“I mean that, sincerely.”
“I know you do. Thank you.” Another sniffle. “You’re really not mad at meat allfor totaling your Ferrari?”
“No. I’m grateful you spared my Bugatti.”
I can hear her smile over the phone line. “The punishmenthas to fit the crime. I’m psycho but not crazy. You didn’tmurderanyone, for crying out loud.”
I clutch my heart, feeling physical pain. I love this woman. I do. I know it as well as I know my own name. I love her, and I betrayed her, and, now, I’m rightly suffering for it. Seriously now, what the fuck is wrong with me?
“I have to go,” Georgina says softly. “Thanks again for paying off my loans. But I’m warning you: don’t spend another dime on my father or me, or I’m going to come over and smash your Bugatti.”
“As long as you come over,” I whisper.
“Bye, Reed.”
“Wait. Georgie, come on. Can’t you feel what’s happening between us? We’re stillus. I know I’ve got to prove myself to you, but I will. The most important thing is that our chemistry, our electricity, it’s the same as it ever was. Come home and let’s talk until sunrise and figure this out.”
“I can’t come over.”
I look at the clock on my phone.10:56.“Yeah, okay, that’s probably a good call. I don’t want you driving late at night. I’ll come to your hotel.” Without waiting for her reply, I march out of my gym and race toward my bedroom, planning to take a lightning-quick shower and then drive like a bat out of hell to her hotel.
“Don’t go to my hotel, Reed. I’m not there.”
I freeze in the middle of my bathroom, already half naked. “Where are you?”
She sighs. But doesn’t answer me.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Where are you?”
“I wasn’t planning to tell you this, but, since you’re asking, I’m sitting in my rental car, outside a bar, about to head inside.”
My heart stops. “It’s almost eleven.”
“Yeah, that’s the time of night when bars have people inside them.”
I can barely breathe. I feel sick. “Are you meeting someone? A friend from school? One of my artists?”
“No, none of the above. I’m flying solo tonight.”
An odd cocktail of relief and panic swirls inside me. I’m thrilled Georgina doesn’t have a date... that she’s not, for instance, meeting Savage or Endo for a drink. But if she’s truly going to walk into a baralone at eleven at night, then she won’t be alone for long. Is she going to a bar, alone, on a Tuesday night, because she’s looking for a casual hook-up? Does she intend to have revenge sex tonight, with some random stranger, in retaliation for the sex shethinksI had with Isabel?
“To be clear, if Iweremeeting up with someone at the bar tonight, itwouldn’t be any of your business,” she says. “When you hooked up with Isabel, you released me from my obligation not to hook up with ‘anyone on Planet Earth.’”
Jealousy explodes inside my veins like a Molotov cocktail tossed onto a puddle of gasoline. “Tell me where you are,” I say, trying, and failing, to keep my voice calm.
She scoffs. “Why would I do that?”
“What’s the name of the fucking bar?” I shout.
“Calm down,” she says, and I can hear the smirk on her sultry lips. “All I’m going to do is have a drink—onlyone, because I’m driving—and listen to some live music to unwind. Imightchat with a nice-looking stranger, if the opportunity falls into my lap. But when the musician is done, the plan is for me to head back to my hotel and go to bed, all by myself.”
I exhale the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean. “Thank you for telling me that. I almost had a heart attack, imagining you?—”
“Although... you know what they say about plans, right? Make one, only if you want to make God laugh.”
“Georgina.”
“I suppose it’spossibleI could meet a handsome stranger at the bar tonight who charms my pants off...literally. In which case, Imightfind myself at his place later tonight, screwing the hell out of him...while thinking of you and Isabel.”
