Page 31 of The Rebound
“Are you there?” he continues when I don’t respond. The frustration in his tone snaps me from my surprise.
“I’m here,” I say. “Why are you—”
“Where is here?” Tyler interrupts. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Ireland.”
“Ireland?” The disbelief in his voice makes it clear it’s one of the last places he expected me to be. “You went home?”
“What do you want?”
“To talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait, Abby. Just… wait.” He sighs down the phone and I close my eyes, picturing him in his suit, standing in his office. He has his own office. On the ninth floor at the back of the building. I never had my own office. I worked in a large, open-plan space and that was how I liked it. When you shut the door to Tyler’s, the room got so silent I sometimes felt like we’d been sealed in. Trapped.
“I want you to stop contacting me,” I say.
“I know you do. But I’m going to Shanghai for a few weeks.”
“So?”
“SoI won’t be in New York. I thought you could stay at the apartment.”
“I don’t want to stay in your apartment. I’m visiting my sister.”
“You can’t stand your sister.”
“And yet she’s my preferred option right now.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” I feel a spark of annoyance at his tone. He sounds like he’s talking to a child. “Come back to New York. I have a friend at First Capital who might have an opening. Do you remember Hunter? He’s—”
“You talked to Hunter about me?”
“Of course I did.”
“What do you mean, ‘of course I did’?”
“Abby—”
“No, don’tAbbyme. Don’t talk about me.”
“I’m just to pretend you never existed, is that it?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “You broke up with me. Remember? Remember the whole ‘I don’t want to marry you anymore’ conversation? Because I do.”
“I know you’re hurt—”
“You don’t know anything!” I lower my voice, realizing I’m shouting. “You don’t get a say in what I do anymore. You don’t get to advise and you don’t get to ask. So stop.”
“I just want to help.”
“And I don’t want you to. Goodbye, Tyler.”
I hang up, cutting him off as a surge of adrenaline races through me. Hunter? He calledHunter? Hunter with his trust fund and his Forbes Thirty under Thirty wife?
I’m so embarrassed I could yell. Or hit something. Or—
