Page 165 of A Convenient Secret

I splash my face with water, more to cool myselfthan to improve anything. What am I doing?

I hear the door of the office open. Fuck, it’s been five minutes already? For weeks, time has glided like molasses, and now, when I need a minute, it flies.

“Ms. Spinelli?” the assistant calls.

Okay, I just stood up to a room full of men in suits; I can face one more. I step out, my heels sinking into the plush carpet that covers the lavish office. Immediately, I realize how wrong I was.

I can’t face him.

The sight of him knocks the air out of me. He looks the same and different. Familiar broad shoulders, immaculate suit, mussed-up hair, and that dark gaze of his. His confidence spreads through the room, but there is something hesitant in his entry.

For a beat, time stops, and we stare at each other. I’m rooted to the floor, trying to tame my racing heart. It’s like all my bodily functions have narrowed into the loud pumping in my temple, so there is no energy left to breathe, think, speak, or anything else.

Declan turns to look at the assistant, and she shrivels under his scowl before she rushes out, leaving me alone with him.

Another lifetime passes as we just stand and look at each other. I will my legs to stay put, and it takes an inhuman effort not to run toward him.

“Seagull,” he rasps, and there are so many emotionsbehind that name, my knees buckle. The reverence and pain in his tone are almost my undoing.

And his voice. That voice has owned me for over a year. And at this moment, it arrests me with the same need as always.

But he isn’t just a voice to me anymore. And I’m not the girl I was then—as much as I wish for things to go back to one of those beats of time when we were whole.

“You came,” I breathe, as if it isn’t obvious.

“We need to finish our last conversation properly.” He puts his hands in his pockets. I wish that posture didn’t affect me as much.

It’s just a man with his hands in his pockets. I can repeat that to myself endlessly, but that doesn’t make it true. He’s way more.

“Declan, nothing we can say will change the fact that I’m here and you’re there.”

“We will get to that part. Do you want to sit?”

I definitely need to sit, but I resist. “I’m good.” That’s a gross exaggeration. “What are you doing here?”

“First, I came to apologize.” He pulls his hands out and clenches his fists, but then puts them back into his pockets.

Once I would have considered it an arrogant gesture. I know he does it to control his reactions. Iwish he wouldn’t because I want to see his reactions. I want to feel them. I want to experience them.

I want him to be vulnerable with me.

I want to see he’s hurting as much as I am.

“For what?” I lick my lips, and his gaze drops there briefly before he locks it with mine, and I regret I didn’t take that seat.

The intense longing in his eyes hits me like a wrecking ball.

“For letting you leave.”

I blink. What the hell? And suddenly, the latent fury that I’ve been stifling blasts into a fire. “Lettingme leave? This is exactly why I left, Declan, because I’m not your property, or your employee.”

“Technically, you never quit.”

“Are you for real?” Thank God I’m not closer, because I want to slap him. I can still throw a stapler.

“Fuck, Lily, please just let me say what I came to say before I fuck it all up.”

I fold my arms over my chest, glaring at him.