward her, and a heavy weight lifts off of my chest when she settles against me. The tension isn’t gone, but at least it has softened enough for her to not kick me out of her apartment yet.
Then something tugs at me, and my hands instinctively tighten around her. “Uh… by the way,” I ask, brow furrowing. “Who told you about Iris?”
She stiffens slightly, then quirks a brow a little too calmly for my comfort. “Taewon.”
I rear back in shock. “That smug bastard.”
That earns me a soft snort, the kind I hadn’t realized I’d missed until just now. Then she chuckles softly too, and I know I’ve missed that sound too. Missed her.
Christ. It’s been three fucking weeks of my stupidity leading to this.
“What exactly did he tell you?” I ask, pulling her in a little closer, my lips ghosting her temple.
She shrugs and fucking finally lets me shift her onto my lap. “Just that the Miller-Moore consultant is your Stanford girlfriend of two years,” she says casually.
“One and a half—” I correct her, and instantly wince under her blanking eyes.
She sighs, visibly struggling to ignore my idiocy. “Anyway, I sort of connected the dots from there.”
I groan, tipping my head back. “Fuck. Sorry. I should’ve just told you. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
She nods against my chest. But the shaky, ragged sighs pulling from her chest sound so damn weary that I feel like an utter moron for letting this slip.
After a few seconds of strained silence she speaks again, softly. “I think it was the timeline that messed me up, you know? Three weeks since her return. And three weeks since you…”
“Distanced myself?” I finish for her, echoing what she said earlier.
She nods. “That and…”
The second she hesitates, my pulse races. “And…?”
Her eyes lift to mine. There’s a sad smile there. “Tell me you love me.”
I frown. I don’t understand where that’s coming from. Not yet. “Cece, of course I lo—”
“That’s what you asked last night,” she says, her voice soft but unsteady.
I freeze, confused—until it lands, and all air leaves my lungs at what she just made me realize. I swallow hard. Guilt already forming.
She bites her lower lip. And suddenly, all the little cracks from earlier start forming a line. A timeline. Her hurt begins to make a lot more sense.
“And then you—”
“I never said it back,” I cut in, gutted.
??????
I sigh, unprepared for the shitshow that’s about to happen. My parents had the Wentworths invite the Miller-Moore representatives to the party as well.
But my mistake from that night is still humming through my nerves. I hadn’t said it back. Why? Was I that focused on my pride to have her say it first?
I want to cuss myself for not noticing her reticence sooner. For letting her be the only one brave enough to bring it up. For not realizing the error on my own instead of her opening my eyes.
Instead of digging deeper and asking her why she hesitates, I let myself use the excuse of my parents—the damn clause—for the distance. And then Iris coming back became another dot for her to connect.
I need to find out what’s happening with the inner workings of Astor Holdings, before I fuck things up for good.