Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
And that he would listen to her.
Chapter Nineteen
Clay ran.
He ran along the San Francisco streets, pulling down five-minute miles on the flats, seven on the hills. But the punishing pace didn’t work. He was only more worked up, especially when he passed a building covered with street art, even if it wasn’t San Holo’s.
How had he missed it? Her identity was so obvious now. But everyone—all those intelligent people—thought San Holo was a man, that he was British.
The ache filling his body wasn’t the grueling run or his stupidity at not figuring it out. It was the realization that he’d made love to her without even knowing her. The thought hurt so badly his legs might have crumpled beneath him if he hadn’t already been running on muscle memory.
She’d never cared for him at all. Because you couldn’t lie to someone you cared about.
He thought of his parents. They had been everything to each other, to the exclusion of everyone else in their lives, even their kids. They told each other everything. They were devoted. They did everything together.
They even died together.
That was what love meant to him. Total immersion in each other. Total transparency.
But Saskia had excluded him from the most important aspects of her life.
It meant she wasn’t in love with him. Maybe it meant she could never love him.
The thought crippled him, and he stumbled, catching himself on a light post before he could fall. Then he went on running. Barely able to breathe, he rounded the corner on which his warehouse sat.
There she stood. Alone, lit only by a flickering streetlight.
Dressed in all black, she was like a wraith in the night. A ghost. A phantom. Wearing a baseball cap pulled low. He couldn’t truly see her face, but he knew it was her by the lines of her body.
But he didn’t know her. He never had.
He watched her for a moment as she paced back and forth. A pulse of love beat through his chest, rising up his throat to strangle him. But he shoved it back down. She’d lied to him. Over and over.
How could he ever trust her? She could lie again, and he would never know.
This morning, everything had seemed within his grasp. True love. Though he’d always shied away from the intense love his parents had, he’d wanted it. With Saskia.
But there was no coming back from this.
Then she saw him.
Saskia paced the corner. He’d have to return eventually. It was late now, and she felt like San Holo, dressed all in black, baseball cap masking her features as if she were sneaking into an alley to paint.
The comparison chilled her. She wanted to come off as open to Clay, but instead she just looked disguised.
She hadn’t called Adrian or dealt with Hugo. She needed to talk to Clay first before anyone else. He was more important than all the secrecy. More important than any other person.
She’d totally screwed up. Her body felt like a mass of tensed muscles, the sensation so painful she wanted to cry. She’d only just admitted that she wanted some kind of relationship with him, and for a little while, she’d hoped the truth would set her free.
But now that seemed completely out of reach. If she’d told him the truth yesterday, it might have been repairable. But learning it from a stranger on social media? No, he wouldn’t forgive that.
After all the glorious nights they’d spent together, after working on his plans for classes and lectures to help his artists through the emotional baggage that came with being a creative? After keeping her history secret from him—about her parents, about Hugo, even when he’d told her about Gareth and how that affected him? No, he wouldn’t forgive any of that.
Then she saw him.
Running down the hill, hell-bent on getting to the warehouse, maybe even to seclude himself in his loft, he stopped, he came to an abrupt stop so violent it must have hurt his knees.
He just looked at her.
Everything she might have dreamed of having with him ended there.
The seconds ticked by.
Clay’s entire body ached from the demanding run. He wasn’t ready to confront her. But she was here. She’d seen him. He couldn’t get away. They had to talk sometime.
He walked to her side, trying not to stalk her like a raging bull, trying to keep his emotions bottled up.
His insides were knotted, his heart and lungs in a bind that made it hard to breathe, hard to pump the blood through his veins. Yet he stood before her, and in the nicest way possible, without a single betraying inflection in his voice, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re San Holo?”
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
He wanted to punch his fist into the wall. Because she had no justification for not being honest with him. Because she didn’t even have an explanation.