She nodded, seeming to admit that he was right. “In any case, I’m here because I wanted to see if you still have the sculpture of your hands.”

The world slowed. Her strange request echoed in his ears, and he was sure he was hearing things. This is what she wanted from him? A work of art?

“That’s why you’re here?”

“Yes. There’s a museum in Chicago that’s putting together an exhibition of all my work, and that seems to be the one missing piece. I hope it’s not too much to ask, but I really think it could round up the exhibition quite nicely. And, truth be told, I was always rather proud of it.”

He scoffed, his derisive huff carrying into the breeze of the warm June night, trailing over the noise of the cars and buses on Columbus Avenue. “Well, in that case, since you’re proud of it, let me just go take it off my dining room table where it’s the centerpiece,” he said staring hard at her. “I like to enjoy it every night. Have dinner with it. Gaze at its beauty. I’m rather proud of it too. But since you want it, I will of course give it to you.”

She pursed her lips, lifting her chin up high. He wondered how he’d ever been in love with her. As he looked at her now, he had no clue how he’d intended to share his life with this person who only cared about taking—taking what she wanted, when she wanted it, at any time. But that was his big problem—he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d had no clue that he couldn’t trust her. He might possibly be the worst judge of character when it came to love, and he damn well needed to stay far away from the foolish emotion.

“Touché,” she said calmly, then gestured to Casey and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Joanna Simone. You must be?”

His ex-wife stood there waiting for an answer from Casey, and that made his blood boil. But Casey was classy, always classy, and she took her hand, saying, “Casey. I’m Nate’s friend.”

Joanna turned her focus back to Nate, tapping her toe. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but might you have it?”

Nate winced. He honestly didn’t know, but he was pretty sure he’d packed it up and stuffed it into the back of a closet somewhere. “I’m not sure,” he muttered.

“I’m happy to pay you for it. I certainly don’t expect you to simply hand it over.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s really amazingly generous of you to offer to pay me back for a wedding present, but I don’t need your money, and you know what? I don’t want those stupid hands,” he said, spitting out the insult, hoping it stung. But the presence of Casey, mere inches from him, was the only thing that made him smooth out the next few words so they weren’t filled with the vitriol inside him. He didn’t want her to know that he still harbored this kind of anger towards his ex-wife. “But I’ll check, and I’ll get back to you.”