Chapter 24
He stepped closer, eyes sharp as knives.
“She’s free of you. Whether she lives well or badly from now on is none of your concern. We don’t know where she is. And even if we did, we would never tell you.”
The door closed in Nicholas’s face.
That was the first moment he understood, truly understood, that Katherine was gone.
Not angry.
Not sulking.
Gone.
Three days later, he sat in a private room of the city’s largest bar surrounded by empty bottles.
A friend of his, Adrian Cole, stormed in, took one look at him, and punched him hard across the face.
“You look pathetic,” Adrian spat. “And you deserve worse.”
Nicholas barely reacted.
Adrian grabbed his collar.
“I’ve wanted to hit you for years. Katherine loved you with everything she had. Everyone could see it. And what did you do? You tore her heart out and ground it into the dirt. Samantha cried one tear and you lost your mind. Katherine collapsed with fever and you made her walk home in the rain. Are you made of stone?”
Nicholas’s gaze was empty.
Adrian’s anger only deepened.
“Do you remember last winter when you had that bad fever? Katherine stayed awake three nights straight taking care of you. She got sick herself and still didn’t want anyone to tell you because she didn’t want you to worry. And where were you? Out in the snow with Samantha.”
He got closer, voice low and brutal.
“You think you loved Samantha? Fine. Then answer me this. Who did you call for every time you got drunk?”
Nicholas’s breathing faltered.
“Who did you detour three days on a business trip just to buy a butterfly pin for because you thought it would look pretty on her? Who did you quietly investigate when some man from the academy talked to her for too long?”
Adrian stared straight into him.
“You’re an idiot, Nicholas. You loved Katherine a long time ago. You just didn’t know it until you’d already destroyed her.”