Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65112 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Good,” he sneers. “You need to work for it. You’ve got to find a way to make this right by her, and you need to make this right by me.”
He doesn’t let me respond before he, too, turns on his heel and storms out. I can’t help wondering if the temper is a family trait. It would be funny if the situation weren’t so fucked up.
Once they’re gone, my ears ring from the silence. This is a goddamn disaster. So much for sparing my best friend’s feelings. Not to mention, like it or not, Val and I are tied to each other for the rest of our lives if she decides to keep the baby.
We all just need a minute to calm down. They’ll both take a beat, and then we can talk about this like rational adults, and everything will be fine.
I hope.
Otherwise, I’ve lost my best friend and the woman I’ve been obsessing over, all in one fell swoop.
15
VALENTINA
When I leave Sebastian’s office, my whole body feels like one big exposed nerve. That couldn’t have gone worse. I’m used to dealing with disasters, but this was an atomic bomb. There’s no coming back from this.
I can’t believe Nico. I can’t believe he actually told Sebastian not to sleep with me. Here I was, avoiding Sebastian to spare my brother’s feelings, and now all I can think is that he’s just another man in my life trying to control my every move. Who the fuck does he think I am? Who the fuck does he think he is? I’m fuming.
I’m moving too fast and not fast enough at the same time, heels cracking against the polished floor while my brain replays every terrible second of that conversation in useless, nauseating loops. I make it to the elevator and jab the button harder than necessary.
The doors open immediately, which feels like the only small mercy I’m going to get today. I step inside alone and hit the lobby button, then stand there in the mirrored box trying not to cry out of sheer frustration.
This went badly. Really badly.
Maybe when I’m in a better headspace, I can acknowledge that I didn’t exactly handle it well. Sebastian was trying to be reasonable in his own annoying way, but it came off as interrogation. I know I responded out of my own trauma, but that doesn’t ease any of my anger. All I could hear in his questions was control.
The elevator doors open into the lobby and I walk straight through without seeing any of the people around me. The whole building feels too bright. Too polished. Too full of normal life continuing while mine has cracked right down the middle.
Outside, the morning sun is sharp enough to hurt my eyes. Downtown traffic roars and honks and glitters in the heat. I climb into my car with shaking hands and sit there gripping the wheel before I can make myself start it.
I should call Gia.
I should probably call Nico, too, though the idea of hearing his voice right now makes me want to scream. I know he was trying to protect me. I know that. He’s been nothing but supportive my entire life. Still, it’s not his place to step in where he wasn’t invited, and he should know me well enough by now not to get involved without being asked. All he managed to do today was make me feel incredibly small.
I don’t call either of them. I just want to go home, lock the door, shut the blinds, turn my phone off, crawl into bed, and disappear for a few hours. Maybe it’s not the most emotionally mature plan, but at this point I don’t particularly care. I’ve already done the hard thing. I told Sebastian. He knows. Nico knows. They can deal with the fallout while I take care of my own mental health for a while.
The whole way home, I run different scenarios of how the conversation could have gone. I consider whether there was anything Sebastian could have said or done to make it better. I arrive at the annoying conclusion that he really did react well, all things considered.
It’s an annoying truth. I’m the one who freaked out when I shouldn’t have. I’m the one who escalated. At the time, it felt very important not to get steamrolled. I walked in there with a crisis, and I wanted to make it all about me.
Unfortunately, like it or not, he’s involved now too. He’s allowed to have his own feelings and respond however he wants, and the mature part of me knows that. The petty part of me still wants to punch him in the face. Nico probably deserves it more, though.
By the time I turn onto my street, my head is pounding. No matter how I replay it, I keep arriving at the same conclusion. I’m going to have to do the thing I hate most and apologize to a man.