I shook my head, staring at him expectantly. He had to know more than I did. If Emilia wouldn’t tell me, maybe Heath would.

Heath threw another concerned glance at the door, a distinct look of worry crossing his features. Then he turned away to lay his stuff down with a long sigh.

“So…can you fill me in as to what’s going on with her?”

He straightened and looked at me. “Adam,” he said reproachfully. “You know me better than that, man. I’m not going to betray her confidence.”

“But there is something going on…”

Heath’s mouth thinned, but he didn’t say anything. After a moment he only nodded.

I tensed. “But you’re not going to tell me—”

Heath looked at the door again. “She’ll tell you. I’m sure of it. Just…be there for her man. You have the chance to make up for your past fuckups. I know you mean well, but you have to play this very carefully or this will be it. I don’t mean to be a prick about this because I do like you and I think the two of you…” His voice faded, then he shifted his weight and ran a hand through his hair, making an awkward face. “This makes me sound like a sentimental pussy, but I think the two of you belong together.”

I focused every bit of my attention on him, never taking my eyes off of him. My hands were on my hips. “But…you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong with her.”

Heath’s features grew stern. “No. I’m not. But I’ll tell you what she needs from you, okay? And if you are half as intelligent with this sort of thing as you are with your coding stuff, then you won’t screw it up. She needs you, clearly. You were here for her tonight. Keep being there for her. Be the man she’ll turn to when she needs a shoulder. Be her friend, all right? Just her friend. Like you were for a year before the two of you ever met.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. Back to being FallenOne and Eloisa. Inside I was cold and shaking with worry, but I knew he was right. I nodded.

“She’ll talk to you, man. I promise. But…you can’t push it with her. You can’t pull another stunt like you did with the PI. Wait. She will come to you. Trust me on this. And, most importantly, trust her.”

I told him good night. It was 2 a.m. as I left and I spent the short drive home switching through my playlist in frustration. First it was “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes. Yeah, thanks for that reminder, assholes. I punched the next song on the playlist. “The Night You Murdered Love” by ABC. What the hell? Didn’t anyone record a happy, mellow song in the eighties? I stopped when I got to Sinéad O’Connor’s mournful wailing of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” How appropriate. I listened, each word of the lyrics cutting into my skin like a tiny shard of glass. It kept me awake as I drove and it kept me thinking.

Nothing compared to Emilia. But also, nothing compared to this pain inside. And they were two sides of the same coin. I wondered how much more of this I could take. And I wondered when she would come to me. Everyone had assured me that she would—even Sun Tzu. But I was full of that same old doubt and fear. The challenge was in not letting it consume me.

Chapter Fifteen

The next day after breakfast, I was about to grab my phone to call her when it chimed with a text message.

Thank you for staying with me last night. Thanks for everything.

My grip tightened around my cell phone and I had to rein in my need to know, that ever-present need for control.

Are you ok? I’m worried.

Don’t worry. I’m fine. See you at work tomorrow.

I hesitated, staring at that last text. Clearly a message to prevent me from going over and seeing her today. I took a deep breath and quelled that first instinct in me to find out what the hell what was going on, or demand answers from her. Obviously my first instincts had gotten me into deep shit with her recently so I was going to ignore them, as ridiculously difficult as that felt.

Instead, I spent the entire day at the office. I was aware of what I was doing but told myself it was specifically for the convention. We needed the convention to go off well, especially in the face of this lawsuit coming down the pipeline. I did not want my game associated with such negative events rather than seen as a form of entertainment that millions of people enjoyed.

And fortunately, that positive aspect of the game was what the Con was about.

Several days before the beginning of the convention, Draco employees relocated to nearby Las Vegas in preparation for the first annual DracoCon. The event would take place the weekend before Thanksgiving, just before the last week of November. And because preparations were crazy, I put in a few eighteen-hour days and got little sleep. And I saw very little of Emilia, unfortunately.