Page 46 of Dirty Hearts

“I was there. Of course, when I got to your house, you’d already left. There was no one here. So, I went to the airport, and I watched you. I watched you leave, and I did nothing.”

“Why would you do that?” I really didn’t understand. Not one bit.

“Ava, when you love someone, you have to know when to let them go. You have to let them go so they can achieve what they need to achieve for themselves. We wanted different things. I thought we wanted different things.”

Different things.That argument we’d had was so horrible it wasn’t like anything was even established on what we wanted. He’d just ripped into me about dropping a bomb on him about leaving. He’d called me selfish for not considering what he wanted but never said.

We’d ended that argument with me running away in tears after I said to him he should feel free to go screw whoever he wanted; he was free of me and my long-distance relationship. That was it. Our big bust-up. We’d never argued like that before. Never, and the way that we’d argued signaled the end.

My lips parted. “What did you want?” I wanted to know. To finally know what he wanted.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small blue pouch. The delicacy almost looked comical in his large hands.

I didn’t know what it was.

He stared at it for a few seconds, then loosened the little blue ribbons that pulled together to close the pouch. Reaching inside, he took out a beautiful, beautiful engagement ring. So shiny it sparkled and the princess cut diamond in its center twinkled.

“I wanted this, you to be mine.”

My chest caved, and I could no longer stand up. I had to retreat to the nearest chair.

I sunk into it trying to process what he was saying.

He moved over and crouched down in front of me, taking my hands, holding them in his. I remembered talking with Marissa and telling her that Claudius had no plans for us.

I’d thought he had no plans for us. How was I supposed to know that he’d had the mother of all plans?

“Why… how? Claudius, how is it that this looks so much like you wanted to be with me, but you ended up with Marissa?”

“That’s just it. Exactly it, and it’s time you know the truth. The whole truth.”

Chapter 11

Claudius

* * *

Eight years ago…

I downed my drink and reached for another.

This time though I just grabbed the fucking bottle. Better to get wasted and forget.

Forget it all. The last year and a half of my damn life where I’d been this stupid sap to a girl I wanted to make mine.

I think Ava and I broke up.

I think we broke up… It kind of didn’t feel quite real.

The last few days hadn’t felt real. Like they didn’t happen. As if I made it up. Must have been because here I was in the office downtown with the engagement ring I was supposed to give her still in my back pocket. While… my Angel Doll was in Paris, probably with some French guy’s hands all over her. All over my girl.

Except if that was true, she really had left and she wasn’t my girl anymore.

My Ava.

She came and told me she’d gotten the chance of a lifetime to work as an apprentice at some fancy celeb restaurant in Europe. She’d be gone for a year.

It sounded amazing for her, but I freaked and lost my cool. Why? Because I had plans for us.