On my way!
JP’s been waiting at home for me for hours while I’ve been tooling around LA in his Ferrari, again. I’m being such a jerk, but I laugh at the absurdity of my housebound billionaire. Ifhe wanted to, he could probably have the dealership drop off another Ferrari this morning, a newer model even. Still, I’m a jerk.
I’m sort of impressed with myself for sticking it to the man so hard. I mean, that was one hell of a raise: a $35,000 bonus for one date, plus a billionaire fiancé, and my own company. Props, old me!
But mostly I feel sick. Actually sick. My stomach is all acid and bile, and I’m sweating all over the Ferrari. My thighs are pretty much stuck to the seats. JP really is an innocent babe in the woods who I’ve tricked into marrying me, not that he’s proposed yet. I love the beautiful house and JP seems swell, but I’m not sure I can do it, not without remembering everything I lived through to make me this messed up and angry. And was JP really the one I was mad at? He’s the innocent one, too sweet for his own good. If there’s such a thing as an innocent billionaire…
He texts me:I brought you chocolates. There’s a special kind for drizzling…I know where I want to put it.
We need to talk.
Good, I want to talk too.
I wonder if he is 100 percent over the argument I remembered in my vision. Now that I know what I did, that is obviously what the argument was over. And all of his accusations were right. I was definitely messed up and I 100 percent used him. And going to Switzerland to sleep it off sounds pretty reasonable. Since arriving home, he hasn’t mentioned it once,as if he’s over it and nothing will change—drizzling chocolate and a surprise sparkly present waiting at home. My stomach tightens at the thought. I hope he waits a little while.
On my way into the house my phone rings. I recognize the number as the Long Beach PD. It’s probably Denise saying that she’s coming to arrest me. JP could make that go away, but I can too. I hit the ignore button.
I find JP sitting on one of the stools in the kitchen, a silk robe open over some pajama pants. “Morning,cherie,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re back. Where were you?”
I mumble something about Crystal. I don’t mention the police station or impending criminal charges.
JP looks like an ad for luxury living on Sunday mornings. Speaking of which, “You know that yacht,The Good Life? Do you know who it belongs to?”
“I was thinking of buying it,” he says. “You like it so much. All those pictures.” His expression is filled with meaning. “It could be an engage—”
“Do you want coffee?” I cut him off hard. I’m not ready. “We really need to talk. There are some things I haven’t told you.” So many things.
“More?” he jokes. “I had to go to Geneva to recover from your last reveal.”
“Yes,” I say. I assume he’s referring to the fight in the car on the way to the art museum. In my recovered memory he called me a criminal, I assume because I stole all of GoldRush’s taglines—as if the comically fancy stripper descriptions wereunique. No one goes to GoldRush because it has a Russian ballerina. They go there for boobs and liquor. No one cares if the boobs belong to a ballerina.
When I don’t laugh at his joke, he turns serious. “You’ve been acting so strange since I got back. What’s going on?”
I take a deep breath and sit on the stool next to him. I pick up a fresh bagel from a basket and put it back down again. It’s time to pull on my big-girl panties. There’s no reason not to tell him anymore. “JP, I probably should have told you—”
“What?” He looks concerned.
I give him the unembellished story. All of it.
“Why…why didn’t you tell me?” He looks hurt and confused. “I thought we were together. Partners. I’m the person you should run to when things get bad.”
I look at my lap for a few seconds and shut my eyes. He’s right.
“I didn’t want to lose you.” I don’t tell him the second reason—that I didn’t trust him.
“As if I would leave you because you were injured!” He puts his hand over mine. “I would have flown back immediately.”
This is killing me. JP is saying everything right when all I want him to do is screw up and make it easy for me to storm off in a huff. “But what about GoldRush?”
He looks at me calmly. “Well, I was surprised when my lawyer suggested that I sign off on a lawsuit against my girlfriend for stealing intellectual property from a business I didn’t even know I owned.”
“I bet.”
He takes my hands and looks deep into my eyes in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I would feel better if I returned his feelings. “But I still want to marry you.”
JP is insane.
“Why?”
