Chapter 56: Chapter Fifty-Five — The Door She Shouldn’t Have Opened
By late afternoon the apartment felt too quiet, the kind of stillness that made her nerves prickle like static under her skin. The shower had helped a little, and the black soft dress she slipped into, light and feminine and something she had no business wearing for a man she was supposed to be manipulating, helped both too much and not at all.
She curled her hair loosely over one shoulder, dabbed perfume on her wrists, and stared at herself in the mirror with a conflicted mix of dread and anticipation she could not make sense of. Her reflection looked almost hopeful, and she hated that. She blamed the dress and the anticipation of Zane’s knock and the twisted thrill that ran through her when she replayed his voice saying I want to take you to dinner.
She reminded herself of the plan to keep him close and stay in control and not fall, yet her lips kept wanting to smile, an involuntary curve that infuriated her. She snapped her posture straight, shook out her hair, and forced her expression into something neutral, a queen and not a girl, a strategist and not a fool.
Her phone buzzed again on the counter, and the name lighting the screen tightened something low in her chest. Miles had called and messaged over and over, the repetition turning from irritation into pressure that she could feel even without answering. She pressed the side button and silenced the screen before tapping Block, acting before she could reconsider, and relief washed through her for a brief moment before a knock sounded at the door.
The sound was wrong immediately. It was not Zane’s careful and hesitant knock but something sharper and heavier that made her pulse drop hard into her stomach.
She opened the door just an inch and saw Miles standing there disheveled with bloodshot eyes and breath unsteady like he had run ten blocks to get there. His blond hair was rumpled and his collar askew and his pupils were blown too wide. He smelled like rain and expensive whiskey, a sharp sour mix that turned her unease into something colder, and his jaw twitched in a way she had never seen before. The sight of him sent a bolt of alarm straight down her spine.
"Miles," she said, voice flat. "Not now. I’m heading out soon."
She started to close the door, but his hand shot out fast and pushed against it.
"Willow don’t. Please."
The pressure behind the door was not violent, yet it felt wrong and heavy and desperate in a way that set her instincts flaring. She stepped backward as the door swung wide and he advanced without asking permission and without even seeming to register the boundary he had crossed.
"I need to talk to you," he said, breath uneven and chest rising too fast. "It’s as if you blocked me. You won’t pick up. You won’t text. I’ve been calling you."
"That’s because I don’t want to talk," she said, forcing her voice to stay level despite the unease crawling up her spine. "We broke up a long time ago."
Something in him cracked visibly. His expression sharpened into something jagged with anger and disbelief and panic tangled together. The stunningly handsome planes of his face she used to trace with her fingertips were contorted now, twisted by alcohol and emotion into something she almost did not recognize.
"You’re confused," he snapped. "The accident... your memory... this isn’t you. You’re not thinking clearly."
"I’m thinking perfectly clearly." She lifted her chin. "Miles, leave."
"No," he said, stepping closer until he was too near, the burn of whiskey sharp and sour on his breath. "Because if you were thinking clearly, you’d remember us. You’d remember what we had. You’d remember how you felt. You’d remember that you loved me."
Her pulse spiked and a warning tightened through her body as he closed the distance without hesitation.
"Miles, move back."
He did not move. Instead his hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist with a grip that did not quite hurt but trapped her completely and froze the air in her lungs.
"Miles let go."
"We can fix this," he insisted in a frantic rush. "Whatever’s happening with Zane and Victor your mind is messing everything up. You’re mixing things. You’re slipping back into those patterns you always run when things get close. You’ve always done that with me."
"Miles, I’m not confused," she said louder. "We are done. You need to leave."
The words shattered something inside him and he yanked her forward with a sudden rough pull that sent her off balance and straight into his chest. Her shoulder hit him hard but his grip did not loosen, and she felt the solid wall of his body and the reek of alcohol in his clothes and the frantic pounding of his heart against her.
"Don’t say that," he murmured, pleading and furious and unsteady. "Just stop. One second. Listen to me."
"Miles stop."
She pushed against his chest but his fingers only tightened around her wrist as he pressed closer, breath hot against her skin. His other hand slid up to her face with trembling fingers that cupped her jaw as if he still had the right, and the touch felt both familiar and utterly foreign. She jerked her head back but he followed with wild eyes that did not seem fully focused.
"It’s still there," he whispered harshly. "I know it is. You can feel it. You’re just lost. You’re scared. You always push me away when you’re scared."
"I’m not scared of you," she snapped, twisting her jaw out of his hand, but the movement only made him hold her face tighter.
He laughed then, a broken razor-edged sound that scraped through the air.
"Then why are you shaking?"
The answer rose through her in a rush of cold clarity because his eyes looked wrong and he was not listening and the man in front of her no longer felt like Miles at all but something desperate wearing his skin.
"Miles. Let go. Now."
He shook his head, gaze unfocused and burning.
"Just give me a second. One second. Let me remind you."
He leaned in fast, aiming for her mouth, and she twisted sharply so that his lips dragged across her cheek instead, too hard, leaving a hot smear of breath and saliva that made her stomach lurch.
"Miles," she snapped, fear and anger rising together. "You told me you broke up with me weeks before the accident. You said it was over. You said you were done with me. You said you were bored."
He flinched violently as if she had torn something open beneath the surface.
"You’re marrying Christy," she finished, voice tight. "Or did you forget that part?"
The truth landed like a physical blow and his grip tightened further.
"Miles!" she shouted, her voice breaking with sharp fear. "No Miles stop."
His eyes went darker and more glassy as she watched him tip past whatever line he had been balancing on, and his free hand shot out to catch her other wrist and drag both hands together into one crushing grip. Her wrists felt painfully small inside his fist with bone pressing against skin while his other arm locked around her waist and dragged her fully against him in a crushing hold that left no room to move.
He reeked of alcohol and wet pavement and sweat. The extraordinarily handsome man whose face once mesmerized her, was contorted now with passion and anger and something dangerously close to madness, his jaw clenched and his eyes blown wide and wild and his lips pulled tight in a desperate line that made him look like a stranger.
She gasped as his hold tightened and pinned her in place like a cage.
"Miles!" she shouted, panic slicing through her voice.
He did not hear her, or he would not.
