The Forbidden Throb Chapter 156

Nicholas's POV:

Her voice carrying that same maddening gentleness—like she was talking to a stranger who'd asked for directions. Indifferent. Distant.

No anger. No tears. No defensiveness.

Just... nothing.

I felt something hot and sharp twist in my chest.

"What, you're not even going to defend yourself?" The words came out harsher than I'd intended, edged with something that felt uncomfortably close to desperation. "Not going to explain where that ring came from? Who bought it for you?"

Emma's blue-green eyes like looking into shallow Caribbean water—held mine for a long moment. Then she took a slow breath, and I watched her shoulders settle, watched her spine straighten just a fraction more.

"I don't owe you an explanation, Nicholas."

The calm finality in those seven words hit me like a slap.

I took a step closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of her perfume. More expensive. Sophisticated. Another reminder of how much had changed in just a few months.

"I don't." She said it so simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We broke up, Nicholas. What I do, who I see, what I wear—none of that concerns you anymore."

The afternoon light caught the yellow diamond on her finger as she shifted her weight, sending fractured rainbows.

Whoever he was, this was someone with serious money. Old money, probably.

I looked up from the ring to find Emma watching me, and something in her expression made my throat tight.

"Is he here?" The question came out rougher than I'd meant it to. "Your... whatever he is."

"Nicholas." She said my name like a sigh, like she was tired. "You should leave. Really. Before—"

"Before what?" I cut her off, taking another step forward. "Before your sugar daddy comes back and gets jealous?"

And then, almost immediately, something that looked uncomfortably like secondhand embarrassment.

For me.

*Embarrassing*. She thought this was *embarrassing*. Like I was some pathetic ex who couldn't take a hint, who couldn't accept that she'd moved on to someone better.

The rage that had been simmering in my gut suddenly boiled over, hot and acidic and desperate.

"No," I said flatly. "I'm not leaving. Not until I meet him."

"I want to look this guy in the eye and understand what he has that I don't. What makes him so fucking special."

I pulled out the chair at her table, the one with a man's cashmere coat draped over the back—Loro Piana, I noticed with a spike of jealous recognition—and sat down. "Because I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers."

Emma closed her eyes for a long moment, and when she opened them again, there was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

"Then you're going to what?" Emma asked, and there was genuine curiosity in her voice now, like she honestly couldn't imagine what I thought was going to happen. "You're going to fight him? Threaten him? Try to convince him I'm not worth the trouble?"

"I want to see who's actually worth showing off," I said, and even I could hear the ugly edge in my voice. "I want to stand next to him and let you see for yourself who comes out looking better."

Emma's expression shifted to something wary. "Nicholas, don't be ridiculous—"

"Ridiculous?" I let out a sharp laugh. "You want to talk about ridiculous? Fine. Let's talk about how you're standing there acting like some innocent victim when we both know—"

"Know what?" Her voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath.

"That you were probably already fucking him while we were still together." The words came out harsh and raw, fueled by the toxic mix of jealousy and wounded pride churning in my gut. "That's why you were so eager to break up, right? Because you'd already found your upgrade? Your meal ticket?"

I expected her to flinch. To get defensive. To show me *something* that proved I'd landed a hit.

Instead, Emma laughed.

Not a nervous laugh or an angry laugh, but something that sounded almost... bewildered. Like she'd just witnessed something so absurd she couldn't quite process it.

She looked at me with an expression I'd never seen before. Like she was seeing me clearly for the first time and couldn't quite believe what she was looking at.

"You really believe that?" she said softly. "You really think that's what happened."

I opened my mouth to double down, to insist I was right, but something in her eyes stopped me. Made the words die in my throat.

Because suddenly I was seeing her too. Really seeing her.

Emma had always been pretty—I'd never denied that. Delicate features, those striking blue-green eyes, that porcelain skin.

When we'd first started dating, my roommate Ryan had practically begged me for her number after seeing her photo on Instagram.

But I'd also spent two years noticing everything that was *wrong* with her. The way her wardrobe consisted mostly of basics. The way she'd get nervous at the country club, unsure which fork to use. The way she'd blush and stumble over her words when my friends from Exeter would drop references she didn't understand.

I'd loved her, in my way. But I'd also been... embarrassed by her. Just a little. Just enough that I'd kept her separate from certain parts of my life.

Introduced her as my "friend" to people I wanted to impress. Made excuses when she couldn't quite keep up with conversations about summer houses in the Hamptons or skiing in Gstaad.

The only thing she'd really had going for her, I'd told myself, was her face.

But now, standing here looking at her—at the way she held herself with quiet confidence, at the light in her eyes that hadn't been there before, at the way she seemed to glow from the inside out—I realized something that made my chest tight.

She'd been beautiful with me.

But now she was *radiant*.

Like a flower that had been kept in a too-small pot, roots bound and growth stunted, finally transplanted into rich soil with room to spread and sunlight to drink in.

And I had been the pot.

The realization hit me like a physical blow, and for a moment I couldn't breathe.

"Nicholas," Emma said, and her voice was gentle now. Almost kind. "I'm going to say this once, and I need you to really hear me."

I stared at her, unable to form words.

"The person who cheated in our relationship," she said clearly, "was you. Not me. You. And the fact that you're standing here trying to rewrite history to make yourself feel better about that? It's sad. It's really, really sad."

Each word landed with devastating precision, and I felt my face burn with shame and rage and something else I couldn't quite name.