Chapter 9
“And?”
“You do.”
I sat down on the porch steps.
Something opened inside my chest.
Not happiness exactly.
Possibility.
“When does filming start?”
“Six weeks.”
I looked toward the mountains.
“I’ll do it.”
On day eleven, Julian arrived at Pine Hollow.
No driver.
No security.
Just Julian in an expensive coat standing beside a Bentley that looked absurd on the gravel driveway.
I didn’t invite him inside.
“You bought this place,” he said.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
His face changed.
“Four years?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted something that was mine.”
“You had plenty that was yours.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He looked at the cottage.
“The chickens.”
I followed his gaze toward the empty patch of grass beside the garden.
“What?”
“You used to talk about getting chickens.”
“I remember.”
“I thought that was something we were going to do.”
“So did I.”
That landed.
He looked older than he had eleven days earlier.
Not physically.
Just less certain.
“I heard about the series.”
Of course he had.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re really going back?”
“I’m really going forward.”
His eyes met mine.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Sophie left Hawthorne.”
I hadn’t asked.
“Okay.”
“She never should have moved in.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Could you stop agreeing with everything?”
“What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know. Anger.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“You need me to be angry.”
“I need you to feel something.”
I stared at him.
“Do you actually believe I don’t?”
“You filed for divorce the next morning. You moved out. You disappeared. You’re going back to acting. It’s like twelve years meant nothing.”
I stepped off the porch.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“Claire—”
“No. You ended our marriage, and now you’re angry because I’m surviving the ending correctly.”
“I’m not angry that you’re surviving.”
“Then what are you angry about?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
And suddenly I understood.
“You thought I would wait.”
His face changed.
“You thought you could tell me you loved someone else, and somehow I would remain exactly where you left me.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“You keep saying that whenever something is true.”
He looked away.
For the first time, Julian Mercer seemed uncertain about the future.
That used to be the moment when I reached for his hand.