Page 42 of Love on Ice

He shakes his head. “You wore me out. I only woke up five minutes before you.”

“That’s not fair, I thought I had ruined everything.” I pout at him.

“Never. That was a lot of fun. Thank you,” he says sincerely.

“Glad we settled that. I’m going to go have a shower.”

“Care for some company?” he asks, running his hand up my spine.

“Seems like you’ve woken up ready to go again.”

“You’re like my own personal bottle of Viagra,” he teases.

After another round in the shower, we sit down to have breakfast, my stomach is ready to eat itself. I dig into some avocado toast and poached eggs.Sublime.As I moan around my food, Felix gives me a look. “What? I worked up an appetite.”

“Yeah, you did,” Felix answers cockily.

My phone beeps from the bedside table, and like an addict, I get up, grab my phone, and click open the messages. It’s from Meadow Miller, the COO of my company.

Meadow: Heads up. Page Six article about your breakup has gone live.

“Fuck,” I curse as I click the link.

“Everything okay?” Felix asks.

“Not really,” I answer, chewing my nail as I start to read the article. “Page Six has written an article about my breakup,” I explain as my eyes scan down the article. “I was kind of hoping to deal with it when I got home,” I share as I continue to read. “That motherfucking asshole,” I blurt out. “Josh leaked the news to try to salvage his reputation. He implies that I’m too much of a party girl and that what we wanted didn’t align together.” Tears well in my eyes. “Our futures didn’t align because I walked in on him fucking his intern.”

Felix gets up, grabs me, and places me in his lap as he hugs me tightly. “I’ve got you,” he whispers to me, and that’s what does me in as I burst out crying. He holds me like that for what feels like an eternity until my phone rings.

“I have to get this, it’s my brother.” I sniffle, getting up out of the security of his arms, walking outside to the pool area, and taking a seat.

“What the fuck did Josh do?” is the first thing Sam says.

“Hey,” I say, bursting out crying again.

“Harpie, what happened?” Sam asks, using my childhood nickname.

I sniffle. “I went to surprise him at work and found him fucking his twenty-one-year-old intern.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him.” Sam curses. “I can’t believe that fucking asshole has the nerve to tell Page Six that you broke up because you didn’t want the same things.”

“Guess that much was true, he wanted to fuck his intern, and I wanted monogamy.”

“That asshole. His name is blacklisted. I’ll fucking make sure of it,” Sam says angrily. “How long ago did you break up?”

“A bit over a week.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

“Because I was embarrassed. Like the fucking article says, I’ve lost another man. That there’s something wrong with me because I can’t keep them.” I sob to him.

“Harper, I’m your older brother. I would have protected you.”

“What’s wrong with me, Sam?”

“Nothing. You are perfect. It’s those assholes who have the problem,” Sam says angrily.

“There must be a shred of truth to it because these men keep cheating on me. I must be the problem,” I say, sniffling.

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