Page 27 of Don't Go Faking My Heart

Ash puts one finger on her nose and points the other at me.

"Why did he say he was here?" Millie asks.

"To get back together with her," I say.

"For work," Ash says at the same time.

"He talked about wanting you back?" Millie asks Ash.

"It was a power move," Ash says. "We all know he doesn't care about me. He's a narcissist! He cares about me caring about him. He knows I don't, so there's no reason to stick around."

"Ash, I wish that were true," Millie says, "but that's not Philip's M.O. He's not a narcissist. If he has anything, it’s antisocial personality disorder. He's not happy unless he wins. I guarantee he's going to stick around to try to get you to break up with Rusty, choose him, move with him back to Chicago so he can isolate you, extinguish your spark, and then drop you when you fight to get it back."

"What?" The word explodes out of my mouth like a slapshot. I clench both fists so tight, my knuckles crack. Violent, hot anger pumps from my heart and into my veins. "Is that what he did? I am going to kill him."

Ash's eyes pop.

"Get in line," Millie says.

"And use your imagination," Parker says, turning her nose up at my word choice. "Kill? Seriously? I'm going to disembowel him and use his?—"

"I'm already using his entrails," Millie says. "I'm going to boil them like a witch."

"Oh, that's good," Parker says appreciatively.

I'm too angry. I'm too explosively furious. I can't let Ash see me like this. The memory of how wide her eyes are will already haunt me enough. If she sees me out of control, I'll never get over ruining her faith in me.

Never.

I draw on every tool and technique I can think of. I focus on my breathing. I count backwards from one thousand by sevens. Anything to manage the emotion bursting from me.

"Fine," Parker says. "Then I want to travel to Egypt, break open a Pharaoh's cursed tomb, collect the scarabs, bring them back to Sugar Maple, and set them loose on Philip until they eat him from the inside out."

Jane fist-bumps Parker.

"What about you, Lou?" I ask, because Parker's idea may be grizzly, but it isn't enough. Not nearly. And if I can't let myself fantasize about dismantling this guy, I need to live vicariously through the people who can.

Lou glances at Ash, who's fidgeting with a fingernail. Maybe it's the poet in her, but I feel like Lou’s looking at Ash differently than the others. She doesn't say anything until Ash meets her eye.

Lou smiles.

"I want to see him lose. I want to revel in the devastation on his face as he wishes the worst thing that ever happened to him was dismemberment, disembowelment, or death. I want to watch him suffer knowing he's incapable of a love like Ash's, but that she's found someone else totally, perfectly worthy of her."

My throat closes, thick with emotion that I don't dare show anyone, not even these women who can see through me like a window, and especially not my best friend who … can't.

All of the Janes look at me.

Including the best Jane: Ash.

I nod like Ash's eyes don’t eviscerate me as thoroughly as the Janes wish they could do to Philip. I force my words out as casually as I can. "I like it."

Ash's grin spreads slowly over her face until her light and goodness fill the room. "Then let's do it."

CHAPTER EIGHT

ASH

As much as I insist to my friends that my promise to the chamber of commerce to market the town was my idea, my problem, they insist on helping.

---