Page 124 of Ruin
Interesting.
I don’t think before swiping up. There’s no name attached to the number, but it’s clear from her texts that keep rolling in that this isn’t a wrong number. Making this even more intriguing is the fact that there are no texts in the thread before these. Amateur move. Deleting only the incriminating texts and leaving the rest is Cheating 101. Even my father figured that out pretty quickly, and he was as non–tech-savvy as they come.
I’ve made an art of catching men in their lies. I used to track my father’s affairs like a detective, hunting down the women he thought he was slick enough to hide from my mother.I then sharpened my skills helping Lexi bust her string of cheating boyfriends; it was like she only dated cheaters.
This is the first time I’ve ever employed those skills on my own behalf. Not once did Tommy ever give me reason to believe he was fucking anyone else. Even when he was gone all night, location off, I never worried. The problem was never that he was paying attention to someone else. The problem was only that he didn’t pay enough attention to me.
There are no photos of other women on his phone, no emails, no other text threads that are incriminating, so I tap into his cloud. It takes seconds, and the gallery opens like a dam breaking. Jesus Christ, so many women.
The pictures go back not just months but years. Before last New Year’s Eve, when I fucked Antonio and Tommy. All during the year before that, when Antonio camped out in my apartment like he belonged here, allegedly love struck and waiting for me to notice. For the past two years and then some, he was collecting short blonde trophies, most with porcelain skin and blue eyes. I glance up in the mirror at my black hair, olive skin, and hazel eyes that look brown at the moment—the exact opposite of them.
The most recent pictures, though, center around just one woman, a cute blonde with a big smile. There is no shortage of sexy pictures of her, of them, but there are also a lot of innocuous pictures as well. A sushi dinner. Her tanning her bronze skin by a pool. Her leaning against a window at sunset. Her big blue eyes looking up at him from his lap. A lot of these look like selfies she sent him, though there are a few selfies she took of the two of them together.
It looks like they travel a lot: the beach, Europe, all over New York. And strangely… he doesn’t look happy in any of it. Not sad either. Just there, like a cardboard cutout propped in the background.
Where was I when all this was happening? Clearly, not paying attention.
The water turns off, but I just keep scrolling without looking up.
Antonio steps out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his tapered waist, using another towel to dry his hair. When he sees me leaning against the counter scrolling through his phone, he freezes for a second then comes to stand beside me, looking over my shoulder as I scroll.
I pause on one of her sucking his dick, and lift my gaze to meet his. He doesn’t say anything, just exhales and takes the phone from me. Then he leans against the counter next to me, watching me watch him.
A minute passes in silence.
Finally, he says, “Say something, Giovanna.”
I blink. The truth is, this doesn’t even crack the surface compared to Tommy. When Tommy missed my twenty-first birthday dinner, I’d sobbed all night. When he first stopped texting me back right away, I tore myself apart wondering why. This? This is like finding out the store is out of ice cream on a hot day. Annoying, but oh, well.
I shrug. “What do you want me to say? You have a girlfriend.” My laugh is flat. “Actually, two girlfriends. Or are there more of us out there?”
His stare doesn’t waver.
“No,” he says finally. “I have one girlfriend. And I have a job.”
Message received. I’m the job. The thing standing between him and the life he actuallywants.
And strangely, I don’t care. I used to feel guilty before, even a little sorry for him. Not anymore. Tommy’s safety is the only thing that matters.
I cap my eyeliner and go back to the mirror. “Great, then get ready. Your ‘job’ needs to be on time to this fucking thing.”
**
As we arrive at the New Year’s Eve party, Antonio keeps a fake smile on his face as he says under his breath, “If you fuck Tommy this year, leave me out of it.”
Through my own fake smile, I say, “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” before we split and head in opposite directions.
I have no intention of fucking Tommy this year. Last year was a mistake. It put him at risk. Thank God he was nowhere to be found by the time everyone came running to see what the noise was about. They all assumed it was Antonio making a racket fucking me. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gotten loudly fucked at one of these things, so it wasn’t a hard story to sell.
Grad school is almost over for me, and I’m here to network. I do not want to be stuck at Luminous & Co. just because my father wants it that way. Aurelio threatened Tommy based on our relationship, not whether or not I filled the role at the jewelry shop. Antonio can do that all by himself. I’m ready to start my own life.
I work the room, smiling, laughing, taking demure sips of champagne as I low key flirt with the men who are older than my father and gossip with the women.
A Ms. Alexandra Hayes, who runs a legal nonprofit, sellsme on her organization hard. They help so many underprivileged clients, and it really could be an interesting job. Another woman, Simone Ashford, has a single prestigious client who she won’t name and says I’d be a great fit for her team. After just an hour, my little pocketbook is full of people’s cards, and I’m scheduling meetings for after I graduate from grad school in May.
The entire time, I stay focused on whomever is in front of me. I never once look up and scan the room. Sometimes, I think I can feel him watching me, but I don’t want to know. I don’t trust myself to stay away from him if I do see him, and I don’t trust Antonio not to run his mouth if he finds out. I know he’s watching me, too, if only so he can catch me with Tommy and torture me over it later.
I hear a long, high-pitched squeal before I see her, then suddenly Lexi barrels into me like she hasn’t seen me in a decade. Her perfume hits me before her arms do—something floral, loud, obnoxious, exactly like her.
