The Truth He Left Out

"What are you looking at?" Julian asked.

His voice was very quiet. That was how I knew he was afraid.

I had one second. One second to decide whether to scream the truth in his face or play the part I had been given.

I chose the part.

"The ring," I said, and tilted my head. "It's strange. I feel like I've seen it in a dream. A woman, crying, with one just like it on her finger." I let out a small, embarrassed laugh. "I'm sorry. My head plays tricks."

Something in his shoulders loosened. Barely.

"It's a family piece," he said. "Sasha has had it for years."

"Of course."

He studied me for a long, long moment. I did not look away. I let my eyes stay soft and confused, like a child's.

At last, he nodded.

"Milo's waiting."

Milo sat on his bed in dinosaur pajamas, his knees pulled up to his chin. When I bent to say goodnight, I put my lips next to his ear.

"I'll see you soon," I whispered, so low only he could hear. "I promise."

His small hand curled around my sleeve.

He did not say a word. He did not need to.

I made it to the car. I made it through the gate and halfway down the street.

Then my whole body began to shake.

"Stop the car," I said.

Adrian's driver pulled over. I opened the door and doubled over on the pavement, and a sound came out of me that I did not recognize. Not crying. Something older. Something that had been stuck in my chest all day and finally found a crack to escape through.

Hands lifted me. Arms came around me.

"I've got you," Adrian said into my hair. "I've got you. Breathe."

"She wore my ring." I clutched his coat. "She stood in my kitchen and wore my ring and told me to disappear. And he looked at me like I was already gone."

"I know."

"And Milo... Adrian, he's six."

"I know."

He did not tell me it would be all right. He did not tell me to be strong. He just held on until the shaking slowed.

Back at his apartment, he made me sit on the couch and pressed a glass of water into my hands.

"In for four," he said. "Hold for four. Out for four. Like this."

He breathed with me. It felt silly. It also worked.

When my heart finally stopped trying to climb out of my chest, I looked at him sideways.

"You said Blake Group was winning bids it should lose," I said. "But that isn't the whole reason you hate Julian. Is it?"

He was quiet for a long time.

"Ten years ago, I had a small design firm. Four employees. One big contract." He turned his glass in his hands. "Julian's company submitted a competing bid. The week before the deadline, my plans went missing from the server. Then Blake Group's bid arrived with my structural solution, almost line for line."

"He stole it."

"I couldn't prove it. They had a forged email trail showing I copied them. I lost the contract, then the firm, then everything." His jaw tightened. "I rebuilt from nothing. I promised myself I'd never let him do that to another person."

"And then you found my name in his paperwork."

"I recognized the forgery. It was the same hand."

I studied the tired line of his mouth. The way he held himself like a man who had never once asked the world to be kind.

"That's why you watched me."

"Partly."

I went still. "Partly?"

"We agreed no lies." He set the glass down. "I didn't lie to you, Lena. But I left something out."

"Then tell me."

He looked at me, and for the first time since I had met him, he looked afraid.

"Seven years ago, there was a design competition for the Linden Library. Twelve firms. I was one of them."

My heart tripped.

"I lost," he said. "To a twenty-six-year-old girl in a blue dress. I stood at the back of the hall and watched her win, and I was angry for about ten seconds. Then she laughed so hard she couldn't finish her speech, and I forgot what I'd been angry about."

My mouth had gone dry.

"I looked for you after that. I read every article. I followed every project." He gave a rough, humorless laugh. "Then you married Julian Blake, and I realized I'd been fool enough to fall in love with a stranger on a stage."

The room fell silent.

"I never wanted to hurt you with it," Adrian said. "I'd have taken it to the grave. But you deserve all of the truth, and that was the part I was too much of a coward to tell."

I could not breathe. I could not think. I did not know whether to hit him or kiss him, so for a long time I simply sat there, with my hands in my lap and my whole world rearranging itself.

Then my phone buzzed on the cushion between us.

A message from Julian.

I need to see you alone. Tomorrow. There's something I have to tell you about the ring.