Page 113 of Brassy Bigwig

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHLOE

It’s been almost a week since D last texted me. I haven’t received any more flowers or food deliveries, either.

Has he already given up on me? What if I’m making a huge mistake?

So much for following me to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

As each day passes, I’m increasingly consumed by thoughts of him. Touching him. Fucking him. My agonizing sex dreams have returned with a vengeance. It’s a thousand times worse than after I got home from Greece. Sometimes I think my pride is at fault. Usually staying firm to my values and beliefs gives me a sense of fulfillment. Right now, however, I just feel empty.

Also absent recently are the letters and text messages from Blake. He must have found a way around Reed’s additional security measure because he obviously knows I moved out.

Just like that motherfucker wanted.

“Chloe,” Shelby calls my name from the living room. “Food is here.”

I’m not hungry, but I know I should eat. Groaning, I roll out of bed and drag my feet down the hallway to the living room. Shelby and Reed are laying the food out on the table in front of the television.

I curl up into a ball on the sofa and pull my baggy t-shirt over my knees for extra comfort.

“Here you go,” Shelby hands me a container of kung pao chicken, which I take but set back down on the table. This earns me an overexaggerated sigh from Shelby.

“Knock it off, okay? I feel too lousy to eat.”

“Listen,” Shelby begins, and I know she’s about to say something that will piss me off. “I get that you’re sad, and you have every right to be. I was angry at him at first, too.”

“At first? Meaning you’re not anymore?”

“You know I’ll always be angry with him as long as you are.”

I don’t miss the sarcasm in her tone when she says the word angry.

“As you should,” I reply.

“Should he have told you? Yes. He should have had the balls and the intelligence to know the truth may have been hard for you to hear, but ultimately you would have respected him more for being upfront about it.”

I think about that for a minute. If D would have told me in his office that day, or later that night when he brought me back to his penthouse when I was drunk, would I have given him—us—another chance?

Why do I even have to think about it? I know I would have. Just like when I left his office the first day I realized who he was, knowing I would be back the following Monday.

“But at the end of the day, you aren’t the one he cheated on.”

“But he still lied to her,” Reed interjects. “And he blatantly told her he was going to a meeting with a guy.”

“Who’s fucking side are you on?” Shelby shoots back at him.

“I’m on Chloe’s side,” he shrugs, and I like knowing he has my back.

But once again, Shelby is right.

“Since the moment you laid eyes on him in Greece, there hasn’t been one second of one day that he hasn’t taken up space in your mind and in your heart. If I thought it was truly over with you guys, then I would be stuffing my face with crab rangoon and chicken in garlic sauce instead of trying to beat it into your head that you need to give him a chance to explain, and then work things out with him.”

“Shel, you know what happened with my parents. The lying. The cheating. What if Liam never died? I don’t think I ever would have met my real father, and I can’t imagine a life without him in it. I don’t want to go through that. It’s why I told him outright those are hard limits for me. Whether he lied or just omitted the truth, what’s to say he won’t do it again?”

I watch as Shelby shakes her disappointed head at me.

“I just really don’t think lying and cheating come natural to him. Your mother? Yes. D? No. Sometimes people lie to protect those they care about.”

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