Easy Kisses

by Kristen Proby

  “I like that one better.”

  I sit on my ass in the middle of my living room and look up at these amazing women who I love more than anything and feel my eyes fill.

  And that pisses me off all over again.

  But I’m all out of energy.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know, sugar,” Van says and sits next to me. She wraps her arms around me and hugs me close, letting me cry a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m only going to cry for a minute, and then I’m going to forget him.” I wipe my face and look up at Kate and Callie, who both have tears of their own. “He’s not worth this.”

  Except, I thought he was. I thought he was everything.

  And now I know it was nothing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~Simon~

  “Can I get you anything before we take off, sir?”

  What in the bloody fuck just happened?

  “Sir? Mr. Danbury?”

  I glance up at my name and realize that the flight attendant has been trying to get my attention.

  I don’t fucking care.

  “What?”

  “Can I get you anything before we take off?” She offers me a wide smile and glances down at the ink on my arm, and all I can think is, get the fuck away from me.

  “No.” I wave her off and scowl at my phone when it rings. “Mother.”

  “Hello, Simon. I’m glad I caught you. It’s not too late, is it? I can’t keep track of these time differences.”

  “It’s fine, Mum. What’s up?”

  “Well, I just got off the phone with Amy, and I really think—”

  “Listen to me very carefully,” I say, interrupting her mid-sentence, which would have gotten me slapped when I was a boy. “I want you to stop speaking to that woman. Now.”

  “Simon Daniel Danbury, you do not speak to your mother that way.”

  “Yes, apparently I do. I’m not going to say it again.”

  “Sir, we’re about to take off. You’ll have to turn your phone off.”

  I wave at the attendant again and sigh.

  “Are you on a plane?” Mother asks.

  “Yes, I’ll be home tonight.” I take a deep breath and realize that it’s time my mum and I had a long heart-to-heart conversation, no matter how much I hate the idea. “I’m going to come to your place on my way home from the airport. Will you please make sure Dad is there too?”

  “Of course, darling. Have a safe flight. I’m so happy that you’re coming home. I’ll see you soon.”

  We click off and I check my messages, not expecting to see anything from Charly, certainly not wanting to see anything from her, and yet I’m disappointed when there’s nothing. I open the last message from her and read it for the fifth time since she sent it earlier this afternoon. She thanks me for bringing her lunch, sorry that she missed me.

  She should be thankful that she missed me. I wish I’d never gone to surprise her. Then again, I wouldn’t have seen her get cozy in the storeroom with her ex, telling him that she’d see him when she returned from London, showing me exactly what I was getting myself into.

  Today was a long series of events that led to me seeing the truth: I can’t trust her. I can’t trust me.

  We’re better off without each other.

  And thank God I saw it before I took her to London and fell even further in love with her. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing: falling completely in love with her.

  First, I got an email this morning from Jack, my former partner and friend, the man I caught in bed with my fucking wife. It was full of spite and hate and such rambling drivel that I was on edge, every cell in me screaming for Charly.

  So I went to her, needing to see her, to talk to her, to hear her soft voice giving me words of wisdom, putting everything in perspective in that sexy as fuck accent of hers.

  And instead I found her in the arms of another man.

  That seems to be the story of my fucking life.

  Was this all just some elaborate mind fuck for her?

  It’s time I get home, back to work, back to my responsibilities, and remember what’s important.

  That doesn’t include dishonest women disguised in a sexy package.

  ***

  “Simon,” Mother says, staring at me with tear-soaked eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “A lot of reasons,” I reply and stare at my father as he paces their living room, his hands linked behind his back. When he’s this quiet, it means that he’s angry.

  “No reason you might have,” he says with controlled anger, “is ever good enough to not tell us that your ex-wife was emotionally abusive.”

  “I know,” I reply. “At the time, I was just focused on trying to help her. And when it was all over, I told you the truth, that I caught her being unfaithful, and I thought that was a valid enough reason to leave. I just didn’t think it was necessary to bring up the rest of it.”

  “But I wouldn’t stop speaking with her,” Mother adds and hangs her head in her hands. “You told me to stop, but I wouldn’t listen. I just wanted everything to be okay, and I knew that she’d made a mistake, but I’d hoped that you could work it out, especially when she told me over and over how lost she was without you, and how very sorry she was.”

  “She’s excellent at manipulation.” I sigh and wrap my arm around my mother’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Mum. I should have told you more.”

  “I can promise that I won’t be speaking to her again, except to give her a piece of my mind.”

  “She’s not worth it,” I reply, shaking my head.

  “I gave her money,” Dad says. “She was pathetic and sad, saying that you wouldn’t help her.”

  “You gave her money?” I ask, appalled. “Jesus, Dad, I didn’t even know that she’d come to you with that bullshit.”

  “You clam up whenever we mention her name, and I felt sorry for her,” he says. “Obviously, not so much now.”

  “I could just slap her,” Mum says, clenching her fists. “I should have known better. She told me once that she didn’t know how she was going to go on without you, and thought about ending her life.”

  “That’s typical,” I mutter and rub my eyes. “That was her M.O.”

  “Thank you for telling us,” Mum says. “I’ll back off, and I’m so proud of you for being strong enough to see her for what she is.”

  I’m not terribly strong. I fell for it again.

  I simply kiss her cheek and stand to leave. “I’m heading home. I’ll call in a few days.”

  I pull away from their house, toward my loft which isn’t too far away and the heaviness of exhaustion hits me. I’m so fucking tired.

  My loft is quiet, everything exactly as I left it, and yet it feels like nothing is the same.

  I’m not the same.

  I shoot Todd a text.

  Got home early. Meet me at the office tomorrow morning at 9:00.

  He replies immediately. Got it.

  I thought I would sleep on the plane, but I didn’t. Instead I tortured myself over and over again with the vision of Charly and the fucker with his hands on her, and then my focus would shift to how she looked naked, writhing beneath me. Laughing. Sleeping. Eating. Her touch.

  Fucking hell, how did I fall in love with something that wasn’t real?

  ***

  “You look like shit,” Todd says as he walks into the office and sets a cup of coffee under my nose.

  “Fuck you,” I reply and sniff the coffee, then decide fuck it and take a drink, then scowl. “This is black.”

  “You’re the one that turned into a pussy and decided to drink coffee rather than tea, mate. I have no idea how you take it.”

  “Fuck you again,” I reply and set the cup aside. “Let’s get to work.”

  “Okay. But first, what’s going on? I thought you were bringing Charly.”

  “Don’t want to discuss it. Let’s work.”

  “Great.” He n
ods and sighs in frustration. “Speaking of work, we had all of the slots filled for the retreat this fall, but we had one back out last night. Savannah Boudreaux sent me an email and said that she wouldn’t be attending because she refuses to give her time or money to a hypocrite.”

  I sigh and push my hands through my hair, frustrated.

  “Fine. Grab someone from the waiting list.”

  “So, you’re not going to tell me what happened.”

  I stand and stomp across the office, staring out the window. Todd’s the only one who has known everything as it happened in my life. He’s my closest mate, and I trust him implicitly.

  But talking about it cuts deep.

  “Yesterday was a bloody disaster.” I pull my phone out of my pocket, bring up Alex’s email, and hand it to Todd, then turn back to the window.

  He reads silently behind me for a moment. “What the fuck?”

  “Keep reading.”

  “‘You know that I never would have been able to have an affair with Amy if you’d been keeping her happy. You were too obsessed with work.’ Fuck him. I always hated Alex.”

  “I know.”

  “‘But speaking of the company, you wouldn’t be where you are now without my contribution in the beginning. My lawyer agrees that I’m owed compensation.’”

  I turn around to see Todd stare at me in horror. “Is he on motherfucking medication? He thinks he’s going to get money?”

  “He won’t,” I reply, much more calmly than I feel. My blood is still boiling over that email. “I forwarded it to my lawyer, and they’re on it. He doesn’t have a case. He’s just broke and grasping at straws.”

  “He’s an arsehole,” Todd says and finishes reading the email, then passes it back to me. “Not a great way to start any day.”

  “No.” I shake my head and sit at our conference table. I can’t get comfortable, no matter what I do. I spent all night pacing my flat.

  “So now you should tell me why Savannah sent that email and Charly isn’t here.”

  “Charly is no longer a part of my life,” I reply shortly. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Todd says. “What happened?”

  “The same thing that always happens. I went to surprise her at work and walked in on her with another man.”

  I glance up and Todd is scowling, shaking his head. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Saw it with my own bloody eyes.”

  “Charly Boudreaux was fucking another man. You saw it.”

  I shake my head and decide bugger it and take a sip of the horrible coffee. “They hadn’t gotten that far yet, and I wasn’t about to stick around and watch.”

  “So you didn’t actually see it.” Todd sits across from me and fiddles with his wedding ring.

  “I saw enough.”

  “Sounds like you were having a shit day and saw what you wanted to see.”

  “Fuck you,” I reply and throw the coffee against the wall. “I made the mistake of trusting her. Of trusting me with her. And it didn’t work. I may give good advice, but my own love life has been one big fuck up.”

  “Well, that’s true enough,” he says, unfazed by the coffee dripping down the wall. “But Charly isn’t Amy, Simon.”

  “Seems they’re not that different.”

  “But you’re different. You didn’t love Amy, mate. You cared for her, sure, but you were with her out of some misguided sense of responsibility. You thought you could save her, but she didn’t want to be saved. Amy is a bitch, plain and simple, and you can’t fix bitch.

  “Are you saying Charly is a bitch too?” Todd asks and I clench my fists, ready to come out swinging. “Guess that pissed you off.”

  “You don’t know shit. You aren’t walking around in my shoes.”

  “Because you have horrible taste in shoes,” he replies. “But this time around, you didn’t have horrible taste in women. You don’t know for sure what you saw yesterday because I bet you didn’t stick around to ask many questions.”

  I bloody hate it that he knows me so well.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I reply and hang my head in my hands. “I’m not going down this road again. Even if it wasn’t what I think, it just goes to show that I can’t trust, her or me. And without trust, we have nothing anyway.”

  “That’s a sad way to live, Simon.”

  “I’m not discussing this anymore. We have work to do.” I open my agenda and look at Todd expectantly. “What do we have this week?”

  ***

  “I’ve wanted to attend one of your workshops for ever,” a blonde in her mid-thirties raves as I sign her book and pose for a photo. “Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure, darling,” I reply and smile as she walks away. That was the last one in line and I’m bloody exhausted. I just spent six hours coaching a room of six hundred women on dating techniques. The last hour was open to questions, followed by another hour of signing books and meeting the attendees, and my energy is now gone.

  Todd walks back to the makeshift greenroom that the hotel provided.

  “This was a great workshop,” he says. “The attendees were riveted. Of course, they always are when it comes to you.”

  “It went well,” I agree. Since I returned from New Orleans three weeks ago, everything has been in a fog. I’m not numb, but nothing excites me. Today went well simply because I know my material inside and out and I know how to charm a room from years of experience.

  But my heart isn’t in it anymore.

  Because despite my better judgement, I left my heart in New Orleans. With it being several weeks since I last saw Charly, I can admit that I miss her, but it doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change that I can’t trust her, and I can’t control the jealousy I feel when another man even looks in her direction.

  “Do you want me to stick around?” Todd asks as he stows away my mic and readies the equipment to be picked up by the crew later.

  “No, I’m fine. I’ll be leaving right behind you.”

  I turn around as he walks away.

  “This is going to be interesting,” I hear Todd say from the doorway and I spin around to find Amy standing there next to him. “I’ll be outside,” Todd says.

  I nod and watch wordlessly as Amy steps inside, closing the door behind her. She’s changed her hair since the last time I saw her in the restaurant several months ago, but otherwise, she’s the same.

  She’ll never change. It took me too long to figure that out.

  “Amy.”

  “Hello, Simon,” she says and sends me a soft smile. “I sat in on your little class today. It was wonderful.”

  My teeth clench. Little class.

  I simply cross my arms over my chest and wait for her to continue.

  “Violet was right, you’ve really done very well for yourself over the past year or so, and I wanted to stop by to say congratulations.”

  “Thanks. There’s the door.”

  “Simon, I know I was horrible.” She rushes forward and lays a hand on my arm, which I flick off. “I’m so sorry for what happened with Alex. I was just lonely, and you were working all the time and—”

  “Are you telling me that it’s my fault that you had an affair with my business partner?” I ask, interrupting her.

  “No, of course not,” she says. Her eyes are shrewd. She knows this tactic isn’t going to win me over. “It was all my fault, and I’m so sorry. I’ve been in therapy again, and I really think it’s working this time.”

  “Good for you.”

  “It is good, isn’t it?” She smiles hopefully. “I feel so much better already. And I am really so happy for you. I hear you have a beautiful new flat.”

  And here it is.

  “I’d love to see it sometime. How can I make all of this up to you, Simon?”

  “By walking out that door and never coming back,” I reply, my resolve not slipping a bit as tears fill her eyes as if on cue.

  “I deserve for you
to be cruel,” she says and wipes a single tear from the corner of her eye. She really is a very good actress. She could be a professional. “I never should have left.”

  I shove my hands in my pockets and regard her silently. How in the hell could I have ever compared Charly to her? Charly is nothing like Amy. She’s kind, loving, giving. She’s not self-serving in the least.

  I don’t know what I saw at her shop that day, but maybe Todd was right when he said I should have stuck around to actually ask questions like I promised her in the first place.

  “I never should have given up on you,” she says when the silence stretches between us.

  “I gave up on you,” I reply simply. “And I’m glad I did, Amy.”

  Her whole demeanor changes now; her eyes narrow, her shoulders stiffen. She’s not getting what she wants, and now she’s going to fire back.

  “Do you think I don’t know all about your little American girlfriend?” she asks and circles the room, watching me. “I know everything.”

  “Charly wasn’t a secret,” I reply with a shrug.

  “Do you think she’s with you because of your sparkling personality?” she asks with a laugh. “Hardly. You’re handsome, rich, famous. She’s with you so you can pay for her precious little shoe store.”

  I cock a brow.

  “That’s right, I’ve been there. I wasn’t about to let you go fuck some gold digger in Louisiana without seeing what she was all about for myself. She’s nothing. Her little store is nothing.”

  I want to slap her, and I’ve never wanted to slap a woman once in my life.

  “You deserve so much better than that. Aren’t you the one out there on a stage, spouting all kinds of advice about going after what you’re worth? Why would you downgrade to such a pathetic little money-grubbing whore?”

  “That’s enough.” My voice is steel. She stops pacing and stares at me with wide eyes.

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. You know what, Amy? I don’t know if she’s a money-grubbing whore.” I shrug one shoulder, as if it’s of no consequence to me. “I really don’t. She might be. But I do know that you are. Now, you want to know how you can make everything up to me? Get the fuck out of this room and don’t ever look back. If I so much as suspect that you’re fucking with my family, friends, or Charly, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life.”