The words impaled Rowan. She nodded jerkily, because what else could she expect him to say? That he had miraculously developed a deeper appreciation for her place in his life? At best he was nursing a sense of obligation toward her. It was the last sort of debt she wanted to make him feel.
“I’m going for a walk.” She needed to say goodbye to Rosedale. It was the final item on her to-do list.
“Stay back from the water.”
A bitter laugh threatened, but Rowan swallowed it and left.
Rowan caught a lift with the courier in the morning, giving Nic about three seconds to react to her leaving. She walked into his office, said she could save him a trip to the landing and asked where were those papers that needed signing.
No prolonged goodbye. Just a closed door, the fading hum of an engine, then silence that closed around him like a cell. Her scent lingered in a wisp of almond cookies and sunshine, dissipating and finally undetectable.
Nic stood up in disbelief, drawn to the window where the vehicle had long since motored up the track on the side of the hill and disappeared. He had been girding himself for an awkward leave-taking, expecting something uncomfortable in front of the passengers waiting for the ferry. He had thought they’d have a quiet day today, but he’d been sure she’d spend it here. With him.
His limbs felt numb as a graveled weight settled into his abdomen.
Unconsciously he found himself searching the grounds for her lissom silhouette. But she wasn’t at the gazebo, or in the swing under the big oak, nor among the rows of grapevines or even taunting him from the rocky outcropping at the beach. Yesterday he’d watched her wander the estate for hours, often looking back at the house. He’d thought she was waiting to see if he’d join her, but he’d been too disturbed by their discussions in the breakfast room. Too stripped of his armor.
“I don’t want to be your mistress.”
He hadn’t planned any of that: either the offering of a settlement or a continuation of their arrangement. It had come out of the situation as he’d realized she was setting herself up to be destitute. Shame had weighed on him for his arrogance in cutting her off. Rowan wasn’t a superficial user. She was too sensitive for her own good, putting other’s needs ahead of her own—even people who had deep flaws like her mother and father.
Pushing away from the window, he strode from his office into her room—only to be brought up by the neatly folded sheets on the foot of her stripped bed. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that.
The night table and dresser top were clear. The closet held only hangers. All the drawers were empty. Even the shower had dried to leave no trace of her. The wastebasket was fresh, the long dark hairs shaken from the floor mat and swept away.
A wild insidious thought occurred that he’d imagined her presence here. The rock music while she had worked, her burbling laugh after a leading remark, the feel of her naked skin against his … His breath turned to powdered glass in his lungs.
She’d given her virginity to him. That meant something, didn’t it? She had said she wouldn’t forget him, yet …
“Damn you, Rowan!” he squeezed out, instantly needing proof of her existence.
He dragged drawers from their rails and in his impatience tossed their hollow shells to clatter across the hardwood floor. Empty. All empty. With nothing else to throw, he impulsively launched a drawer at the wild-eyed man in the mirror.
His image shattered in a jarring smash that disintegrated into a glinting pile of shards on the floor.
He was losing his rationality, but this was more than a man could bear. He’d dealt with the confusing pain of his father shutting him out and his mother walking away without looking back. He’d even met unflinchingly the gaze of his real father when Olief had looked up from smiling with pride at the girl who wasn’t his into the eyes of the man who was.
All of it had devastated him, but this pain was worse.
Driven to the master bedroom, he began overturning boxes. One of them must have photos of her. But they held only Cassandra and Olief, nothing of Rowan. No warmth, no affection, no laughter.
No Rowan.
She had left him.
He’d been abandoned. Again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIC’S PA blipped into his computer monitor with a message that the auction house was on the phone. He instructed her to tell them to call back next week, not missing the subtle pause before her assent that silently screamed, Again?
Pushing back from his desk, he moved to the window, where he rubbed the back of his neck. His whole body hurt from long work days and harder evenings in the gym. Blinking to clear the sting from his eyes, he tried to take in the view of Athens, but nothing penetrated.