Page 84 of Meet Your Match
I also loved that every time I looked at him across that club, he was looking at me, too.
I internally scolded myself as my neck heated with that thought.
His cut was healing already, the bandages removed, but the bruising, tender flesh reminded me of our night together in Atlanta. It had felt a little too intimate, him opening up to me the way he had. I was thankful Reya had texted me and interrupted us before I could lose myself too much.
It was easy to do with Vince, which was a very big problem.
The crowd had a heartbeat now, and I weaved my way through it, hunting for Vince to say goodnight. I knew he was far from turning in. It washisrookie party, after all.
I thought of what he told me about pottery that first week I was on assignment, how it helped him release stress, helped him re-center. I also noted that he hadn’t been able to carve out enough time to sit at that wheel since, and I knew it had to be wearing on him.
I was glad he was cutting loose tonight. He needed it.
I asked a few teammates if they’d seen him, feeling a bit helpless when none of them could point me in his direction. I was pulling out my phone to just text him that I was heading out when I finally spotted him.
My heart split in two when I did.
It wasn’t fair, the way my breath caught at the sight of him in a VIP booth with a woman straddling his lap. It wasn’t fair how my chest squeezed the life out of my lungs when I catalogued the scene: his hands on her ass, her hips grinding against him, his panty-melting smirk, her hands running the length of his chest as she rode him to the beat.
They were both fully clothed, but it didn’t matter. I felt like I’d just walked in on him with his cock in her mouth.
She was stunning — deep brown skin, a long, midnight braid falling down her slender back. She moved on him so seductively it was like the music lived within her, and Vince let his eyes crawl over her body as she did.
He didn’t look like himself.
I registered it even as bile rose in my throat. Something was off. He seemed pissed, almost…distant, not engaged, numb.
When his eyes slowly swept up to mine, they stuck, his jaw hardening.
Like he wanted me to see.
My nostrils flared, but I turned on my heel before my eyes could water, pushing through the crowd toward the door. I gasped on the first sip of clean oxygen on the outside, and then I climbed into one of the limousines, promising the driver none of the other players were ready to leave yet, and to please just take me back and then he could return.
Blessedly, he listened, and he didn’t ask a single question as I stewed in his back seat.
I shook my head over and over, laughing and then scoffing and then growling in frustration. I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t have felt sick at the sight of him with someone else. This was what I wanted.
One time, and one time only.
Back to professionals.
And that meant I had no fucking right to be upset that he had another girl in his lap.
But it killed me. The betrayal swam in my gut like a virus the whole ride back downtown.
Once the anger subsided a little, disappointment scurried in to take its place. I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was exactly what I pegged him for. It didn’t matter that he’d fucked me against a mirror ten days ago, or that he’d watched me like he saw right through me when we were alone in the hotel in Atlanta. It didn’t matter that he’d opened up to me, that he’d let me see a little more of the man behind the show.
He had already moved on, his mission accomplished. He’d seen me naked, gotten his dick wet, and now I was just another conquest he could put behind him.
I’d told him as much that night in the restaurant, when he’d cornered me in the bathroom and told me he wanted me. I’d looked him right in the eyes andtold himI saw him for what he was.
But even then, there was a small part of me that wondered if he was different, if I was judging him too harshly, if he’d prove me wrong in the end.
I knew now not to hold my breath.
When the limousine pulled up in front of the skyscraper I called home now, I climbed out and all but ran up to my condo. When I kicked off my heels, I looked around at the space — at the couch that wasn’t mine, the chairs that weren’t mine, the windows and the artwork and the stupid fucking fireplace that made no sense because we lived in Florida.
I was so homesick, I let the first tear fall free.
