Page 7 of Threaded Lies

What is he thinking? What is he desperate to ask but his ego refuses to let him?

When the shoot is over, the staff cleans up while the models and myself remove our stage makeup and study sample shots that Lyle shows us on his camera. I continue to ask Lyle questions hoping to wait out Holden’s patience so I don’t have to confront him.

But he just stands there.

He waits while everyone scampers out of there.

It’s not until we’re the only people left in the studio that I acknowledge that my attempt to avoid him has failed.

Now it’s just me. Just him. And a whole chasm of unchecked emotions between us.

“We’re not going to talk?” he finally asks.

My window has closed. I have no chance to escape other than to walk past him. With my chin held high, I take the steps toward the door, but his hand is on my arm in seconds. I emit the tiniest of yelps as I’m yanked against him. He smells of soap and cologne, and I hate that it’s familiar and desirable and everything in between.

My heart might be shattered, but my body clearly hasn’t gotten the memo.

“Rowan?” he murmurs. It’s the tone of his voice—hurt, desperate, confused—the only break in his stoic facade, that gets me.

We breathe in that small, charged space. We feel what I can assume is the same fucking heartache, but neither of us acquiesces a single inch.

Because isn’t that what hurts the most? That while Holden screwed me over, I do think he was falling for me just as hard as I was for him.

But apparently he was willing to suffer and fall on the sword for his cause while I had no choice in the matter.

I pull the robe I’ve put on over my suit a little tighter as his eyes flicker down to my hand and lack of a ring.

Shit. Little details I’ve forgotten in the fog of this heartbreak warfare.

All the bravado I had earlier, my attempt at showing him what he’s going to miss, has flown out the window. And while this robe might simply be cotton and thread, it’s the only form of protection I have against Holden Knight.

Isn’t that a fitting fucking metaphor? Fabric against steel.

Did I ever stand a chance?

“It’s time to change the dress?” he asks, repeating the last and only thing I said to him.

His own line was a reminder that sometimes you need to change the dress, shed what a person thinks of you, and do something completely unexpected.

Like wearing strong and regal sapphires over the soft and romantic rubies my mother wanted for me.

Like agreeing to work with Holden to further my own best interest over the collective interest of my family.

Like becoming engaged to Chad—a man he knows I’ve been pressured to marry my whole adult life—once I found out about Holden’s deceit, as another means to get what I need.

By the way he’s standing here and the confusion in his furrowed brow, he doesn’t have a clue as to the why behind the last one.

And here I assumed he had put two and two together. That I knew about the contract being signed and his machinations to completely shut me out of my family business. How could he not, though?

I struggle with the thought.

The contract was in his top drawer. I left the cuff links on the desk in my fervent need to escape. On the desk sitting right above the damn contract.

He’s a clever man. I know him well enough to know how his mind works and that he’s smart enough to deduce that I saw the contract and know the truth.

Why else would I have done what I did?

Christ. We spent the weekend together, we were … whatever we were, and then I up and get engaged to Chadwick? What is Holden thinking? What does he suppose happened? I couldn’t even make a guess because the man hasn’t asked me a single question in the last six days. Until now.