Page 97 of A Song for You

Not sure why they need to now, but I keep that to myself. I school my expression and calm my jealousy. “Right. Well, tell her I said hi. Will you be over after?”

Cat rakes her fingers through my hair and brushes a thumb against my cheek. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” I feign indifference.

“You know I will be. We haven’t spent a night apart in over a month.”

I sigh in resignation. I can’t hide myself from her like I can with everyone else. And I hate that I even tried. She doesn’t deserve that. “I’m sorry.”

Angling close, she presses her lips to mine softly. “Don’t apologize,” she murmurs, pulling back and settling on my desk again. “I get it. If it makes you feel any better, if you were going to dinner with an ex, I would lose my mind with jealousy.”

I smirk. “Oh yeah?”

Huffing a laugh, she swats at my chest. “Yeah. But there’s no reason for me to be jealous, right?”

I roll my eyes. “For you? No. Women who aren’t you don’t exist to me.”

She licks her lips. “You really don’t even have to work to come up with those lines, do you? They just slip out.”

I shrug. “They’re the truth. I can’t lie to you, Cat. I’m in love with you. It’s that simple.”

“I love you too,” she says softly. “And no one exists for me in the way you do. Completely. Irrevocably. Head over heels.” She presses her hand to my heart.

“Completely. Irrevocably. Head over heels,” I repeat.

Fifty

Jay

Warning Sign by Coldplay

One more afternoon spent doing the opposite of what I’d like to be doing—Cat. I leave for the dreaded Christmas trip to London next month, and then she’s heading to Paris for her internship the first week of January. How is it that I already miss her, and I woke up beside her this morning? Hell, I woke up inside her mouth this morning. Not a fucking horrible way to start the day. Yet she’s not here, so it’s gone downhill quickly.

The buzzer on my phone summons me from my delicious memories.

“Yes?” I reply, waiting for my secretary to speak.

“A Ms. Alves is here to see you,” she says, her tone dripping with disapproval.

Mia? Here?

“Send her in,” I say with a sigh. Cat got home late last night, and then we got lost in one another and didn’t talk about her dinner with Mia. An uneasy feeling settles in my stomach, though, when Mia walks in with her chin jutted petulantly and her nose turned up.

She throws a thank-you to my secretary as she crosses the threshold, but her eyes remain on me, as if I’m somehow going to slither away when she’s not looking.

I don’t slither for anyone.

“Mia, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask, pointing at the guest chairs.

Still on her feet in front of my desk, she narrows her eyes as she purses her lips, clearly thinking she has the upper hand. And maybe she does, because I don’t have a clue what the issue is. Cat and I have been together for almost two months—longer if you count the inordinate amount of time it took to win her over. The last conversation that Mia and I had about Cat was before we made things official, and that feels like a lifetime ago if I’m being honest.

Life can be categorized into three parts for me. Before my mother’s affair, the time in which I sought revenge for a decade and subsisted on nothing but that, and the time since meeting Cat. I wouldn’t return to either of the previous chapters for anything.

“She’s fucking Catherine James,” she says, as if the information should shock me.

I steeple my fingers in front of me and wait for her to go on.

“Is this all a game to you?” she shouts. “Make her fall for you so you can take her down with the rest of them? I can’t believe I actually thought you cared about her.” She scoffs.