Cherry Popper
Page 16
I was furious.
Fucking furious.
I gripped the remote so hard I popped the back compartment that contained the batteries. My teeth ground together with alarming pressure. If I pressed any harder, I might grind my teeth down to the root. It was the same rage I felt when I caught Simone with Coen—like I’d been betrayed.
Rage. Jealousy. Pain.
I felt it all.
I’d just picked out a new woman to fuck, but this still pissed me off.
She was seeing someone else, a man who had the looks and wealth to rival me.
I had no right to be angry, not after what I did to her. I shouldn’t feel jealousy either, not when I said I wanted nothing to do with her. All these feelings were inappropriate. I should just change the channel and forget I saw it in the first place.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stop staring.
NOW I GOOGLED WYATT CONSTANTLY, seeing if he’d spent any more time with Monroe. He owned a fashion company, so perhaps they were conducting a job interview in that restaurant. It would be unusual for the CEO to concern himself with such insignificant matters, especially over dinner. So that didn’t seem likely.
A few days later, they were photographed in the park together. Bright and early on Saturday morning, they went for a jog. Both dressed in their workout clothes, they jogged down the path, somehow smiling even though they were in the midst of exercising.
Jogging in the park on a Saturday morning wasn’t something new couples did. They usually had to go on a few dates first because they did something so…casual. Wyatt clearly didn’t care about being photographed with her, and since he’d seen her more than once, that probably meant he liked her.
How could he not like her?
She was perfect.
She was smart, beautiful, and real. She didn’t play games and wore her heart on her sleeve. She comforted me when I needed it most, and she was an amazing kisser. She gave head like she’d done it a thousand times.
Had she done the same to him?
Had she fucked him yet?
She probably still felt like a virgin because she was so tight.
I didn’t want Wyatt to find out.
This was exactly what I’d wanted, so I shouldn’t care that she was seeing someone else. What did I expect her to do? Be alone forever? I guess I didn’t expect to know anything about her personal life at all…because I never expected her to date a high-profile guy. Now the news was in my face.
I should brush it off, but I couldn’t.
As time passed, I became more obsessed.
Was he fucking her?
Was he falling for her?
Did she think about me anymore?
Did she hate me?
She did warn me that she wouldn’t wait around. And she made good on her threat.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I decided to head to her office. I could call her, but I feared she might not answer. That rejection would sting, and talking to her about this over the phone seemed lame anyway.
I greeted her assistant, who smiled when she recognized me. “Hey, Kathy. I just wanted to drop by and see if Monroe was free for lunch.”
“Well, she left for lunch about an hour ago. She should be back any minute.”
She was on a budget, and she would normally bring her lunch to work, so if she ate out, that probably meant someone else was paying for it.
Someone named Wyatt.
“Thanks, Kathy.” Just as I turned around, I came face-to-face with Monroe. Her hair was curled and pinned back, and she wore a halter dress with a bright blue cardigan. A gold necklace hung around her throat, and she looked like she was enjoying the last week of summer before it was officially gone.
Monroe stared at me with narrowed eyes, not the least bit happy to see me there. She was confused, uncomfortable, and a little angry.
And of course, Wyatt was with her.
Wyatt stood beside her, dressed in a navy blue suit with a black tie. He held himself like a powerful man, unflinching in my presence. It wasn’t clear if he knew about my relationship with Monroe, but he was restrained.
Monroe kept staring at me, her eyes shifting back and forth as she recovered from the shock. “What do you want, Slate?” The bitterness was unmistakable. She was just as pissed at me as she was when she left my penthouse. The rage burned in her eyes, along with the lingering effects of the heartbreak. She wasn’t afraid to be cold to me in front of both her assistant and the new man she was seeing, making me a public enemy.
I hadn’t anticipated this moment, and it was one of the rare times when I wasn’t sure what to do. I was caught off-balance, no longer in my element. I was chasing down an old lover, furious that she was with someone else. I hadn’t felt this way in a long time. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“About?” She kept up her hatred.
I glanced at her assistant and Wyatt. “Perhaps we could do this in private.”
“I just had lunch, so I need to get back to work.” She turned to Wyatt. “Thank you for lunch.”
“Of course.” He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth.
Right in front of me.
And she kissed him back.
Right in front of me.
He let the kiss linger longer than necessary before he walked off. He didn’t introduce himself or ask who I was—so he probably recognized me.
When she looked at me again, she was pissed. “I need to get to work, Slate. I’ll see you around.” She walked around me.
“Monroe.” I followed her, moving down the hallway to her office.
She halted and turned around. “I mean it. I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“Then have dinner with me after work. We’ll talk then.” Seeing Wyatt kiss her only made me hate this even more, only made me more jealous. If she kissed him, then what else had she done? Wyatt got laid all the time. I doubted he would wait around if she didn’t put out.
“What’s there to talk about, Slate?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“You’ll find out at dinner.”
“I already have plans. I’m meeting Wyatt’s friends tonight. I would much rather do that than spend another moment talking to you.” She walked into her office and shut the door in my face.
Fuck, maybe I was too late.
I DIDN’T SLEEP much that night.
I kept wondering if she’d slept over at his place.
Was she fucking him as I sat there on the couch?
Did she prefer him over me?
Did she really hate me?
The next morning, I went to her office again, this time earlier. There was no way she was having lunch with Wyatt two days in a row, so the odds played in my favor. I checked in with her assistant then moved to her office door.
Just like yesterday, Monroe didn’t look happy to see me. “Have you ever heard of a phone?”
“Would you have answered if I called?”
“I’d probably do the exact same thing you did to me,” she said coldly.
I deserved that—big-time. “Have lunch with me.”
“I’ll pass.” She turned back to her computer and ignored me in the doorway.
“Then I’ll just stand here.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a fire hazard.”
“Then maybe we should have this conversation at lunch—away from your coworkers.”
She turned in her desk chair and gave me a cold look. “You aren’t the boss of me anymore, Slate. You paid for a service and received that service. Now I’m just a regular person like everyone else—and I don’t owe you anything.”
She backhanded me without raising her wrist. “Sweetheart, please.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
That stung too. “I’m not going to go away.”
“Security can take care of that.”
“And I can take care of security. I’m not going to disappear, so you may as well cooperate.”
We left the building and headed to the deli we’d been before.
She made sure to pay for her own food before she sat down.
I didn’t fight her on it. I sat across from her but ignored my sandwich, knowing I had an enormous task in front of me.
She unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite, unaffected by this conversation. She hadn’t seemed surprised to see me show up at her office, both yesterday and today. She only seemed annoyed. “What is it, Slate?”
I’d worked so hard to get her attention for fifteen minutes, but now that I was there, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even know what I wanted. All I knew was I didn’t like the idea of her and Wyatt together.
“Slate?” she pressed, losing her patience. “You’ve pestered me for my attention, and now you have it. So what do you want?”
I forgot how beautiful she was, especially when she was pissed. Her bright eyes burned like smoldering embers, and her full lips were tight with rage. I’d been alone for the last few weeks, and instead of fantasizing about old lovers or porn, I always pictured her. “I’m sorry I was such an asshole to you.”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I got over it.”
“I’m sorry all the same.”
She took another bite of her sandwich. “You warned me this would happen. It’s my fault for not listening to you. I thought you were just wounded, and once that wound finally healed, you would let someone in. But I was wrong…you’re just an asshole. And that’s fine. If that’s who you want to be, then be that person.”
“It’s not who I want to be…” I’d never tried to be anything in particular. I just wanted to cut out the bullshit. I just wanted sex without worrying about betrayal. I wanted a foolproof way to make sure I was never publicly humiliated again.
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
I wanted to ask about Wyatt, but I felt like I had no right. It was none of my business what she did in her personal life. When she asked if I’d been with someone else, I refused to give her an answer.
“If that’s all you wanted, I would rather take my food to go.”
“You hate me that much?” I asked, wounded. She couldn’t even share a meal with me.
“No.” She looked me in the eye, her rage dying away slightly. “That’s how much you hurt me, Slate.”
I felt like she punched me in the gut.
“I thought we had something more than sex. I thought we had a connection. I thought I meant something to you…you certainly meant something to me. But then you dumped me in the coldest way possible—you wouldn’t even take my phone call. It was like the previous month never happened. Obviously, I meant nothing to you. No one would treat someone like that if that weren’t true.”
My voice emerged, quiet. “It’s not true. You did mean something to me. You do mean something to me.”
“Really?” she asked, still suspicious. “So you’re telling me that your sudden reappearance has nothing to do with Wyatt? He’s been all over the news since he started dating me. I know you don’t care for gossip, but I’m sure you heard about it.”
I wanted to lie, but I knew I couldn’t. “Yeah…I did hear about it.”
She shook her head slightly. “That’s the only reason you’re here, isn’t it?” Disapproval was heavy in her voice, like she was borderline disgusted with me. “I told you I wouldn’t wait around for you.”
“Yeah…I can see that.”
“You’re jealous. And I’m sure I would be jealous too if I had to hear about all your new conquests…”
Conquests that hadn’t been made. “You’re the last woman I slept with.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Would I lie?” She could call me an asshole all she wanted, but I was definitely no liar.
She didn’t challenge me again.
“Have you slept with him?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to answer you.”
That made my stomach tighten in painful knots.
“So, what do you want, Slate? To apologize for being an asshole? You’ve done that, so we can wrap this up and go our separate ways.”
If I walked out of there, I would just be a memory to her. The second Wyatt spotted me, he only wanted her more. Now another powerful man wanted her, and it only made her more desirable. Letting her go was my biggest mistake. “That’s not the only reason I’m here.”
“Then what is it? I have to get back to work soon.”
I had no idea what I wanted. I had no idea where this was going to go. All I knew was I didn’t want her to be with Wyatt—or anyone else for that matter. “I can’t explain how angry I was when I saw you with Wyatt. It was like…someone reached inside my chest and yanked out my heart. I was jealous…I was livid…I was a million things. I tried to forget about it, but then I found myself looking up Wyatt all the time, wondering if you two were still dating. It started to suffocate me…kill me.” That was the most honest I’d been in a long time. I didn’t even know how I felt until I started talking out loud. “I didn’t expect you to be with someone so soon, especially someone so similar to me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since…” I stared into her eyes and hoped I would see some sympathy.
She gave it to me—but only a little bit. “If I saw you with someone else, it would bother me too.”
“It doesn’t bother me. It kills me.” It was worse than what Simone did to me. I couldn’t stop picturing them together.
“What does that mean, Slate?”
I didn’t have an answer.
“Do you want to be with me?”
I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t want her to end up with someone else, not when it hurt me this much, but I didn’t know how to be in a relationship. I didn’t know how to trust someone enough to even try. “I don’t know…”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know? So, you don’t want to be with me, but you don’t want me to be with Wyatt? You do realize that makes you the biggest asshole on the planet, right?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then explain it to me.” She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side.
I should have come here with a better plan. I shouldn’t have acted off my emotions so radically. I didn’t want her to be with Wyatt, but I had nothing to offer her in return. “You know relationships are hard for me.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“So you can’t expect me to give that to you.”
“Then what do you expect me to do?” she asked incredulously. “Put my life on hold while you figure out what you want? Not gonna happen, Slate. Wyatt is a nice guy, and we have a lot in common.”
“But you still want me.” She hadn’t shown it because she’d been so angry this entire time, but she had to still feel something for me. If not, she wouldn’t be so angry. That rage came from somewhere—pain.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll move on.”
I felt my heart tighten in agony. “Sweetheart—”
“I told you not to call me that. We aren’t together anymore…not sure if we ever were.”
She’d only slept in my bed once, but she’d been the only woman in my life for the past six weeks.
“I don’t think you really want me, Slate. I just think you can’t stand the fact that you didn’t ruin me. I bounced back and found someone else. I didn’t cry over you and wait around. Now I’m seeing a man who’s just as handsome, charming, and successful. You can’t stand it.”
“That’s not true, Monroe.”
“Then what is true?” she countered. “If you want me, then prove it. Give me something real. I’m not asking for forever, just something. Give me a relationship, monogamy, dates…normal stuff.”
The second I did that, I would be back in the situation I was in
before. I would be at the mercy of a woman. She could betray me the way Simone betrayed me—and I would be even more bitter. I didn’t care about giving up the women I would fuck. I cared about giving up myself, trusting someone in a way I hadn’t in five years.
When I didn’t respond, her eyes narrowed in disapproval. “I’m not her, Slate. I would never betray you.”
“You don’t think she said the same thing to me?”
“But you know me. Give me more credit than that.”
“I thought I knew my brother, someone I’ve known my entire life. We’re of the same blood—and he had no problem stabbing me in the back.”
Her anger disappeared altogether, and now she showed her deep sadness. “Don’t let them have this much power over you, Slate. Don’t let them destroy your future. Don’t let them ruin you like this. They were assholes, but I can promise you, not everyone is an asshole.”
I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t stand the idea of her having any power over me. My brother owned half the company, and he might drag it into ruin because of his stupidity. People couldn’t be trusted.
“Slate.”
I leaned over the table and held her gaze.
“I didn’t like you at first. You were so cold and brutal. But then I got to know you…and I really liked the man underneath that hard exterior. I looked forward to seeing you every day, and the night we were together, I wasn’t scared at all. I felt closer to you, wanted more of you. You became my friend, my lover, and the person I trusted most. I say all of this because…I still feel that way. I’m angry at you for the way you treated me, but if you wanted to be with me, really be with me, I would give it a try. But if you can’t offer that…then I have no reason to stay.”
I shouldn’t have expected a different response. She might want me, but not enough to deny herself what she deserved. I wasn’t happy with her decision, but I respected it.
“So, can you not offer that?”
I didn’t want to give the answer that would end this for good. I would have to forget about her, try not to think about where she was sleeping at night. Sometimes I wondered if I could try to make a relationship work, if I could take it one step at a time, but I knew I would only waste her time. “No.”