Authors: Ashley Blake
The look of confusion on her face was priceless.
Jonathan chimed in which made it even better.
“Yeah, we’ll all fly together, it’ll be fun.”
She looked back and forth between us, completely in the dark.
“Am I missing something here?”
“Oh, sorry,
Barbara
, I guess I forgot to mention it when I saw you earlier. Jonathan invited me to go home with him for Thanksgiving.” My smile was pure saccharin as I watched her seething in front of me.
I could see that she had to fight to keep from screaming and it was
hilarious.
“What?!” Looks like the screaming won that fight.
“Yeah, I invited Sky to come home with me. We’re going to have an awesome Thanksgiving.”
“I can’t wait!” I couldn’t help but throw that in.
“We’re going back to the dorm Barbs. Are you studying or are you going back too?”
“Um, I’m going back to my dorm.” The wind had definitely been let out of her sail.
“Sweetie, is it okay if we walk her back? It’s late.”
I would have done anything he asked me to in that moment because he called me ‘sweetie’ in front of Barbi and she was not happy.
“Sure.” I smiled up at him and my eyes slid over to her as I threw her one of my best smirks.
We all walked back to her dorm, with Jonathan and Barbi doing most of the chatting. We dropped her off at her dorm and then went back to our own. Once inside, I told Jonathan I was going to sleep in my room that night because I had been neglecting Katie.
“Okay, I guess.” He looked a bit sad so I put my arms around his neck and looked into his eyes.
“I will sleep in your room tomorrow night, I promise. I think my friend misses me so I have to give her some time too, okay?”
“Okay.” He kissed me, the kind that makes your toes curl, and then hugged me tight. “I can’t wait until tomorrow night.”
The next day, during breakfast, I brought Katie up to speed on everything that had been going on with Jonathan and me, and I also told her that I was going home with him for Thanksgiving.
“You are kidding! Sky, that’s a big deal, you know? You guys are totally going to get married one day, I just know it.”
“Married? Katie, you’re talking cra cra right now. We’re a little young for that and we’ve only been dating for a short time!”
“I know but there is something different with you guys. I could tell at the beginning of the year that he was into you the first time he saw you when he was on stage. I’m telling you Sky, he’s the one, and I better be in the wedding!”
We giggled like school girls as we put our trays away and headed out. I loved Katie, and I knew she was happy for me, but marriage? That was a bit too far in the future for me to even think about, but if I was being honest with myself I knew that there was no one else that I could ever see myself with.
I had a study group that afternoon after my last class and then I went to the rec center to work out. As I was on the elliptical, my mind kept going to my trip home with Jonathan. I had already decided what I was going to wear on Thanksgiving so I had that covered and it was one less thing for me to stress about. What I was most worried about was how his family would receive me once they found out that I did not come from money. His parents definitely didn’t give me the impression that they were snobs like that, but I had no idea how his grandmother would react to someone like me. I had never been around anyone with their kind of money, so that part was stressing me out big time.
I grabbed dinner and then finished the night at the library. Jonathan told me he had band practice until 11:00 that night so he asked me to just come to his room anytime after 11:30 when I was ready to go to bed. I thought it was kind of weird that he had practice so late, because they never practiced after 9:00, but I didn’t question him about it.
Katie was already sleeping when I got back to our room at about 11:00, so I quietly put my book bag down, grabbed my bedtime stuff and went down to Jonathan’s room a little bit early. I hadn’t seen him all day and I couldn’t wait to be in his arms. His door was usually open if he was around and since his door was closed when I got there I figured he was still at practice, so I decided to wait for him in his room.
He never locked his door so I turned the knob and as soon as I stepped inside, to say that bad memories came flooding back to me is an understatement, I felt like I was hit by a hurricane of bad memories. Lying in Jonathan’s bed, apparently totally naked, was Barbi with her hair all messy and unruly. She sneered at me as I stood there, frozen, with my mouth open.
This is not happening right now.
The words were very familiar to me.
At first I couldn’t process what I was seeing but then I realized that she was naked in his bed, holding the sheets over her breasts, smirking at me.
That smirk put me over the edge and I snapped.
“What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing?”
A sneer curled up the right side of her lip. “I’m doing what I do every week around this time. You didn’t know, did you?”
I was so confused. Was she implying that they…? There was no way. Jonathan wouldn’t do this to me, would he? I felt my cheeks burning hot as my heart tried to bulldoze its way out of my chest. But why is she here? And why is she looking like she was just fucked from here to Timbuktu and back? My stomach dropped into my toes and I felt like I was going to vomit.
No, no, no, no, no!
I spun on my heel and flew out of his room to find him. He had to be around somewhere.
There’s no way this crazy bitch is telling the truth!
There’s no way that Jonathan would cheat on me!
As I rounded the corner, I ran right into Jonathan who was just coming from the shower. He had a big smile on his face when he saw me and I was briefly caught off guard by his glistening chest, but then I remembered what I just saw.
Was he washing away evidence of being with her?
I glared a hole right through him.
“You lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch!”
He looked totally confused. “Skylar, keep your voice down! What is wrong with you?”
“I can’t believe you would ask me that!”
He grabbed my arm and his eyes bore into mine. “Sky, what is wrong? I have no idea what is going on here!”
“Maybe the slut waiting for you in your bed will fill you in!”
“What?! Is Barbi still in my room?”
Oh my god, he’s admitting it!
The tears spilled down over my cheeks without warning and I ran away from him up to my room and threw myself on my bed in a fit of sobs. Katie started to stir, and then sat up when she heard me balling. I tried to be quiet but the pain was too great. She hopped onto my bed and put her arms around me.
“Sky, what happened?”
All I could get out through my sobs was Jonathan’s name.
“What did he do?!”
A couple of minutes later, Jonathan knocked lightly on my door.
“Skylar, please let me in.”
“Go away, I never want to see you again!”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I’m not stupid Jonathan, I have eyes and I know what I saw! I thought you were different!”
“Skylar, open this door right now!”
“Go away Jonathan, it’s over between us, do you hear me,
over
! Forget you ever met me!” I didn’t care that we were probably creating a scene in the hallway.
My sobs wracked my body and I wanted the bed to just swallow me up.
Katie got up and opened the door a crack and I could hear her whispering to him.
“Just give her some time Jonathan, she’s super upset right now. I’m sure she’ll come talk to you tomorrow.”
That seemed to be enough because he walked away and she closed our door.
“Katie, how could I be such a fool! Why would a guy like that be faithful? Barbi was down there! He can have any girl he wants and apparently he does!”
“I don’t know Sky, she’s a scheming bitch. Maybe it wasn’t what you thought.”
I gave her a deadpan look, my face flush and stained with tears. “Katie, she was naked in his bed. How can that be anything but what it looks like?”
“Oh.” She didn’t say anything after that.
“I’m so stupid Katie. Anybody but me could have seen this coming. The whole campus has probably been laughing at me behind my back this whole time with me thinking I was the only girl in his life. He’s gorgeous, rich, smart and in a popular band. How could I be so dumb?” The tears rolled softly down my cheeks.
“Sky, you’re not dumb, don’t beat yourself up. Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. He looked really upset when I talked to him. Maybe sleep on it and talk to him tomorrow?”
“No, I’m done. No more cheaters for me. He can forget about Thanksgiving, I’m going home. I have nothing else to say to him. Anyway, enough about this, it’s late. Let’s go to sleep.”
She gave me a big hug and then climbed in her bed. “Okay, try to get some sleep.”
“I will. And Katie? Thanks for listening.”
She smiled at me. “That’s what I’m here for.”
As I curled up in my covers, I replayed the whole scene again. I kept going back to her saying they did that every week and I tried to remember if there were blocks of time where it could have happened, and I realized that it could have happened any time because I was not with Jonathan every minute of the day. Had I really been so naïve? Sadness overwhelmed me as the tears hit my pillow.
I should have stuck to my original plan and stayed away from guys. But Jonathan drew me in, I thought he was different, and I thought he was the guy of my dreams. How could I have been so wrong? As I started to drift off to sleep, tears were still rolling down my cheeks and I wished I had never met Jonathan Hunter.
Why does love have to hurt so much?
Books by Ashley Blake
The Billionaire’s Desire 2: Dubai Confidential
The Billionaire’s Desire 3: Ultimate Bliss
The Billionaire’s Desire Bonus Book 4: Breakable Bonds
The Billionaire’s Desire Bonus Book 4: Always and Forever