“I don’t know,” she shot back, also immediately. “Why would you watch me for years? Plant bugs in the warehouse and listen to everything? Why would you own the club without telling me? Why would you sleep with me knowing my father ordered your girlfriend’s and your murder? Why would you pretend to begin caring about me when you knew that, nearly every day, I saw the man who carried out that order?”

“I loved her,” he shared.

She flinched but didn’t miss a beat.

“I can imagine, planning for years to avenge her. She must have been something.”

“Liv—”

“I don’t believe anymore, Sebring.”

“Ba—”

“You want me to believe you care? Even a little bit?” she asked, but didn’t wait for him to jump on it, she quickly finished, “Then leave.”

In desperation, unable to remain cautious, he moved to her. She moved with him, retreating around the room with each step he took. He didn’t speed up, he didn’t get aggressive, but he didn’t let up.

And he did all this saying, “First, we gotta see to that eye. Then I’ll give you some time on your own to wrap your head around this shit and calm down. I’m not leaving, but I’ll give you space. You calm down, you let me talk to you, you actually listen to me, I’ll get you to see more clearly what’s happening here.”

“I ask for one thing, even that you won’t do,” she pointed out. Having put the couch between them, she stopped. “It’s over, Sebring.”

Shit, fuck, fuck.

“It’s not over, Liv. I’m in love with you.”

“It’s over, Sebring.”

“And you’re in love with me too.”

“You mean something to me,” she stated and at that, his lungs started burning. They iced over when she finished, “But so did Tommy.”

“Liv—”

And that was when it happened.

Defeat slid stark all over her. It was in her face. Her eyes. The line of her frame. It was so extreme, he could feel it in air and taste it in his throat.

“Can’t you see you’re killing me?” she whispered.

He swallowed past his throat closing and whispered back, “I can’t leave you.”

“You can’t stay either.”

“We’re not done.”

“We never even started.”

“Baby, we did.”

“It isn’t for me,” she stated.

“What isn’t for you?”

“Dawn.”

Beyond tweaked, that word made him more so.

“Dawn?”

“I live in dark. Dawn never comes for me. There will be no new day where I wake up complete. Happy. Loved. There is no other side to make my way to. There is no believe. It just isn’t for me.”

“I can take you there.”

“No you can’t, Sebring. Can’t you see?”

“No, I can’t see, Livvie.”

“You can’t give me dawn and all I can give you is dark.”

“That’s fucked up and not true.”

“It’s every day for thirty-one years, except a few, the few I shared with you, and they were all a lie.”

“Livvie—”

“Leave.”

“Liv—”

“Leave.”

“Baby—”

The tears slid down her cheeks and the whisper came again.

“You’re killing me.”

He said nothing and not just because she wasn’t letting him.

“And she’s gonna kill you, Nicky,” she kept whispering. “I can try to stop her but there’s no stopping Georgie. It’ll be her or you. I know it. I don’t want it to be either. Please be safe. Please get safe. Please get out of here and make yourself and your family safe.”

“I love you, Liv.”

More tears fell as she replied, “I wish, honest to God, I really wish I could believe that, Sebring.”

He held her eyes and watched the tears fall.

Then he made a decision.

“It’s gonna gut me to walk outta here not touching you.”

Her lip quivered so she bit it.

His stomach roiled like he was going to vomit.

He fought through it and did what he had to do.

“I love you, Olivia. And I can make you safe. I can make you happy. I want a lifetime of nothing but that.”

Another tear fell out of her swelling eye but she said nothing.

“I’m gonna walk out of here not touching you and the last thing you’re gonna hear from me is that I love you, baby. Fuck, I so fuckin’ love you.”

They stood, her in front of her couch, him behind it, and stared at each other.

Neither moved except for the wet that slid out of Livvie’s sad, dead, beautiful green eyes.

“Love you, Livvie,” he whispered.

She pressed her lips together.

Nick Sebring watched.

Then he turned and walked out.

Chapter Twenty-Four

No Soul

Olivia

Fifteen Weeks Later

I looked to my list of Today as shown to me down the side of my email screen as I heard the noises in the outer office.

On a sigh I turned my attention to my office door.

Georgie came in.

“You know, us getting rid of that shithole warehouse and me getting awesome new offices you won’t move into so I don’t have to haul my ass all the way to DTC to have a sit down with you is a pain in said ass,” she complained instead of offering a greeting.

I didn’t reply.

I had no intention of moving into her offices.

Not because, even with the exit of Nick from my life, Tommy did not reenter it and he didn’t take very kindly to that. Although this surprised Georgia, she didn’t say anything. She had (albeit doing it as a means to a current end) encouraged me to get over him. She couldn’t be upset I’d actually done that.