Chapter 45 The triangle room

Chapter 45 The triangle room
Mia's POV

I turned around.

Zack was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. He had taken off his jacket. His tie was loosened. He looked like a man who had walked into a room knowing exactly what he was going to find in it.

I told him not to follow me in. He had followed me in anyway.

"How long have you been standing there," I said.

"Long enough."

Luca's voice behind me. "Get out, Mercer."

Zack did not move. He did not unfold his arms. He did not take his eyes off me.

"I asked a question, Mia."

"You didn't ask a question. You made a comment."

"Fine. I'll make it a question. What do you want from him."

"That is none of your business."

"It became my business when you got out of my car in that dress and walked straight to his room without stopping."

Luca stepped forward. I felt him behind me. Close. Not touching. But close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him.

"Mercer. Get out of the doorway."

Zack looked past me at Luca. His jaw was set. His eyes were flat. He had the expression he wore when someone was testing him and he had already decided he was not going to be the one who backed down.

"I'm not in your room, Harmon. You're in my territory."

Luca's voice dropped. "Last time I checked, this is my room. You're standing in my door."

"And you're standing behind my partner. Funny how that keeps happening."

"She was my partner first."

"She's not your partner now."

The room got smaller. I could feel both of them behind me and in front of me and around me. I was standing in the middle of something I had not asked for and could not control and both of them were looking at me like I was a verdict they were waiting to hear.

"Both of you. Out of my way."

Zack did not move.

"I asked a question," he said.

"And I'm not answering it tonight."

"Why not."

"Because I don't owe either of you an answer at eleven o'clock at night in the middle of a hallway."

"You owe me an answer because I drove you home and you walked past me without a word."

"And you followed me in after I told you not to. So we're even."

Luca said, "Mercer. Move."

"No."

"I'm not asking."

"Good. Because I'm not listening."

I stepped between them. My hand came up to Zack's chest. "Move."

He looked down at my hand. He looked up at me. Something moved behind his eyes. Something that was not anger. Something worse.

"You went straight to his room, Mia. You didn't stop. You didn't take off your coat. You didn't even put your bag down. You walked through the front door and you went to him."

"Zack."

"Say what you want to say. But don't pretend I didn't see what I saw."

Luca's voice came from behind me. Low. Controlled. Barely. "She came to me because I owe her an explanation. Not because she chose me. Don't twist this into something it isn't."

Zack looked past me at Luca. "I'm not twisting anything. I'm reading the room."

"You're reading what you want to see."

"And you've been doing the same thing for two years."

The silence after that was ugly. It sat between the three of us in the hallway and it had weight.

Luca took one step forward. He was beside me now. His shoulder was level with mine. I could feel his arm brush against my sleeve. Zack was three feet away. The doorframe was between them. I was between them.

"Stop," I said.

Neither of them looked at me.

"I said stop."

Zack's eyes were on Luca. Luca's eyes were on Zack. The hallway light was behind Zack's head and it threw his face into shadow and I could not read his expression and that was the thing that scared me. Not the anger. The fact that I could not see what was behind it.

I put my hand on Zack's chest and pushed. Not hard. Hard enough.

He looked down at my hand. He looked up at me. For one second his face was completely unguarded. For one second I saw every single thing he was feeling and none of it was simple and none of it was small.

"Move," I said.

He moved.

One step back. Just enough to clear the doorframe. I stepped through. Luca followed. The three of us were in the hallway now. The light was brighter out here. I could see both their faces.

Zack's was closed. The mask back in place. Whatever I had seen for that one second was gone. Filed away. Locked.

Luca's was not. Luca's face was open and raw and furious and two years of holding himself together was cracking and he was not trying to stop it.

I looked at both of them. Back and forth. Two men in a hallway at eleven at night, breathing hard, waiting for a girl in a blue dress to tell them which direction her life was going.

I shook my head.

"I am not doing this. Not tonight. Not in this hallway. Not with either of you. I am going to my room. I am going to close my door. And neither of you is going to knock on it."

I turned and walked toward my room. Behind me I heard Luca say, very quietly, "She's not yours."

And Zack, "She's not yours either."

I kept walking. I did not turn around.

My bedroom door was open.

That was wrong. I had closed it before I left for the dinner. I always closed it. It was the one rule I had in this house. My door stayed closed when I was not in the room.

I stepped inside.

Jade was sitting on my bed. Cross-legged. Comfortable. Like she had been there for a while.

She was holding my phone.

"It buzzed," she said. "I read it. It's from Blair Reid."

She turned the screen toward me. Her expression was calm. Interested. Like she was handing me a weather report and not a bomb.

"You need to see this."