Page 69 of One Sweet Day is Never Enough

Seth cursed under his breath. She was going to figure it out and then unleash her wrath on Gia. Now he’d really done it. He was terrible at damage control, wasn’t he? At least when it came to his own love life.

He rubbed his eyes and hid his face in his hands for a few seconds. Then he grabbed both of her hands and pulled them in under his chin. He looked into her eyes. “Stace, I need you to get it together and calm down. Don’t ruin this party for me. If you still care about our history together, at all, you’ll let it go.”

Stacey’s voice was cutthroat now. “Oh, I care—enough to figure out who she is. You’ve probably been cheating on me all summer, haven’t you?” She pulled her hands away.

“As a matter of fact, I have not. You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Stacey cast her gaze to the ground and let out a heavy sigh.

She did know that, didn’t she? He’d never done anything even questionable in all the time they were dating. Stacey had to believe him.

“All right, fine, but I still think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

He had every right to move on and date other people, but there was no point in arguing that at the moment.

“Look, I’m sorry, Stacey. But you should know that I’d never do anything like that. And I’m not changing my mind about us. It’s over—the sooner you accept that, the better.”

Maybe she’d come to her senses if she knew there was no chance of them getting back together. And look what all of his ambiguity had resulted in. He’d better get it over with now—also, for Gia’s sake. “Listen, you’re not going to want to hear this, but yes, I do have feelings for someone else now. But nothing happened before we broke up—I swear.”

“I knew it.” She hung her head and began to breathe more rapidly.

“I’m sorry.”

She paced for a few steps then finally took another deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Ithoughtthat might be the case—all these weeks I’ve been trying to guess what was going on, why you broke up with me. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Seth clenched his jaw. “That’s not even why I broke up with you.”

“Who is she? Seriously, I need to know.”

“No, you don’t.” Seth shook his head. She wasn’t going to listen to him, was she?

Stacey fumed silently.

Seth scrubbed a hand over his face again and looked at his watch. “Look, I need to get back out there.” He brought his tone back down. “We can talk more later, but do you think you can just stay calm and not cause a scene? You can come and sit with me and my parents if you’ll promise me that.”

She could take his seat and he could mingle with the guests at the other tables—play host. He needed to do that anyway. Dinner was almost over. His mother would help.

Stacey’s face brightened a little. “Okay. Fine.”

“All right, come on.” It was the only way he could imagine she wouldn’t wreak havoc on the evening. “But don’t introduce yourself as my girlfriend to anyone else.”

Stacey rolled her eyes and followed him. “Fine.”

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