I’m pacing while Banks and Gabe read the article, refusing to acknowledge the prongs of dread that dig themselves deeper into my chest with every passing second. I do not like how sad Elise looked when she walked out of this room. I am growing increasingly seasick over it. But I remind myself of those words, how they ridiculed me in stark black and white. Egomaniacal porn star. Shallow. When I confronted my manager about him buying the rights to my catalogue out from under me, profiting off my name and years of work, he said something along the same lines as Elise. That I was a human dick joke.

Seeing them from Elise’s point of view hurt infinitely worse—and I didn’t think that was possible. But of course it is.

I’m in love with Elise.

Blindingly in love with her.

The way she reduced me to a pile of adjectives…she might as well have carved between my ribs with the tip of a blade. She sees me no differently than anyone else, as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise. I allowed her behind my walls this afternoon more than ever and she ranks me as nothing more than a selfish prima donna. Maybe that’s all that I am. If I can expose everything to someone and they still find me nothing more than an ego on legs, perhaps it’s true.

“Wow,” Gabe says, handing the laptop back to Banks.

Banks closes the lid, sets aside the computer and sits in silence.

“Well.” I circle the bed to stand in front of them. “Isn’t it nice to know that we’ve been torn up for this woman and she’s been laughing behind our backs?”

Gabe’s brows draw together. He looks down at his hands. “No, I wouldn’t call it nice…”

“You heard what she said, right?” Banks doesn’t sound as sure of himself as usual. “She would write it differently now.”

“Yes, I heard.” I rub at the empty feeling in my sternum. Five-year-old memories are racing back, leapfrogging what’s happening currently. Smoke and mirrors. Betrayal. The ache I’m experiencing is telling me it’s happening all over again. Once again, I’ve wrongly believed someone gave a shit about me. “Can you trust that so easily?”

Banks stares hard at the ground beneath his feet for several moments. Then, slowly, he begins to nod. “Yeah. I can.”

Gabe’s expression goes from desolate to hopeful. “How?”

“What the fuck do you mean how?” Banks asks, pushing to his feet. “You know Elise. You think everything she’s given us has been for an article? Are we done here, Tobias? Or do you need to overreact some more?”

That dread I’ve been ignoring gets louder in the wake of that question.

“Kindly bring us up to speed on your thought process, mate,” I sputter.

“Gabe.” Banks backhands the big man in his shoulder. “Don’t you dare join this pity party.”

“Too late.”

“Jesus Christ.” Banks splits a disgusted look between the two of us. “Do you know who called me this morning on my way to the meeting? My mother. She hasn’t called me in years. She told me…fuck.” His emotions seem to get the better of him momentarily. “She told me she’s proud of me and she wants us to be more involved in each other’s lives. If it wasn’t for Elise, I never would have left that last ticket at the front of the stadium. And my mother admits she never would have gone in without running into a stranger. A stranger who, she says, spoke about me with so much affection, it took her breath away. It reminded my mother how much she loves me.”