Ugh. There’s only my mom’s healthy food in my fridge. I can’t even have a snack.
Fidget pads over to me with a Reese’s breakfast bar and drops it in my lap.
“I really don’t want to know where you found this.”
I do really want that pasta, though.
“Tomorrow,” I tell Fidget, “I’m getting back to the old me. These last few months—temporary insanity. We’re going to SoulCycle classes and to eat salads. Kathy can go live happily ever after with Fitz. We don’t care.”
Fidget obviously cares about the food situation.
“After I eat my pasta.”
The front door opens.
“Did you get breadsticks?” I croak.
“Still hitting the carbs?”
Fidget barks.
“Knox.” I jump up off the couch.
“Get out. What are you doing here? How do you have a key?” I rush over to him. “Give that back. Did your mom give that to you?” I grab his wrist and try to take it from him.
“My mother is right about you—you’re not wife material.” He jerks his hand away.
“Sure, and that’s why you still like jacking off to photos of me, pervert.”
Knox grabs me by the arm and throws me into the end table in the foyer.
Fidget barks, snapping at him, as I scrabble upright. Fortunately, I have experience trying to wrestle Fidget into a bath since she’s been banned from a number of groomers, and this is no different.
“I’m calling—”
“Your boyfriend?” he spits out. He’s dirty and unshaven and reeks of stale beer. “You don’t deserve to be with him. I bet he’s as disgusted at himself as I am for fucking you. No man wants you on his arm. It’s embarrassing that the owner of one of the greatest NHL teams in the league is parading you around—some disgusting cow.”
Theverbal blow stings.
Knox is right, isn’t he?
“You need to leave him before he dumps you. He’s going to cheat on you if he hasn’t already,” Knox says nastily.
I’m not going to cry in front of him.
Fuck him.
“I don’t”—I clench my fists—“need a man to give me purpose or meaning. And it’s not some sort of feminist awakening. This is how I live my life. This is why I don’t have the likes of you in my life.”
Fidget is next to me, growling softly.
Knox suddenly looks apprehensive.
I look down at the dog.
She has a meat mallet in her mouth.
I take it, ignoring the slobber.
