Picture Perfect Love (Heartstring Dating Agency Book 3)

by Lauren Wood

  Before she could respond, I was rushing out of the room. I wasn’t about to break down into tears right there in front of everyone more than I already had. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself on the way out. Joshua seemed hell bent on getting me fired or convincing me to quit, and now he might have finally succeeded. I left without a word to my boss or anyone else about where I was going. I just had to get out of there.

  I jumped into the first cab that stopped and blurted out my home address by habit. My phone immediately started exploding with messages from my boss and from Valerie, followed by a slew of texts from my other friends asking if I had seen the articles floating around about Joshua’s wild night at the club with Cassie. Every new ding of my phone made my stomach turn.

  After a few minutes, I couldn’t see the screen through my tears anymore. My hands dropped into my lap, covering up my phone as if to shield me from anything else that might come through and add to the tragedy of my already ruined day.

  I started thinking about home to comfort myself. Sweatpants. A bath. A bottle of wine. Comfort chick flicks. Junk food. Bed. Most importantly, privacy… where I could be as depressed or angry as I wanted without anyone bothering me. I needed all of that so badly at that moment, it was worth risking my job over.

  The cab went over a pothole in the street, nearly knocking me over in the seat. The jolt was all I needed to come to my senses. What was I doing? Why was I about to slink off into some hole to lick my wounds? All of this was Joshua’s fault, and he deserved to live with the guilt of just how badly he had hurt me. If nothing else, he was going to have to answer for his shitty behavior to my face.

  “Stop!” I shrieked to the driver, rattling off Joshua’s address instead. I swore he started driving faster, matching the sudden urgency in my voice. Which was good. I needed to get there and go off before I lost my nerve.

  My heart was racing as I stormed through his building, up the elevator, and to his front door. But my hand stopped just before knocking. What if there was evidence of Cassie still hanging around his place? Would her bra be draped over his couch or her lipstick be smudged on his shirt collar? What if he smelled like her? And more importantly, was I strong enough to face any of it?

  I had come that far, I thought. And I was already hurting. Might as well follow through. Joshua certainly had no problem driving the knife in deeper it seemed. Finally, I clenched my fist and started banging until I heard shuffling inside.

  The door swung open. A very tired and hungover Joshua stood there, looking about as terrible as Cassie had looked, only maybe not so proud. Especially once he registered it was me standing there, looking mad as a hornet.

  “Abby,” he murmured with a hoarse voice. “It’s you. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  My ears rang with fury as he started begging me to come inside as if everything would be alright now. I didn’t smell Cassie on him right away, but that might have just been because he reeked of booze so badly.

  Somehow part of my heart still caved into him. I felt my body sway, wanting to go to him. I wanted to collapse into his arms and say forget everything and never talk about any of it ever again. But then Cassie’s voice started echoing through my brain, followed by the look on Christopher’s face when we ran into him at the restaurant.

  Where had this guy come from and how had he managed to do so much damage in such a short amount of time? My veins pumped with anger, growing hotter by the second.

  Without thinking, my hand flattened and reared back, cracking across his cheek. We were both shocked, and I couldn’t stand to see that pitiful look on his face. My sobs erupted all over again as I turned to run away back down the hall.

  17

  Joshua

  Seeing Abby again was almost enough to shock me out of my horrid hangover and the hazed regrets of the night before. But the pained expression on her face followed by the smack across my face brought it all back with searing clarity. I tried to shake off the sting on my cheek and the pounding ache in my head long enough to wrap my head around what was happening.

  I had been asleep until the banging on my door startled me awake. One moment Abby was there, looking heartbroken and betrayed… and just as soon as she appeared, she was gone again. My immediate reaction was to go chasing after her, but I realized I was in nothing but my boxers the moment I lunged out the door. I froze and pivoted, racing back inside to try and find something, anything, as quickly as possible to at least partially cover myself and go chasing after her.

  My coat was tossed onto the couch with my phone, blowing up with incessant buzzing, sitting right next to it. I briefly picked it up to search for any hint of what might have lured Abby to my doorstep only to send her running off again.

  I scanned the flood of incoming calls and texts, but there was nothing from her. Only a dozen or more pissed off messages from each of my siblings and a number of other inquiries from gossip columnists and so called friends. I cringed as the memories started coming back to me. That stupid club opening and dancing with that girl, all of which had been caught on camera—of course. Whoever that stupid club owner was must have been very pleased, having achieved his goal in getting me wasted and making headlines. Those drinks he gave me paid for themselves.

  I shook it off and threw the phone to the table, sliding into my coat to try and catch up with Abby. I darted down the hall and found her cornered by the elevators, pacing as she waited for one of them up to open up and save her.

  “Abby, wait. Please. Talk to me. Last night… It wasn’t what you think. I fucked up, but…”

  “But nothing!” She screamed. “It’s never what I think, is it? Funny how that works. That stunt you pulled with Christopher supposedly wasn’t what I thought it was either… until it turned out it was.”

  “I know this all looks really bad…”

  “You look really bad,” she growled. “You look like crap. Like a stupid guy who does stupid things and doesn’t care about anyone but themselves. Do you know how humiliating it was for me to show up to work today and have Cassie go on about you two? Well, if that’s what you’re looking for, you two can have each other and all the hangovers you can stand. Forgive me for wanting to actually make something of myself and my life. You keep saying life is too short. Well, you know what? I think life is too short to waste it away living the way you do.”

  “I don’t know what that girl told you, but I didn’t know she worked with you,” I defended. “That doesn’t matter anyway because nothing happened with her. We danced and got drunk. She tried to come home with me, but I wouldn’t let her. Even as drunk as I was, I didn’t want anything to do with anyone if they weren’t you. You’re all that matters to me, Abby. All I’ve been wanting all week was for you to show up like this. Well, not like this, but…”

  “Can you keep it down?” A woman appeared from around the corner. One of my neighbors who was known for screaming at me when I got too noisy. Her face melted with angry resolution when she saw it was me behind all the fuss. “Oh, it’s you. Of course it’s you. I’m reporting this to the building committee. I’ve had enough of you and your wild parties and crazy drinking, always dragging random women in and out of here. Families live here, you know! And respectable people who actually work for a living!”

  She was still ranting about me as she marched back off into her apartment. I turned to see Abby looked more hurt and disappointed in me than ever.

  “I can’t believe I ever thought I saw something more in you,” she rasped, shaking her head. “Would you even know if something more happened with you and Cassie? You don’t remember what you do half the time you go out like that. And why should you? You screw one thing up and you can just move on to the next one. Just like bottles of empty booze.”

  “Abby, no. I swear… if you’d just listen to me,” I pleaded, trying to stop her as the elevator finally dinged.

  Her eyes burned into me with a disdain I never wanted to see in her. “Nothing has changed about you. I was stupid to think
I could ever help you become a better person. I’m not helping you out of your hole. You’re just dragging me down into it with you. You’re exactly the same as you’ve always been.”

  The doors slid open, but I reached for her as she turned to get on. “Don’t follow me!” she shouted, hiding in the corner until the doors shut in front of me, leaving me standing there alone in nothing but my trench coat and boxers.

  I was every bit as disappointed in myself as she was, especially as I considered that she might have been right. I thought I was changing, but the way I looked and felt in that moment proved otherwise. She had every right to feel the way she did, and to never want to see me again.

  As I trudged down the hall back to my place, I could hear my angry neighbor on her phone, yelling about me to the building committee. Someone like me would never get kicked out, but maybe that was the sort of thing keeping me from getting my shit together.

  I went back inside my apartment, shutting and locking the door behind me. Everything was a mess from the night before, and the whole place looked empty and sad. I wanted to crawl back into bed, but I was too fueled up with adrenaline to even think about it. My stomach was starting to turn flips and my head was spinning. It truly was a bad morning for the books.

  I collapsed down on the couch and decided to face my phone. I couldn’t run from it all forever. The moment I picked it up, it started ringing with an incoming call from Lucas. I answered and managed to survive his screaming lecture about me fucking up all over again. He had seen the reports about the night before at the club, along with all of the less than flattering photos.

  “I thought you had changed,” he said.

  “Apparently everyone did. Can’t blame you. So did I,” I groaned. “It was a mistake, Lucas. Everyone makes mistakes. And believe me, I’m paying the price for it now.” I buried my throbbing head in my hand.

  “It’s not just the photos and the gossip,” he continued. “I talked to the IT department. That Christopher guy started blowing up customer service again. They finally broke and told me all about what you did. What were you thinking? You can’t just use the company to suit your own personal vendettas whenever you feel like it. What’s next? You start blocking any guy who matches with a girl you’re attracted to? What do you think that will do to our company!?”

  I let him rant until he was out of breath and ready to hang up. I didn’t have much to offer to make any of it better. I had brought all of this on myself. I poured salt in my own wounds by wondering what would have happened if I had held out just one more day to hear from Abby. The situation with Christopher and Lucas would be easier to handle without my hangover and knowing that she probably never wanted to look at me again. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been. Maybe I truly had doomed the whole thing from the start.

  The more it all circled around in my head, the more impossible it felt not to crawl back into bed. I had let Lucas go off some at least. That was a start, and all I could handle for the time being. I let the phone slip from my hand and left it in the living room to go off all it wanted. I had all I could take for now.

  I shuffled back into my bedroom and started to crawl under the covers, but just as my head hit my pillow, something caught my eye. There on the nightstand was the necklace I had given to Abby. The golden scales of justice glistening in the sunlight coming in through my window.

  How ironic, I thought. I didn’t need another stinging reminder of her, and I definitely didn’t need another kick in the butt over just how badly I had screwed myself over. It all catches up to you eventually, sometimes sooner rather than later.

  I opened the nightstand drawer and brushed the necklace inside, closing it to be forgotten and remembered some other time… maybe a later date when I would be better equipped to handle it.

  After a day of sleeping and recovering, I felt no better. Part of me wanted to believe I could prove everyone wrong. I could be the man my family wanted me to be, the man Abby wanted to believe I was. Even if it never brought her back, I could at least show her that she wasn’t entirely wrong about me. She did see a glimmer of hope in me… something that was worth saving.

  But she had been the reason I was starting to turn things around, and I realized the emptiness I had been feeling was from that reason being gone. Maybe I could be better on my own, for myself. But what was the point? I was just as good to the world as a drunken playboy partyer as I was a straightlaced, responsible executive. And one of those used to sound way more fun than the other. But without Abby, not much of anything sounded fun anymore.

  Even the straight and narrow life had been better with her around. She somehow managed to make everyday life more exciting than any club or party, just by being a part of it. I didn’t know if I would ever get over her enough to stop missing that.

  I didn’t know what would come of it all. All I knew was that by Monday morning, I was in no better mood to face work or Lucas or anything I would need to do to fix it. For days the alarm went off, and I shut it off, rolling back over in bed to sleep.

  18

  Abby

  The whole way home, I pictured flying into my apartment in a rage—throwing and breaking things, shredding pillows. Whatever ridiculous thing it took to get out all the anger and heartache surging through me. But once I was finally in the door, all I could manage to do was collapse onto my couch. It’s Joshua’s apartment that deserves to be ransacked anyway, I thought. And even then it was an unfair fight. He could easily afford to have everything replaced without a second thought. It was the same privilege he kept trying to extend to me that I kept refusing. But then...this was exactly why I did.

  An hour later I managed to get up just long enough to change into my favorite sweats and flip on a rom com, which was a masochistic move. Especially without ice cream, which I was apparently out of. But I was too lethargic to really watch the movie anyway, so it didn’t matter.

  At some unknown time after sundown, a knock came to the door.

  “Who is it?” I grumbled, not nearly loud enough for whoever was on the other side of the door to hear.

  The handle started to jiggle, followed by the sound of a key sliding into the lock. I shot up with wide eyes, clutching a pillow to my chest. On top of everything, was I now being robbed!?

  I picked up the remote, as if it could serve as some kind of weapon against the intruder. An instant sigh of relief escaped me when Valerie walked through the door.

  “Hey sweetie,” she waved lightly, like she was talking to a child. “Hope you don’t mind me barging in to check on you. I still had your key from the last time you had me watch over your apartment.”

  “Oh, right,” I exhaled, slinking back down to a horizontal position. “No, it’s fine. Come on in. Not that I’m much good for company right now.”

  She held up the bag in her hands with an encouraging smile. “I brought a care package!”

  After sitting on the sliver of couch left next to me, she began spreading everything out on the coffee table. “Ice cream, because I knew you’d be out. Nuts and caramel, cause I know you like to add extra. A bottle of vodka for tonight, and a gallon of water for in the morning. Plus aspirin, tissues, and a box of treats from your favorite bakery.”

  “Vodka,” I barked, holding out my hand.

  I sat up and took a big chug straight from the bottle. “See! Who needs a boyfriend?” I said, wiping my mouth. “With girlfriends like you, men are useless and pointless.”

  “Well, there’s at least one thing I’m not going to take care of for you, honey. I love you, but sorry. I have my limits.”

  “I think they make machines for that sort of thing anyway,” I replied, tipping the bottle in the air towards her.

  She laughed and settled onto the cushion next to me, rubbing my back while I attempted to drink down my sorrows. “And I come bearing one more gift… Or good news, actually. You still have your job. I told our boss you were having female troubles and it flustered him enough to make him cave into giving you a few day
s. Just come back to work by the weekend, and you’ll be in the clear.”

  “Thanks, Val. I seem to be having trouble caring about my job right this moment, but once I snap out of this… I know I will.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she grunted. “When those bills come due. Now give me a sip of that bottle.”

  I handed it over and let her have a go. “That’s the funny thing. The whole time I knew Joshua he kept trying to convince me to play hooky from work or quit my job, and I refused. And yet today I walked right out of there without a second thought, and right now I honestly feel like I couldn’t care less if I ever went back or not. It’s like I just had to give him a hard time, no matter what.”

  “A man like that needs someone to give him a hard time,” she proposed. “That’s why you were so good for him. And why he liked you so much.”

  “He didn’t like me enough apparently,” I griped, snatching the bottle back from her.

  “Have you talked to the bum?” she asked gently.

  “I’ve yelled at the bum. And… slapped him.”

  We were both dead serious for a moment, but then burst into laughter, feeling the warm, soothing comfort of the vodka setting in.

  “Girl, you did not,” she snickered.

  “Right across the face. I’ve never slapped a man in my life. Always wanted to, though. I guess I can be thankful to him for that at least. He made one of my dreams come true.”

  She took another swig, shaking her head. “I can’t believe he slept with Cassie. That tramp. And you know I’m not normally one for down-talking other women, but… that girl and the way she was acting. What else am I supposed to call her?”

  “A free-loading tramp maybe?” I suggested. “But… I really don’t think he slept with her. He doesn’t think he did anyways.”

  She perked up. “Really? Well, hell girl… Whaddya slap the man for then? The way I see it, he fended off another suitor to keep you all to himself. And what those pictures showed him doing with Cassie in the club… We can’t honestly say we haven’t danced all up on strange men like that when we were out after a few drinks. None of it’s really all so bad, is it?”