Chapter 6: The Breaking Point

CALEB

The paint isn't working, it's not drowning out the memory of her against my wall, the ghost of her heat on my skin, the fucking look in her eyes when I told her, "Get out."… it's all still there, a toxic film over everything, and I'm slashing at this canvas like I can kill it, like I can bury it under ochre and rage, but it's not working, nothing ever works.

The door closes with a slam and I don't need to turn, I know it’s her, the air thickens and hot, it crackles, and her voice is a low growling that cuts right through me. "What is this, Caleb?" I hear the paper rustle, sharp and venomous. "Folder 7B. Victoria's little gift. It says the bedrock is stable. Stable! I know it's not. I've seen the core samples, Caleb. I've been down there myself."

I keep my back to her, my arm dragging with the brush, a vicious tear across the ghost of her. I dare not look at her. If I look at her, I'm done for. "Then you know more than me, Ava," I snap out, my own voice rough, raw from sleep deprivation, from yelling at the walls. "Take it to Julian. He's the one who signs the reports."

"Don't you dare dismiss me like that!" She is talking in a rising voice, lashing like a whip, and I feel her step closer, her presence behind my back like a burn. "I'm bringing it up with you! You're the one responsible for this project. You're the one in the trenches, making the phone calls! Are you building a deathtrap, Caleb? Is this your payback to your father? Manipulating him to take down his whole damn empire around him, and bringing everyone else down with him?"

Something inside of me snaps, the brush, my composure, everything. I slam the broken handle down on the floorboards, the sound of it crashing out across the loft, and turn finally, and fuck, there she is—face flushed with passion, eyes blazing, hair a wild tangle, and she's never looked more alive, more terrifying, more beautiful. Her hand is trembling and clutching the papers and all I can think of is how I want to kiss her or shake her or both.

"You think you know anything about me?" I snarl, advancing, into her space, my body humming with a furious rage. "About my family? About the name of Sterling? You're a tourist, Ava. A big-eyed little tourist who got a backstage pass to the zoo, and now you think you know the cages."

Her chin rises, defiant, and she refuses to back down, she stands her ground, and Christ, the fire in her. "Then tell me!" she demands, and her voice doesn't shake, it's solid, it's a goddamn anchor in my shitstorm. "Tell me, Caleb! Because at this moment, I’m seeing a man I thought I knew letting people walk blind into disaster."

The words are a knife twist, the honesty of them venom. I can't handle it, I can't have her seeing me like this, the pathetic fraud I am. "GET OUT!" The words come exploding out of me, raw and guttural, a last desperate attempt to spare myself from her, from whatever this is.

"NO!" Her denial is immediate, savage, and she flings the papers at me, they spill at my feet like incriminations, and the air is so heavy with all that has not been spoken I can hardly breathe.

I act on impulse. I grasp her wrists, my palms wrapping around them, not to harm her, never to harm her, but to feel her, to ground myself in the sharp, hard rush of her pulse beating against my thumbs. I pull her in close, so close our chests almost touch, the heat of her body burning through my clothes. Her eyes are wide and shocked, locked on mine, and we're both panting like we've been running, sharp and jagged. The anger in my look is wrestling with something else, something hungry and dark, and I see it reflected back in her eyes, that same surge of energy, that same flash of danger. Her lips are inches from mine, parted, and fuck, I need to—

I swallow it down, hold back the craving, allowing the bitterness to flood in. My voice is a rasping whisper. "You want the truth? The truth is a luxury people like us can't afford, Ava. Julian knows. He's always known. The moment that first suspicious survey came in, he knew. But the project goes on because money makes that inevitable, because the contracts are signed, the investors locked in, and the Sterling name can't afford another scandal."

My own hand closes hard for a moment, a spasm of my own fucking desperation. "I do the changed plans because if I don't, I'm gone. Gone, Ava. From everything. And if I'm gone, I have nothing. This…" I gesture here in the loft, this paint-splattered tomb of my disappointments, my own hand still gripping her wrist like a lifeline. "This is all I have. This, and the work I push myself to do."

"That's not true," she gasps, and now her voice is soft, the rage stripped from it, replaced by something worse, something that shatters me in open… understanding. "You have so much more than this, Caleb."

I laugh, a raw, jagged sound. "Isn't it? You saw the surveys. You went past the broken core samples. You know what I am now. A fraud. A coward. A desperate moron willing to bend the rules for a salary and a roof over his head," I spit out the words, hating myself, hoping she hates me too. I let her go, push her away, the lack of touch an instant ache. "Then leave. Go to Julian. Go to my nice uncle. Get yourself a whole man, Ava. Not a broken one like me."

I stand there with my back to her, shoulders slumping, the battle lost, just empty, hollow. I glance at the ruined canvas, listening for the door, waiting for her to abandon me amidst the wreckage.

She doesn't.

I feel her approach, her warmth at my back, and then her voice, soft, a balm over all my raw nerves. "You're not broken, Caleb. You're just lost." Her hand touches mine, tracing the fresh cut on my knuckles, the pressure so light it fucking annihilates me completely. "Let me help you find your way."

I can't speak. There's nothing to say. I turn, slowly, my gaze meeting hers, and all the walls crumble, and all is just… open, and raw, and I see it in her eyes, not pity, but this fierce, unyielding tenderness. I don’t think, I just move. I pull her into me, my hands tangling in her hair, cradling her head, and my mouth crashes down on hers.

It's not tenderness. It's desperation. It's fear. It's every particle of want that's been burning me alive since I first saw her. It's a fucking explosion. I give it all… the anger, the self-loathing, the desperation… and she's kissing me back, as hard, as desperate, her hands in my shirt, clinging like I'm the only thing in existence that's solid. And for this one instant, perhaps I am.