He scoffed, which hurt more than it should. Like I was so uncool, so boring. But he’d turn this around.
“Yeah, you’re right. She can come off as dull and boring and not much fun,” he said. “Like you say, not someone I’d want to work with. But sometimes you have to work with people you don’t want to hang out with.”
He shrugged. Shrugged.
The woman exec laughed, and a few others laughed in the background too. Not the camera guys, I was sure. Not Phoebe on the boom. Not Simon. Maybe Simon. And the other two execs visiting that day. Even if Tim had been lying, those people were all laughing atme. And that hadn’t been fake.
A sick feeling spread from my stomach and around my body, visceral, hot, nauseating. This beautifully friendly, colorful kitchen that I’d spent months designing and had absolutelyloved a week ago, even a few seconds ago, closed in on me until I couldn’t breathe.
Beyond the tightness in my chest, my racing heart, the searing heat in my face, I could feel the cringing mortification from everyone there. Isla and Declan, Ishani and Kingston, Sunny and Shikha, and the brothers.
When Darcy muttered, “You call this guy yourboyfriend?” shame hit me hard.
Isla grabbed the remote from the coffee table and switched off the television.
50
Tim
Iturned to Tabitha.“Those execs tricked me into saying that. I shut them down, and they promised not to air my comments. Those lying snakes.”
“Don’t come near me,” Tabitha said, her face a fury of red anger. She bolted to standing and, without a word to anyone else, fired through the doorway.
“Jesus Christ, man,” Darcy said. “Who the fuck are you?”
I wanted to punch him, but he was right. “We agreed we were going to fight for the sake of the show, because we wanted to win the prize,” I said weakly. “And I told them not to use that clip,” I added as I rushed from the room to find Tabs.
A huge bang from upstairs announced her bedroom door had been slammed. I was an idiot for trusting the execs, but I wasn’t about to lose Tabs over this.
I flew upstairs and knocked on the closed door. “Tabs, honey. It’s Tim. Please let me in.”
“Go away. Go home.”
“Tabs, I backtracked right after what we just saw. I asked the execs not to use the stupid stuff I said about you, and they agreed not to.”
The door swung open so fast I stepped back and swayed. Her face was streaked with tears. I was a total fucking bastard, and I hated that I’d done this to her. Why had I panicked and answered the question like that? Trying to fix it afterward didn’t make that okay.
“Tabs, I’m sorry. I love you,” I pleaded, desperate, almost in tears myself.
“No. You don’t get to call me Tabs.”
She stepped outside her bedroom and into the hallway. I needed to correct this.
“How could you think they’d keep you saying I was dull and boring and no fun out of the show? Those piranhas live for that drama. And no, this is not what we agreed on,” she said, shaking her head. “We agreed on a number of scenarios, and we went over them and rehearsed them. We agreed not to get personal.” She wiped her hands down her face. “If anyone else had said that about me, I would have felt hurt.”
Tears dripped down her face, and it was everything I could do not to fold her in my arms to comfort her. Comfort her from whatI’ddone.
“But it was you,” she went on. “I’m devastated. I’m h-h-h-humiliated.” She was sobbing by now, and I hated being helpless to stop her pain. “How do you think I can show my face at work now? How can I even face those two guys downstairs? I’ve been working with them for a week, and they respect me. And then they hear someone who is supposed to be my boyfriend talkabout me like that. Dull, boring, no fun—everything Perry said about me.”
She swiped a hand over her wet cheek, and her shoulders shuddered. “Why didn’t you tell me about the online comments?”
Fuck. “I was trying to do something about it. I asked Simon to block them, and he said he didn’t have that power. Then I asked Solomon to upload videos showing who you really were, kind and artistic and hardworking, but his mother is the boss and she nixed them. Then I called every exec in the company. I contacted a lawyer to find something in our contracts that would control those comments. I set up a fake account and replied to the worst of the comments.”
“I thought that was you.” She slapped her hands at her sides, shaking her head. “Tim, you didn’t think I was strong enough to handle the comments? It hurts to read them, yes. It’s very painful. But also, I’m a grown woman, I have to handle these things. I wanted more faith from you.”
She seemed so defeated and sad and disappointed in me, it sent a fathomless ache into my chest.
“I don’t know, Tim. Maybe we were never meant to be. Things shouldn’t be this hard. Twice now, we’ve been derailed, and we’ve only been together two weeks.” She wiped under her eyes. “I need to hit pause.”
