Chapter One
Nico
My phone rings for the tenth time since I walked away from her at the airport. I don’t think she believed me when I told her I was going to check into a hotel. She told me I better start walking then before she slid her spoiled ass into the back of our scheduled ride as she took off to her parents’ house.
The plan was to have a nice weekend to get to know her parents out here in Seattle. We live in Boston which is where I first met Carly. She was interning at my company, and we were the stereotypical boss falls for intern story. Carly was a junior at Boston University when we met. She was twenty one and I was thirty. Not exactly a large age gap but enough that we were in very different places in our lives, hence what led to our first two break ups over the last three years.
I was handed the proverbial keys to the kingdom when I was nineteen. My father had created one of the largest financial investment firms in the nation and with him so suddenly passing away, there was only one thing I could do. So, I took the reins of a multibillion dollar company and did my best to keep it and myself afloat.Surprisingly enough, we’ve been thriving, all thanks to my hard working staff and very little to do with me, if I’m honest.
My mom was an unofficial liaison up until two years ago when she also passed away, though it wasn’t peacefully in her sleep like my father. A car accident took the most important person in my life away. She went into sudden cardiac arrest at the wheel when she was leaving my house one morning after brunch, drove head on into another car and…that was it.
I had just started seeing Carly off and on when my mom passed and though the two of them never really saw eye to eye, she was unwaveringly there for me through the most shocking tragedy I’d experienced. Maybe that’s why I’ve put up with her shit for these last two years. Maybe I feel some weird fucked up loyalty owed.
She’s a nice girl, gorgeous obviously, and she wants a big family one day. I want that more than any amount of money or land or anything really. But fuck, I’m starting to think that I need to let go of that dream, with Carly specifically, that is.
She’s now twenty four years old and yet she still acts like a self-centered teenager. It’s like she can turn it on and off with a flick of her wrist. In the beginning, she was always so poised and ‘yes, Mr. Sanders’ while simultaneously delivering me lusty eyes that had me bending her over my desk two weeks into her summer internship. As soon as she got used to being on my arm, the high end restaurants, the penthouse apartment, the lavish galas…she changed. Or maybe she was always like this, and her façade finally dropped.
Every single time we’ve broken up, it’s been over something ridiculous like me not remembering our eighteen month anniversary, because honestly, who fucking keeps track of that? The other time it was because she had stormed into a board meeting, whining that the jeweler didn’t have the earrings she wanted in store. I was so fucking humiliated I thought I was going to stroke out then and there.
The one we are on the verge of right now, though? This feelslike the final fucking straw. She can be a brat to me, I’ve learned to handle it, but the way she spoke to our stewardess…I lost it.
We took the company plane out here which is fine, that’s what it’s there for, but do you think she bothered to say thank you or acknowledge that it’s a luxury that doesn’t come to everyone? Of course not. Fine, whatever. I didn’t think much of it, but as we hit a patch of turbulence and the stewardess fell, spilling black coffee on Carly’s white shirt, all hell broke loose.
Carly absolutely lost it, reducing that poor stewardess to nothing but a puddle of tears and I fucking snapped. I told her how I couldn’t stand her selfishness, her entitlement or her disrespect. The plane had to head down to LA to pick up my CFO for a conference which meant I was stuck in Seattle for at least the night. Didn’t mean I was going to fucking spend it with her.
Now it’s an hour later and I’m pulling up to X, one of Seattle’s finest hotels. Or at least that’s what their website said. Whatever, it’s just one night. I could really care less where I sleep, as long as I’m fucking away from her. Speak of the devil, as soon as I step inside the lobby, my carry on in tow, my phone rings.
I nod my head in thanks to the doorman before I finally answer it.
“What?” I snap.
“What? Seriously? That’s how you’re going to speak to me? God, Nicholas. You need a serious attitude adjustment.
A humorless laugh escapes me as I shake my head. Does she even hear herself? My mother was so insanely right about her. She begged me to leave her, told me again and again she was only with me for the money and the status. I didn’t want to believe it, I didn’t listen. Now here I am, years later wishing I would have walked away from the beginning.
“Seriously, how long until you’ll be here? My parents are asking questions.”
My eyes widen in disbelief at her words. This woman has balls the size of cannons, I swear.
“Carly, I’m not coming. Tell them I spoiled you fucking rotten and you’re no longer someone I want to be around.”
The phone goes silent for several seconds before she speaks.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m done. We’re done. I can’t fucking do this with you. I don’twantto.”
Another few moments go by before she explodes.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? You choose this weekend of all weekends? I thought we got past the hard stuff. This is so typical Nicholas! You’re so hell bent to self-sabotage you can’t let yourself be happy! Well, fine. You want to let go of the best thing that ever happened to you? Be my fucking guest!”
With that, the line goes dead. I lower my phone from my ear, clenching my teeth as I make eye contact with a man behind the check in counter. He gives me a sympathetic look as I step up to him, sliding him my black card and ID.
“Do you have any rooms available? One night,” I ask.
He nods. “Of course. Preferences?”
I shake my head. “Just a bed.”
