Page 106 of The Dance
“Was she one of your whores?” Karla asked, changing the subject.
I saw red and was ready to snap in front of a crowd of people who weren’t that far away, but before I could answer, Stacey stormed past us.
“Stace!” I called.
She spun around. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
Stacey was mad at me? What the hell had I done?
“Baby.” I grabbed her arm and turned her toward me.
“You two were engaged, and you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“I didn’t think it would matter.”
She snorted a laugh. “You didn’t think it would matter to tell me you used to be in love with the person who has been belittling me for the past five months?”
“What good would that have done?”
Stacey broke out of my grasp. “At least I would have known why she hated me so much.”
She and Molly took off down the hall, and I chased after her, but Theo gripped my arm. “Just give her some time.”
* * *
That time Theotold me to give Stacey turned into hours of me calling her phone to no avail. When I woke the next morning, alone in the bed of our suite, I worried she wasn’t coming back. Right before we needed to leave for the airport, she entered the room.
“Hey,” she greeted coldly.
“Hey,” I said in return, zipping my suitcase.
“Ready to catch our flight?”
“To San Francisco?” I asked, even though I knew what she meant.
“Yeah.”
“You still want me to go with you to the wedding?”
“I do.” She sat on the end of the bed awkwardly and wrung her hands.
“Do you want to talk about last night?”
Her head snapped in my direction. “Are you going to tell me the truth?”
“I’ve never lied to you, sunshine.”
“You led me to believe Karla was a sugar baby, not your fiancée.”
“Semantics.”
“Semantics?” She stood and raised her voice. “No, not Semantics. You were engaged to be married!”
“And she was my sugar baby.”
Stacey blinked. “What?”
I walked over and sat on the end of the bed, gesturing with my head for her to sit beside me. She did, and we turned to face each other.
