Chapter 11 – Julian
“Isn’t it wonderful that we can spend time together with our women like this?”
I roll my eyes. I have a lot of respect for Preston, but the way he talks about the fairer sex is not one of those realms. His mouth is usually much bigger than the feet he shoves into it. “It’s certainly something,” I say.
“Seriously, Julian, I completely understand how you feel now. I think I may be falling in love with Cher.”
The women haven’t been gone from dinner for five fucking minutes and Preston is already torturing me with this shit.
“I never said that I was in love with Alyssa,” I remind him. “Not like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, and I don’t own at least five strip clubs around here. Or is it six? Shit, I can’t remember.”
“Cher knows about them, right?” The last woman my business partner “seriously” dated had no idea what she was getting into when it came to Preston’s lust for, well, lust. He puts me to shame sometimes.
Preston shrugs. “Know what I love about her? Nothing fazes her. We’re talking about going exclusive now, but when we were having our fling every once in a while we both saw other people on the side. Didn’t faze her in the least.”
I find that hard to imagine. Lots of women imply that they don’t care if men like us continue to see others – and of course I mean sexually – when we’re nothing more than an affair. Usually the jealousy on their end explodes sooner than any jealously on our end.
Alyssa is the first woman I’ve ever been with who inspires that level of jealousy in me.
She returns with a solemn face. At first, I assume she’s feeling ill because of our dinner.
Then a pair of underwear lands in the middle of the table. The only person to not express immediate shock is Cher, who hides her smirk behind her long fingers.
“The fuck is this?”
I’ve never seen Alyssa like this before. She’s so…
…angry.
“Whoa.” Preston sits up so quickly that I think he’s going to give himself motion sickness. “Did you get those from my office?”
It takes a few minutes for it to sink in. This is the pair of underwear my sweet Alyssa had been wearing when I first seduced her.
The pair I tossed to Preston and told to get rid of. Someone had not upheld his end of the bargain.
“What the fuck, Julian!”
“Lyssa, I can explain…”
“So it’s true? I was a bet?”
“Where the hell did you hear something stupid like that?” I look to Preston, and I’m not sure if it’s with burning anger or righteous indignation. Why the hell not both! “What the fuck are you telling people?”
No. It wasn’t Preston. He can be dumb, but he’s not that dumb.
No. No.
It was her, wasn’t it? The woman on the brink of uproarious laughter from the scene she’s indirectly caused.
My instincts are correct, as usual. And right now my instincts are shouting at me that this is bad. Very fucking bad.
“I haven’t said a damn thing!” Apparently, Preston thinks that’s him defending himself. “Bigger question is what the hell was she doing snooping around my office?”
“They were lying out in the open!”
I glare at Cher again. This has her smell all over it. This is, after all, the same woman who was slipping cute little notes to her boyfriend for the past few months.
“So it’s true?” Alyssa takes a step back from the table. A breeze rustles the table above us. Napkins fly off into the distance. Champagne glasses almost spill. Nobody at the table cares. “I was a bet? What? Did you bet that I was some slut?”
“No, honey,” Cher says with an unappreciated laugh, “they were betting that you were easy. There’s a difference.”
I slam my hand on the table, knees accomplishing unprecedented feats as I stand up so quickly that I almost knock my chair over behind me. “Don’t listen to her,” I implore my girlfriend. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
She shakes her head in disbelief, upper lip trembling and long chestnut brown hair fluttering in the breeze. “Then what was it like, Julian? Did you need those files at all? Or had you planned on fucking me the whole time I was afraid of losing my job?”
I know better than to lie. “I’ll tell you right now what I told you back then. I intended to seduce you, yes, but…”
“But you had no idea who I even was until that moment, right? I was a nameless, faceless intern you thought you could toy with.”
“But…”
“Don’t you fucking but me, Julian Marcus!” Her cry of anger causes the robins to abandon the trees around us. Red claims her fair face. It takes exactly two seconds for me to know what she’s going to say next, yet I don’t move to stop her. It’s like I want… no, need… to hear her rake me over the coals. “You were going to fuck me and forget me and give your complicit buddy here a token of my pussy’s affection!”
“But I didn’t, did I?” I fling back at her. “You think you would be on this terrace right now if I had felt that way about…”
She slaps me.
My sweet, docile, submissive Alyssa fucking slaps me!
“You’re both trash.” She grabs her shawl from the back of her chair and her purse from the ground. “Fucking disgusting trash who think you can play with peasants like us because it gets your pathetic cocks hard.”
“Alyssa!” Where is she going? I don’t care if she did slap me. For fuck’s sake, she’s got it all wrong! “It’s not like that at all.”
“Don’t!” She stops short of knocking over the maid carrying dessert. “Don’t come after me. Stay away from me. I fucking quit… all of this. I quit it!”
I’m too shocked by this sudden turn of events to immediately go after her. Preston’s mouth is permanently dropped open behind me. His maniacal girlfriend continues to hide her shit-eating grin behind the back of her hand.
I don’t know who to blame. Who the fuck do I blame!
Alyssa…
Where is she going? How do I stop her when my feet are glued to this place? How do I make this right? Who the hell do I throw money at to make her come back here right now so I can explain?
Explain that her walking out of my life would be the most devastating thing I’ve ever experienced.
Explain that I…
That I love her, and now my heart has fucking broken, and I have no idea who the hell to blame.
Kill me. I am nothing without Alyssa Pendleton, and now she’s gone. By the time I finally regather my bearings, it’s too late.
She’s gone.
