A day effing late, buddy.
Instead she just shook her head. “Okay.”
He sighed.
Yeah, she’d said it in the way that clearly meant it wasnotokay, but he was being ridiculous. And it wasn’t okay. But it was still his not-okay call to make. “I’ll see you later?”
He just nodded and walked slowly to the door, still wound tighter than her grandma’s curlers.
Men.
She grabbed her phone and called Hope. As she waited for her best friend to answer, she took a sip of the coffee he’d brought her.
Stupid men.
And that’s how she opened the conversation as soon as Hope answered. “Why do men suck so much?”
“Umm…I don’t know.”
“Ryan isn’t stupid?”
“Not generally, no.”
“Damn it.”
“What happened?”
Liana scowled and took a sip of her coffee. “I slept with Dean.”
“Ah. Well, they can’t all be great.”
“No! He was—” She stopped herself. “That’s not the problem. That’s the backstory.”
“Oh. So he was…”
Incredible. Right up until she proved to be too complicated, too public, too much. “There were some pretty innocuous pictures of us printed this morning. Just him walking beside me, but I sort of outed him as part of my entourage last night, and now it’s a thing and he’s pissed.”
“Oh. Shoot.” Hope’s voice immediately went from teasing to understanding. “Yeah, that would be hard for Ryan, too. These Pine Harbour guys are private. I’m sure if you just talk about it, he’ll come around to understanding that’s just the industry.”
“I tried that! He stormed out.”
“Well, maybe it’ll take him more than a New York minute to get used to the idea of sleeping with a celebrity.” Hope hesitated, then softened her voice even further. “Or maybe it’s not meant to be.”
That hurt, right in Liana’s chest. A red-hot, stabbing poker kind of hurt. Was Dean just yet another short-lived affair?
Was that all she got, forever and ever?
That’s what you let him think you wanted.Well she’d lied.
To herself, to him…
Damn it. She blinked away a suspicious wetness from her eyes because no, she wasn’t crying. Not over a guy she’d just kissed a few times and slept with once.
She wasn’t that kind of girl anymore.
“Liana?”
“Yeah.” God, her voice sounded small.
