But as I stared at the front door, the anger and heartbreak twisted together until I could barely tell them apart.
I took one last shaky breath, stepped out of the car, and walked toward the steps.
Reid opened the door before I reached it. “Hey, baby.”
He leaned in for a kiss as I walked inside, but I jerked my head to the side, avoiding his touch.
“Lila? What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile faltering.
I didn’t waste time with small talk. I pulled out my phone, opened the post, and thrust it toward him with a shaky hand.
I watched his expression change from puzzled to shocked as he looked at the screen. “Work hubby? What the hell?”
“That was my thought when I saw it, too.”
“I get that it doesn’t look good,” he conceded. “But it’s obviously a joke.
“A joke?” I scoffed, shaking my head on a stuttering breath. “She tagged me to make sure I saw this. Look at the photo, Reid. How close you are to her.”
He stared at the image before meeting my gaze again. “I swear, this is not what it looks like. We were at lunch with Ryder and the whole team. She took a selfie with him first, then the legs of her chair got tangled with mine, and since I was already up, she asked if she could take a picture with me too, since I was the reason she’d been invited in the first place. This was her first lunch with a movie star, and she was grateful. That’s all it was.”
I let out a bitter laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Calling herself your work wife is disrespectful to me, your actual fiancée.”
The confident grin he flashed me didn’t have its usual impact. “Kaylee doesn’t mean any harm by it. She gets overexcited sometimes.”
“You do, though,” I pointed out, crossing my arms over my chest. “But you’re allowing her to cross boundaries without any repercussions.”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion.”
I took an actual step back at his reply. “How am I blowing this out of proportion when people are saying crap about how you two are a power duo and the cutest team ever?”
“Fucking hell.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She should’ve thought before she posted that, but you know how everyone jokes around at the office.”
“Everyone?” Tears burned behind my eyes. “Does that mean you have another work wife at the office I should be worried about?”
He shook his head. “What? No!”
“Then why do you keep letting this one get away with stuff like this?”
“I’m not defending her. I’m telling you the truth.” Reid’s frustration was starting to show. “Lila, come on. You know I love you. You’re the woman I’m marrying. The only one I want.”
The words sounded good, but they weren’t enough. I shook my head, my chest heaving with the effort it took me to not completely fall apart.
He didn’t get it. We had just talked about her crossing boundaries last week. I had told him I was hurting, but he hadn’t truly heard me.
Now he let this happen instead of protecting what we have.
“If I posted a picture with another man and called him my work husband, would you be okay with it?”
His mouth opened, then closed. And that was enough for me to know he’d been about to deny it would’ve bothered him even though it obviously would.
I felt something inside me finally break, and I couldn’t breathe through the pain anymore. “I can’t do this.”
Reid’s face went completely white, his eyes widening with shock. “Lila, wait. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m done.” Tears poured down my face as I reached for my left hand. My fingers shook violently as I workedthe engagement ring off. I looked at it one last time, then shoved it toward him. “Take this. I can’t wear it anymore.”
Reid stared at the ring in his palm like he didn’t understand what it was. “Baby, please. Don’t do this. We can work through it. I love you.”
