Only to have Sunny suddenly dart around me. "Oh, my goodness. I am so sorry you found out about Cole and me this way!"
Before I could stop her, Sunny rushed to Juliet and put an arm around the smaller woman's shoulder, somehow comforting her and smoothly leading her toward the front door at the same time. "I hope you can see by the way he's treating youon your birthdaythat he is not worth any of this upset. Believe me…"
That was the last thing I heard clearly before the two women walked out of earshot, their voices dropping low.
I hung back, watching Sunny escort Juliet to the penthouse door and open it for her.
However, she didn't shove Juliet through the newly opened space the way I would have if I were in the same position. Instead, they continued to talk quietly together. Well, Juliet talked and talked and talked. Sunny mostly nodded while tying her coat closed for her.
"It's not really my birthday...." Juliet suddenly wailed loudly enough for me to hear in the kitchen area. "I just wanted to hurt him like he hurt me!"
Suspicion confirmed.I regarded the tearful heiress with a hardened heart.I knew she was lying from the start.
But Sunny just continued nodding sympathetically and produced several tissues out of nowhere.
The two women looked nothing alike, but somehow they appeared to be the best of friends. Sunny spoke in a low, quiet voice while they both dabbed at Juliet's tears.
"You're right!" Juliet said, loudly enough for me to hear. "You're so right. Cole Bentonisn't shit. Thank you!"
My mouth nearly fell open when, instead of forcing me to call security, Juliet gave Sunny a tight hug and left of her own accord without so much as a backward look toward me.
"You've got my number!" Sunny stood inside the open door, waving as her new best friend headed toward the elevator. "Call or text me if you forget anything I told you."
I was more than a little impressed by the time Sunny finally closed the door to my penthouse.
"You handled that situation well," I told her when she rejoined me in the kitchen—sans the suddenly clingy heiress. "You're already a much better pretend fiancée than I imagined when my grandmother put me up to this."
Instead of accepting my compliment, Sunny glared at me. "Every word I told Julie was true."
She shook her head at me, her big brown eyes full of disappointment. "That was cruel, Cole. The way you treated someone you'd been intimate with..."
I scoffed. "Six, maybe seven times, tops."
"Crueland uncalled for," she insisted, continuing on as if my defense meant nothing. "Decent people don't treat other people like that. And I'm going to pray Juliet really heard what I said about you not being worth the pain and heartbreak."
"You were a mistake!"My mother's voice rushed at me from the past without warning."All this pain. All this heartbreak! This is all your fault! And you're not worth it."
I stilled in the present. To keep myself from flinching as both my mother's words and those of the angry woman standing in front of me sliced through my ice like a diamond blade.
Sunny isn’t anyone truly important, I reminded myself, icing over the unexpected rise of my emotions. She was a pawn. A convenient chess piece in my game. One that I wouldn't mind fucking, sure. But wishing to fuck someone—some pawn—was no reason to allow it to hurt you.
"Are you done, little thief?" I asked. "Or would you like to judge me some more before you lay your head down in the rat-free room I'm providing?"
That did it. Sunny wasn't nearly as good at masking her emotions as I was.
Shevisibly flinched, then lowered her hypocritical head.
"Okay, let's agree to disagree," she muttered. "And we'll just forget about the other thing."
The other thing—the side contract she'd no longer be signing—practically ticked on the counter like a parallel universe metronome, reminding me of what might have been.
"I, um, actually need the code to your apartment, too," she said into my regretful silence. "So I can come and go when you're not here."
I dully recited the twelve digits on my keypad while kicking myself for not remembering to text Juliet that our standing sex date was over. "It's my grandparents' birthdays, if you forget. The original Coleridge's, followed by Nora's."
Her expression softened a bit at the mention of Nora. "Oh, I used to use my grandma's birthday for everything, too. Even to unlock my phone."
The bittersweet note in her voice made me prod. "But not anymore?"
