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Nick’s expression shifts—not much, but just enough. A flicker of something softer, something that tells me maybe my pain still matters to him. That I still matter.

“I’m sorry, Nickolas.” His name tastes like truth on my tongue.

I want to tell him everything. Everything I should’ve said months ago. But my voice cracks, shatters in my throat, and the words get stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth.

And still, I look at him. Let him see it all.

Nick’s voice cuts through the air, low and sharp. “Why did you come, Sierra?”

He’s already undoing his tie with one hand, movements precise, almost detached. Then he shrugs out of his coat and starts unbuttoning his shirt, never breaking eye contact with me.

My breath catches somewhere in my throat. I stand still like a statue, caught between the urge to speak and the chaos unravelling in my chest. I don’t know what I expected from this moment, but it wasn’t this.

“Did you come to surprise me?” he continues calm, too calm. “See if you’d catch me in bed with someone? Or maybe in the middle of passionate sex on the kitchen island? In the shower? In the elevator?”

Each word lands like a slap carefully aimed. I flinch—barely—but enough for him to notice.

His shirt falls open as he peels it off, exposing the body carelessly perfect beneath—sculpted, strong, tanned, familiar. And still… so distant. Like a stranger I once called mine.

“Did you want to find out if I kept living like the playboy you always believed I was? If I fell in love again? Got someone pregnant?”

His tone hardens on the last words, jaw clenched. Then he throws the shirt onto the couch and takes a step closer.

He’s tossing every old fear of mine right back at me. Every one of those terrifying what-ifs that used to haunt me, that crept under my skin when I was least prepared.

I had thought I’d outgrown them all. I told myself I had. That therapy helped. That I knew better.

But clearly not completely.

Because here I am, heart in my throat, body frozen, nerves on fire.

I feel exposed, stripped down to every raw nerve. And yet, I can’t look away from him.

“Or maybe you came for sex?” he throws out, voice low and laced with arrogance, as he takes another slow, deliberate step toward me.

My pulse stutters, instinct kicks in and I step back, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps advancing, calm and unbothered, with an expression that blurs the line between mockery and intensity. A look I know too well. And I—like the idiotic part of me still wired for him—keep moving in retreat.

We’re circling, slowly, like two people in a silent argument only we understand.

He knows exactly what he’s doing. Of course he does. Nick always knew how to push me, how to peel me open until I was too raw to pretend anymore. He’s trying to provoke me, to break through the wall I spent months building up.

And this is the exact version of him that undid me every time—reckless, electric, maddening. And dangerous in all the ways that still make my pulse thunder.

I can feel it coming. The moment he’s chasing. He wants to break my silence. He wants me to crack. Because that’s when I stop being careful. That’s when I say what I really mean.

His grin stretches wider, dark and merciless, like he’s enjoying the sure unraveling of my control.

“That’s what it was all about, wasn't it?” he asks, taunting, eating up the last inches between us.

I try to step back—again—but my body hits the wall with a soft thud. I didn’t even realize I’d walked all the way to the entrance.

He’s in front of me now, so close I can feel the heat radiating off his skin. And yet all I can focus on are his eyes. Those damn green eyes. They blaze with lust and fury, pain and want, and it steals the air straight out of my lungs.

My fingers twitch at my sides, heart slamming in my chest.

Don’t let him provoke you, Sierra. You came here for answers.

To apologize.