She stands to her feet, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “How does it feel, Mitch? Hmmm? How does it feel to know that you aren’t enough?”
I take a step toward her, my anger rearing up in me like lava. However, I don’t make another move. She watches me, taking in my stance and appearance. Her laughter burst out of her happily.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says, wiping the smile off her face. “I shouldn’t gloat. Besides, I’m not your enemy.” She walks up to me, her hips swaying with each step she takes. When she stops, she places a hand on my chest.
“Now that the bitch is out of your system and you see she’s nothing special, I think it’s time you and I had a talk about us.” Her hand moves from my chest, lowering to my stomach and then my belt buckle. I grabbed her hand, shoving it away from me.
“Hell no.”
My heart is broken. I’ve never felt heartbreak like this in all my years of dating, but it would take an act of God to get me back in bed with Valerie. I’m not that fucking sad.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Exactly what I said. There will never be an us again. I don’t give a shit if I live to be 100 years old with nobody by my side, I will never be desperate enough to get back with you.”
Her face scrunches up. I watch as disbelief, sadness, and then anger take over her features.
She steps away, glaring up at me. “Just so you know, she took him back.”
Her words cut me so deep I may actually bleed out. Each word taking a slice of my flesh with it.
“You’re lying.”
She scoffs. “Call Shaun if you don’t believe me. Andrew has been boasting about it. Even asked Jessica to find them a new place because they’re selling her little run-down piece of shit house.” She storms over to my desk and yanks her purse off.
Meanwhile, the last remnants of my heart are falling to the ground like shards of glass from a broken windowpane. Val goes to the door and opens it. She stops before walking out, turning to face me.
“At first, I was just playing about seeing you hurt, but now, I hope this kills you. I hope this sits with you for years to come. And when they cut you out of those boys’ lives, I hope you realize you never meant anything to them. You were always just the third fucking wheel they couldn’t get rid of.”
When she storms out of my office, slamming the door behind her, her words stay with me. I don’t want to believe that Ella would take him back. There is no way she would do that. Grabbing my keys off the desk, I rushed out to my truck. I needed the truth. I needed to find the one person I knew would tell me the truth.
I pull my truck up to the precinct and immediately spot Devon leaning against his squad car talking to another police officer. When he notices me walking up to him, he says something that has the other guy walking off.
“Miller, what are you doing here? I’ve been calling you.”
“Is Andrew still with Kiely?”
His gaze narrows before he looks down at the ground. “No,” he finally says.
Everything around me spins. I place my hands on top of my head.
“Look, I was calling to tell you all this. Two weeks ago, Kiely walked out on him. Told him she wasn’t really into playing stepmother. He found out shortly after she had been sleeping with some delivery guy around her age who was delivering to the law firm. I guess all that shit about young pussy wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.” Devon tries to joke, but I’m beyond the joking phase.
I guess he reads it on my face cause his smile falls and he clears his throat.
“Anyway, he’d been crying to Shaun about it since it all went down. He started talking about getting his family back. I didn’t really think anything of it because I knew you and Ella were doing your thing. But two days ago Andrew started talking about it as if it were a sure thing. Even said they were house hunting and shit. I’ve been trying to call you to see if it was true. You weren’t answering your phone. But seeing you now tells me it is.”
My heart races so fast it feels like I might pass out. The pain is severe and damn near takes me to my knees. All that we had, all the love we made, even after the night in the cabin. I know that what she felt was real. I could feel it in my soul that Ella loved me. How can she do this to me? To us?
I drop my head down between my shoulders; the burning in my eyes is hard to fight.
“What happened? I thought ya’ll were good?” Devon asks.
I shake my head, using one hand, I wipe my eyes with my pointer and thumb fingers at the same time.
“Fuck!” the word comes out in a laugh. “He and AJ caught us. The kid wasn’t feeling it and Ella got scared.”
“Damn man. I mean, I get it. That’s her son, but what about you?”
