“Where are you gonna run to now?” he asks, mischief deeply denting the furrow of his brows.
I make a dash for the door, not getting nearly far enough to avoid the sound of his heavy footfalls behind me. I’m nowhere near quick enough, however, and he catches up to me in no time. Instead of coming to a stop like I do, he crashes himself right against me.
My entire body goes rigid instantly.
I look up at him.
He looks down at me.
For the first time, I’m one hundred percent sure that his eyes see the very same things my eyes do. Lust. Bare and raw and open.
“Maverick,” I whisper, and watch as he slowly sucks a breath into his lungs.
“How wrong would it be to kiss you right now?” he asks, but I don’t get the chance to answer and it’s not because all the desires I shouldn’t have are being fulfilled right now. No, in this particular situation, thanks are given to the security team who comes barreling toward us. Everything about the looks on their faces scream trouble.
Maverick moves around me and the guards enter his suite without so much as having to swipe a card or pull down the door handle. My eyes are wide as saucers, my brain glitching as it tries to figure out what on earth is going on.
Maverick starts to go in after the security guys, but I grab his elbow and shake my head, telling him not to go. “You don’t know what’s going on,” I say.
A small, forced smile creeps onto his face and he squeezes my hand reassuringly before peeling my fingers away from his elbow and stepping inside.
“Wait out here,” he instructs and then he’s gone, vanished into the darkness, dragging my calm right along with him.
I can hear the commotion. The shoving of a chair, a high pitched scream. Muffled voices slip through the walls, only working to escalate my panic. And then, “Don’t shoot,” comes Maverick’s voice and any cool I might have been left with falls to the bottom of the earth.
Slowly, because all logic fails me, I inch my way into the apartment, my knees vibrating and my fingers firmly clasping opposing elbows.
“I know her,” Maverick says and somehow, even without seeing her, everything inside me knows who it is. “Put that down,” Maverick’s voice continues, as I slowly come around the corner. My legs stop moving when I finally see her.
There are mascara streaks running down her face and her nose is red from all the crying she must have been doing. Maverick’s iPad is face up on the table before her and our wedding photo illuminates the room in all its glamor and glory.
But not a single one of those things matter to me even half as much as what she’s holding in her hands. The trembling fingers of her left hand are tightly wrapped around my bow while she carelessly handles Eloise in her right hand.
“You lied to me,” she hisses, her head turned in my direction, almost robotic in its movements. “You. Lied. To. Me,” she yells again. With each word, her grip on the violin’s bow grows tighter and tighter. She’s holding it out to me now, and my heart cringes at the careless way she’s waving it around.
Maverick wheels around to face me. “I told you to wait outside,” he growls, but I’m too transfixed on Jessica and her wild eyes to react. Wild eyes that are pinned to mine.
“You said it was another Beth.” Reaching down, she grabs the tablet, but doesn’t let go of the bow.
My heart feels faint as fear claws its way up my throat like a mutated amphibian.
“Is this another Beth? Are you another Beth?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
“Jessica,” Maverick says, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. Jessica bares her teeth at him and tosses the tablet across the room. It lands with a soft thud into the plush leather sofa.
“Jessica,” Maverick tries again. He’s standing upright now, concern giving way to irritation. “Why did you break into my flat? You knew it would trip the alarm. What were you trying to accomplish here?”
Her cheeks flush red and she looks away for a brief second with the innocence of a child before looking back up at him.
“I wanted you to come back here,” she explains. “Tripping the alarm meant that you would have to come back here.” She’s not right, of course. I’ve sat beside Maverick as he tossed around his Lamborghini, wrecking the entire thing in one fell swoop. He didn’t even bat an eye. If he was out partying it up, he’d have allowed a tripped alarm to go unanswered.
“But then,” Jessica continues, “I got here and she’s everywhere. You have her stuff here? Her actual, personal, stuff, Maverick. Are you screwing her? The peasant?”
“Enough!” His voice bellows over hers and she whimpers like a tiny pup caught in the midst of an earthquake.
“You’re defending her?” She asks the question in quiet devastation, fresh tears trickling down her face.
“Jess-”
“No!” she snaps, fury returning to her eyes. “No! You keep putting everyone else before me. You keep choosing everyone but me.” Her arms are flailing around, and I start to move towards her, not to trigger her, but because there can only be one broken woman in Maverick’s life and Jessica she wrecks my violin…
She wipes at her nose with the back of her hand and fixes her eyes on Maverick.
“All I’ve ever wanted was you,” she tells him and I believe her and pity her all at the same time. Maverick might be great, but he’s not great enough to warrant her losing herself.
“You need to leave, Jessica. If you put that down and leave now, we’ll just pretend that nothing happened here today.”
“You’re mine,” she says defiantly, angrily. Like she can’t fathom why he’s not understanding. Why he’s not promising her forever and tomorrow. Why he’s not explaining away my picture on his iPad and my toothbrush on his sink.
Maverick shakes his head at her and in retaliation, she heaves the bow across the room. Instinctively, my knees bend and then I’m propelling forward, diving to catch it before it falls.
On my knees, I breathe a sigh of relief. Relief that doesn’t last for very long. I regret my actions the moment I look up into her eyes. It’s like I can see the thoughts spelled out in the slow deranged grin that spreads out like moth wings across her face.
“You broke my heart, Maverick,” she whispers, her eyes still fixed on me.
I start scrambling off the floor and Maverick starts moving towards her, but it happens so quickly I can hardly gasp at the impact of broken notes tumbling down my ear as Eloise cracks and shatters against the coffee table.
It feels like I’ve physically been stapled to the ground. I have not budged.
Maverick, on the other hand, crosses the room with rage in his jaw and fury in his irises. He grabs Jessica by the shoulder, shaking her as she smiles. My eyes fall to the floor, to the splintered pieces of the thing I love the most.
In the background, chaos reigns. But it’s hard for me to focus and hard for me to give a damn about anything but the crumbling of my heart. I know that they leave though. The security guards. Maverick. Jessica. Their voices fall deeper and deeper into the background giving way for real heartache to pierce the air.
I’d cared for Eloise, respecting my instrument before I ever truly understood what respect was. Finding discipline in her cords and love in her tone. It seems unfair than in just an instant, a deranged misguided, love-struck little girl can push my world so far off its axis.