Stop thinking about her.
It’s a useless directive. One I’ve issued to my brain multiple times today because it won’t get the damn hint. Instead of erring on the side of self-preservation, it’s chosen to focus on the few minutes of heaven I got to experience today, stretching every second into immeasurable units of time until I can’t be sure how long the actual encounter lasted.
And when it was done, it lingered on the moments that followed, obsessing over the tears that slid down Sloane’s face and the sobs that rang out around us while she cried in my arms.
It’s been damn near impossible not to reach out to her just to find out how she’s doing, but I’ve managed to stop myself every time the urge to text or call her prickled at my fingertips. I know she doesn’t want to hear from me. Hell, for all I know, she’s pissed I sent Mal to check on her.
Mal.
Now there’s someone Icouldcontact and get all the information I want and some I don’t. The girl is a chronic oversharer, and that’s never been limited to details about her life. My heart lifts at the prospect of exploiting my only viable option for figuring out what’s going on with Sloane. I’ll have to be careful though, keep my phrasing vague and be sure to sound uninterested, because if Sloane didn’t tell her what happened, I sure as hell won’t be the one to let it slip. With my decision made, I pull out my phone and text Mal.
Dominic:Hey. Was everything okay with Sloane? We can’t afford to lose our lead designer at this point in the project.
There. Let it sound like I only care about her well-being as far as it relates to her job.Asshole Alexander, indeed.The elevator doors part and I exit, thankful my door is only a few steps down at the end of the hall. I waste no time getting inside, toeing off my boots and leaving them by the door so I don’t track any worksite debris onto the hand-scraped hardwoods I just installed last year.
I make a beeline for my bedroom with my phone in my hand. I toss it on the bed, so I don’t spend the rest of my evening desperately waiting for a message from Mal, and strip down before heading into the bathroom and starting the shower. With the water on the hottest setting, I step inside. Steam billows around me, enveloping my body and making a futile attempt at easing the tension in my muscles. I let the scorching water run over my muscles for long moments before accepting that relaxation just isn’t in the cards for me and scrubbing myself clean.
When I emerge from the bathroom, clean but as tightly coiled as ever, my phone screen is lit with text notifications. I scoop it up and see three notifications: one from Kristen, one from Angie, my dad’s nurse at the assisted living facility, and another from Mal. The gallop of my heartbeat demands I bypass Kristen’s and Angie’s messages in favor of getting a small update on Sloane, and I obey it without question.
Mal:She’s fine. Don’t tell her I said this, but I think she’s just freaking out about the date she has on Friday. I keep telling her Eric would want her to be happy but…
The rest of Mal’s overly expressive message blurs in front of me as red tints my vision. Sloane is going on adate. Unbidden, the moments we shared play back in my mind—Sloane’s eyes half hooded with lust, her breathy little moans, the way she bit her lip while she used me to find her release—and my blood roars in my ears.
Just the thought of someone else seeing her like that has bile rising in my throat. And the moments after…Jesus.I can’t even think about some random asshole making her feel like shit because he doesn’t understand what giving her body to someone else means to her.
Rage, white-hot and consuming, fills me, and without thinking, I send my phone flying across the room. It hits the wall with a satisfying crack as the glass screen splits into tiny shards that refuse to let go of each other even though they’re shattered.
I pull in shallow breaths, feeling the rise and fall of my chest even though no oxygen is making it into my lungs. This isn’t happening. There’s no way in hell this is happening.
And what are you going to do to stop it?
Before I can think of a response to the question that doesn’t involve threatening bodily harm to every man that so much as looks at Sloane, my doorbell rings. Twice. And it’s the second ring, the one following the first one so closely it might as well be one and the same, that has dread swirling in my gut, because only one person rings my doorbell that way, and she’s the last person I want to see right now.
Pulling on a pair of gray sweats and a black tank, I leave my shattered phone on my bedroom floor and head back into the living room, turning on the lights as I go. At this time of night, the moonlight mixes with the endless city lights and filters through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my living room, casting a romantic glow over the entire space. It’s not the vibe I’m going for.
When I pull the front door open, Kristen is holding up a bag of food and wearing a smile that stretches across her face. Even in my sorry state, I can appreciate her beauty—the high cheekbones standing proud against flawless, tawny skin and accented by almond-shaped brown eyes that are always sharp and focused. Once upon a time, I lived to see a smile on her face, but that was before, back when making myself believe I had to live without Sloane was as crucial to my survival as my next breath.
“Kristen,” I say, unable to keep the impatience out of my voice. “How nice of you to drop by completely unannounced.”
She flips her long black hair, that’s always bone straight, over her shoulder with a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. “I texted you. You never answered.”
“Because I’m not in the mood to talk.”
I also didn’t get to read your message before I shattered my phone against the wall.
“Most people don’t consider responding to a text message talking.”
I frown at her.Most peopledon’t take a lack of response as an invitation to come over. Especially not when the person they’re texting called off their friends-with-benefits arrangement weeks ago. Which is exactly what I did after that fucker grabbed Sloane in the club and my hands remembered that nothing compared to the feeling of holding her.
“What do you want, Kris?”
“Can I come in, please?” Tears shine in her eyes as she clutches the bag in her hand like a lifeline. “I had a really bad day at work and could use a friend right now.”
Completely unnerved, and unwilling to play a part in shattering another woman today, I take a step back and gesture for her to come in. “Of course.”
She breezes past me, and I pinch the bridge of my nose as I shut and lock the door behind us. I don’t know how I ever let Kristen talk me into being anything other than friends after our three-year relationship ended.
We had a clean breakup, which was a miracle considering things started to deteriorate when she began dropping hints about wanting to get married and have kids in the next two years. I wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea of marriage and a family, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she only wanted those things because she thought she wassupposedto have them. Like tying your life to another person and bringing childreninto the world were just two more things for her to cross off of her checklist of a life.
