Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Move in, baby. Please. You can have the entire top floor for your home office, your workout room, whatever you need.
Just don’t leave.
Seven months later, he was back to pulling away again, saying he needed “space to finish grieving.”
I had to move all my belongings into storage and myself into a short-term rental until the people I’d leased my house to were ready to move out. But I’d still been there for him, even when he said he wanted to break up and be “just friends” until he’d dealt with all the stress associated with his mother’s estate and the recent downsizing at his law firm.
How could I tell him to go to hell when he’d just been fired and was having panic attacks almost every day? Instead, I helped him research therapists, made appointments he’d cancel at the last minute, and coached him through breathing exercises at two in the morning.
I’d also celebrated with him six months later when he finally landed the partnership at Russo & Klein—I couldn’t have done this without you, angel. You saved me. I mean that. You’re just…everything, Char. Absolutely everything.
Things were good for the next year, but eventually he needed “time” again. Time to decide if he wanted biological children too much to settle down with someone who couldn’t conceive. Time to decide if he was “good enough for me,” and could give me “everything I deserved.”
I gave him time.
Eight years, in bits and pieces. I followed the breadcrumbs of affection he trailed behind him, clung to hope through years of being treated like a goddess he couldn’t live without one month, then downgraded to “buddy” status when he ran out of bandwidth for a relationship “as serious and intense” as ours.
And now I’m “style not substance?”
My hands shake as I set the phone down.
The humiliation is worse than the heartbreak. At least heartbreak is private, and I finally woke up to what an emotionally abusive jerk Teddy was about eighteen months ago when I said “goodbye” for the last time.
My heart has healed from that part. Thoroughly. Completely. And faster than I would have thought possible when I was still swept up in his narcissistic drama spiral.
But this? This is public erasure, in black and white, for all our friends and clients to read. He’s taken eight years of my life—eight years of love and support and patience and loyalty—and dismissed it in a glossy magazine profile like it never mattered.
Like I never mattered.
And Madison? Well, she can eat rocks.
She met Teddy through me while planning his firm’s holiday party. God had nothing to do with it. I hired her straight out of Tulane, taught her how to build a business from nothing, took her to industry events, and introduced her to everyone I knew. I even helped her launch her own company when she was ready to spread her wings and fly.
And she repaid me by fucking, bagging, and tagging the only man in New Orleans she damned well knew was off-limits.
The only one who could hurt me like this…
I stand, pacing to the window. Outside, my team is nearly done transforming the backyard into something incredible. Special. Beautiful. All by simply following my explicit directions. I’m unmatched at what I do, the queen of unforgettable experiences that shape the fabric of people’s lives.
Maybe I should start using my skill to shape my own life into something even more beautiful than it is already.
Something crafted to exact maximum revenge…
Makena’s voice echoes in my head, from the day Teddy’s cruel wedding invitation arrived—What about Nix? I mean, think about it. Gorgeous professional athlete who’s clearly into you. Bring him to the wedding. Make Teddy regret every stupid decision he’s ever made.
I’d dismissed her at the time. Decided it was too petty.
But right now?
Petty is starting to sound pretty good…
Nix.
Baylor Nix.
Six-feet-two inches of pro-athlete man meat with a sexy as fuck laugh and a surprising degree of intelligence. He has a philosophy degree from Boston University, dark brown eyes that look at me like I’m his idea of perfection, and a mouth that…
No.
I press my palm to where my pulse flutters at my throat, willing it to calm down. If I reach out to Nix, it won’t be for that. It will be purely business.
Makena told me just last week that he was in some kind of trouble, his reputation hanging by a thread after a bar fight or something. I hadn’t paid much attention to the gossip at the time, but now…
Well, I imagine Nix is in a place where it could be good for him to seem more stable. Settled.
And I’m in a place where a hot, adoring, successful, clever, younger man on my arm would make me feel a whole lot better about showing up at Teddy and Madison’s stupid wedding…