“No. I’ll be okay. I don’t think I can face anyone at the minute.” Jo pressed her forehead to the steering wheel again and sighed. “I don’t know if I’m angry or humiliated or heartbroken. I just know I feel like I’ve lost something I never really had.”
“Jo, listen to me for a minute, okay?” Ada cleared her throat. “What she’s done is fucked up, it reallyis. She took your consent and turned it into her fantasy. That’s the first thing I want you to remember. Consent. You signed that form to go into that room,knowingit could potentially be someone you knew. It says it in the small print, and I know you—youdon’tmiss the small print.”
Jo winced. Ada was right. Jo had spent over forty minutes online reading through all the Terms and Conditions, the nondisclosure agreement, and everything else that came with a Satin membership.
“But,” Ada continued, “I also think she did it because she didn’t know how else to be close to you. You’ve been so clear about what youcan’thave with her because of who she is, so maybe she thought this was the only way.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Ada agreed. “But it does mean you need to decide whether you can forgive her or not. It means you need to give yourself some time to sit and process before you make any decisions.”
Jo let her head fall back against the seat, her gaze fixed on the graffiti-covered lamppost across the street. “I don’t know if I can.”
“And if you can’t, that’s okay.”
“I don’t know who she is anymore, Ada.”
Ada sighed. “Maybe Amelia doesn’t know who she is anymore either.”
Jo closed her eyes and swallowed. She knew she had a lot of thinking to do, but right now, she was angry. Far too angry to sit and have a conversation with Amelia, and far too angry to see any kind of reasoning as to why she’d done it. “I think I need to lie down and be alone for a while.”
“I know.”
Jo lifted her head and glanced at her living room window. Unless Amelia had left via the back exit and scaled several garden fences, she was still in there. “Can I call you tomorrow when I’ve got some sleep?IfI can sleep.”
“You know you can,” Ada said. “And Jo?”
“Yeah?”
“If I find out that you’re considering taking Callum back, Iwillkill you.”
Jo snorted. “Trust me, I’dneverconsider taking him back.”
“Well, at least we can agree on something right now. Get some rest, and when you want to talk, you know where I am.”
For the first time in weeks, Jo didn’t feel turned on. She didn’t feel those intense butterflies, she didn’t feel giddy with the promise of something forbidden and electric, she just felt…tired. So fucking tired.
Amelia saton Jo’s couch, trembling. She hadn’t moved since she’d left. She’d simply lowered herself to the couch when the front door slammed shut, then sat in the silence ever since. There had been no car engine firing up, and no speeding away from the kerb…just the oppressive stillness of a flat that was drenched in fury and heartbreak.
Amelia hadn’t cried in years. Not since her life changed some twenty-odd years ago and she’d become numb. She hadn’t even cried when Callum left for Southeast Asia without a proper goodbye. But now, she sobbed with her hands pressed to her face as broken gasps shook her whole body.
Her chest ached, her head pounded, and she couldn’t breathe properly.
How had she let it get this far?
She should have told Jo weeks ago. She should have been honest from the start. But every time she thought about confessing, of risking even a sliver of what they had, fear had overruled her honesty.
And now, Jo hated her.
She lifted her head as the door opened. Jo stepped inside with a clenched jaw and glassy eyes, her keys still in hand. The moment Amelia saw her, she got to her feet and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Jo, I?—”
Jo’s mask slipped for half a second, but she quickly forced it back into place. Amelia watched it happen in real time. “I want you to leave.”
Amelia’s heart broke again. “Please, just listen to me.”
“There’snothingyou can say that will make this okay.”
