Page 13 of Dirty Player
“Nothing, Beaux. It’s fine, I swear.”
His gaze searched me for honesty. I was lying, and we both knew it, but I still reached around him to the table and picked up my small clutch.
“Let’s just go. I’m wiped after the trip out here.”
He wrapped his arm over my shoulders and pulled me to him.
As he turned me, my head twisted and my gaze locked on Powell’s. He was sitting at the bar now, a glass of honey-colored alcohol in his hand. His stern expression was firmly in place and I turned back around while I still could.
With the heat in his gaze, the look of want still in his eyes, and the fact that he’d actually not only apologized but seemed genuine, I had no idea what to do about Oliver Powell.
Only that it was best if I stayed far, far away.
***
I tugged at the end of a strand of my hair and clenched the phone tighter in my other hand.
“Can you please let this go?”
Patrick’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “Please, Shan. I’m so sorry. I miss you. I want to see you to talk about us. Don’t throw us away like this.”
Same old lines. Same things I’d heard for the last month.
After seeing him in the restroom, fucking Priscilla against the wall, I had taken off. I hadn’t said anything, just made some choked, animalistic noise, and run from the bathroom and restaurant like hell was nipping at my heels. I was most likely halfway home before he’d realized that I was the one who’d seen him; me that I’d heard him calling her “baby.”
He’d caught up with me in our apartment as I was slashing my wedding dress with the sharpest knife I could find.
The apologies had started immediately. The lies quickly followed. That it was just that one time, that he was stressed and scared about the wedding. I had stood in our bedroom that we’d shared for two years listening to his pleas and apologies for almost an hour, feeling nothing but soul-sucking grief.
I was only now just beginning to realize that the reason I’d put off our wedding for so long was because somewhere, deep down inside me, while I liked the financial stability he provided, I didn’t fully trust him to take care of me. For the last year, we’d argued about getting married before I’d finally caved and set a date. He’d proposed after we had been dating for two years and I finally agreed to move in together. Then I dragged my feet in getting married, always finding an excuse or reason to continue putting it off. I should have known back then that our relationship wasn’t going to work. It didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt to see him cheating on me.
Each word he spoke over the phone was a punch to my gut. I didn’t trust that Patrick still wanted me. He didn’t want to lose. He didn’t want to look like a fool. He wasn’t the guy women walked away from.
He was a McDonnelly. Ginger-haired and Irish to the deepest parts of his marrow, his family owned more than half of Des Moines. They still owned thousands of acres of land and businesses. No one said no to them.
I was still finding it hard to do so.
I sighed. “I’m scheduling a moving truck. I only want my stuff. Can you please let me know when’s a good time for them to come and pick it up?”
“Come home and discuss this with me, Shannon. I want to see you. I want you to hear me out. I swear to you, this will never happen again. Priscilla’s been moved to a different department, and I don’t even see her anymore. Please.”
His voice had softened, gone gravelly and determined, coaxing me against my judgment to listen, to give in like I always did. Her name on his lips was a bucket of cold water on the temptation.
I tapped a pencil to paper and gritted my teeth together. “No. And I don’t have time for this. I have things to do, and if you won’t be cooperative I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“Shannon—”
“Goodbye, Patrick.”
I hung up the phone at the same time a growl sounded from behind me.
I was in what would soon be my office at Stamped. I’d scrubbed the place from top to bottom over the last week, including the cute and full-of-character upstairs apartment. Every day it settled in a little bit more that this place was mine.
All mine.
Once I got my stuff, anyway. Fortunately, I’d had the smarts to bring all my jewelry-making tools and equipment with me.
Everything was scattered about on two folding tables I’d picked up as soon as I’d cleaned the downstairs office.
