“Since the first day I valeted for you. I turned on your car radio and it came on.”
Heat crawled up my neck. I tried to remember what I was listening to the first Sunday we met, but I couldn’t remember. Not that it would matter anyway. No wonder he was so curious about me, giving me those flirty looks.
A blistering wave of mortification swept through me. “Is that why you took the job here?”
“What? No?—”
“Because you thought I was some sad, lonely mom, ripe for the picking?”
“No! That’s not it at all if you’d let me explain—” Jace took a step toward me, and I instantly took a step back, which halted his forward progress.
“Explain that you’ve been invading my privacy by going through my books? What do you do, sneak into my room and look at my e-reader while I’m at work?”
Renewed humiliation filled me at the thought of him opening up my e-reader, looking and laughing at all of the titles and the covers. I suddenly felt exposed despite being fully clothed, wishing I had a coat to cover up with. “So last weekend, you already knew what I was listening to when you asked me about it, didn’t you?”
Jace’s eyes looked panicked, a pleading note entering his tone. “It’s not what you think, it only made me want to know you more?—”
“Yeah, I’m sure it did. What a good laugh you and your buddy Sam must have had after you told him how easy it was to bag the pathetic, single mother.”
Jace immediately started shaking his head. “Ineverthought that. You don’t understand?—”
“Stop telling me what I do or do not understand!” I cried, my upper lip wobbling. “You took advantage of me. Of my privacy. I trusted you. You took this beautiful thing I thought we had, something special and real, and turned it into a lie.” My voice was breaking, but I held my tears in. I didn’t want to let him see me cry. He’d seen enough of me.
“Polly,” Jace croaked.
“I’m going to my room.Don’tfollow me.”
* * *
“And then what happened?”
Five pairs of eyes were watching me from my phone’s screen. Once I’d gotten to my room and finished crying, I’d texted Leah.
She, of course, video called me and added Rose, who then added Margo, Tiffany, and Eliza.
“Then he told me he’d been listening to my audiobooks since he valeted for me that first week, which was in the beginning of June! He said it only made him want to know more. I mean, how mortifying! Here I thought we were actually together, for real, and it turns out he thought of me as nothing more than an easy lay."
They’d actually taken the news of my cougar status quite well.
Leah frowned as I spoke. “I don’t think that’s necessarily what Jace meant by that.”
Rose was nodding encouragingly. “Leah’s right, sugar. I don’t want to sound indelicate here, but if Jace was lookin’ for easy, he wouldn’t have to look that hard. Single gals at the school flock to him.”
And damn it all to hell if the green-eyed bitch herself didn’t peek her head out of the depths of my soul right then and look around. Didn’t she know which side she was supposed to be on?Ahem, we’re mad at Jace! Not jealous of the other single woman!
“And it’s true I haven’t seen him around you,” Rose added, “but most men, in general, wouldn’t go through all that fuss, nannying two kids, just to get laid.”
Despite the sea of anger in my body, her words resonated. My kids were hard nuts to crack. And I’d put up dozens of barriers. It’s not like he gave me one wink and I dropped my pants, so to speak.
“Can I ask a question?” Margo interjected. “What’s your real problem here? I mean, of course, besides the trust issues, which I’m not ignoring in any way. But like, so what? He’s listening to the same books you read. It’s not like he’s stealing from you or publicizing your reading history online.”
Margo had a point. Yes, he had invaded my privacy, but I trusted that he wasn’t doing anything malicious with it.
“Have you had a guy steal from you?” I peripherally heard one of the women ask Margo, then more murmuring back and forth as I became more internally preoccupied.
I did trust Jace. I was mad about what he did, sure, but it’s mostly because of my fear of Judgment, not the invasion of privacy. Just then, I heard a low knock. Tensing, I watched as a small piece of paper slid under my bedroom door.
Getting up while keeping the phone in my hand, I read the slip of paper: Look outside your door.
