“Then get here earlier. I’m hungry.”
I sigh. I wanted the fillet steak.
“Well, today at work?—”
“Trust me, you’re not the only one with obligations,” he says, launching into his day without asking about mine. This always happens, and the lump in my throat grows. Thoughts swirl. Why am I even with him?
Why do I put up with this?
Then practical thoughts: I’m almost 30. I can’t start over. I want a family as soon as I’m settled. If I date someone new for years before deciding on kids, I might be too old. Women have a ticking clock. Men have all the time in the world.
“You’re not listening,” says Matthew.
I realize I have no idea what he just said—I totally drifted off while we ate.
“Sorry, could you repeat that?”
He rolls his eyes. “Typical. Let’s go home. I’m playing online with friends.”
He waves for the waiter, and an awkward silence follows.
I wait for him to pull out his wallet—he invited me. But he doesn’t.
My heart skips a beat. I always pay: rent, groceries, dinners. He can’t even pay for a nice dinner once?
A proposal? As if.
He just wanted a fancy meal. I don’t know why I’m still with him?—
“The waiter… he’s waiting,” he says, slipping his phone into his pocket and folding his napkin.
I stifle a grunt, pull my credit card from my purse.
“That’s twelve hundred dollars,” he says, and I tap the card.
The week was brutal.I took on a new case that seems manageable, but it’s kept me at the office until 10 p.m. every night. The mood at home is miserable again. A woman’s supposed to cook and clean.Blah blah blah.I’m almost ready to admit my relationship has crashed. Or maybe I drove it into the wall.
Someone knocks on my glass door. “John, I’m in the middle of a?—”
But it’s not my assistant.
Instead of lanky John, a giant of a man stands there: Colton fucking King.
He’s almost too broad and tall for my doorway. His pants are crisp, his shirt perfectly ironed, and the Rolex on his wrist reminds me he’s a famous NHL player now…thousands of fans, major endorsements, but… he’s also my bully from high school. My expression hardens, though I can’t deny he still looks… Ugh he’s still handsome. He’d always been beautiful. Not normal handsome, not cute—beautiful in a way that always felt unfair. High cheekbones, thick lashes no man had any right to possess, and those light blue, Siberian-Husky-like eyes that could stop a person mid-thought.
And now he’d somehow become even worse.
Bigger. Stronger. Built like a stupid Greek god, all hard lines and easy power. The bleached blond buzz cut should have ruined it, should have made him look like an idiot. Instead, it only makes him more striking.
More impossible to look away from. Almost sex?—
Stop. Colton is not sexy. He’s an asshole.
“Colton—what are you doing here?”
“I didn’t know we were on a first-name basis,” he says stiffly, a faint Russian accent slipping through. He’d shown up halfway through high school with shaky English, but thanks to his pretty privilege and hockey skills, he’d landed at the cool table almost instantly. Typical. That guy could barely speak a word and still ended up popular.
“What else should I call you? We always used our first names. I didn’t know there was an expiration date.”
