Easy Kisses (The Boudreaux Series Book 4) (25 page)

“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 nods 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.”

“You’re bloody threatening me!”

“No. I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”

“I should just kill myself.” She stomps her foot like a child and I can’t help but laugh. “This is not funny!”

“You’re right. It’s ridiculous. Goodbye, Amy.” I turn away from her and ignore her completely until she finally stomps away and slams the door behind her.

Seconds later, the door opens again and I spin, ready to threaten to call the cops, but it’s Todd standing there instead of Amy.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“No.” I shake my head and rub my hand over my mouth. Todd nods and looks toward the door.

“She’s such a bitch, Simon. Don’t let her into your head.”

“I don’t give two shits about Amy,” I reply. “She no longer lives in my head. But I fucked up, mate.”

“Yeah, I’ve been telling you that for weeks.”

I’m pacing the room in agitation. God, how do I fix this?

“So, go after her, Simon. Get on a bloody plane.”

“I can’t.” I shake my head and push my fingers through my hair. “I’m a jealous moron with her, Todd. I’m a complete jerk and I want to tear off every man’s head who even looks in her direction. I overreact to even an innocent interaction, and I promised her that I would talk to her before jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t. I
couldn’t
. I’ve had a lot of time to go over everything in my head, and I handled it so badly.”

“Simon, there’s a difference between being jealous and being territorial,” Todd says calmly. “It’s okay to stake a claim on the woman you love.”

“I didn’t say love.”

“Jesus, you’re stubborn,” he mutters. “Come on, mate. I’ve never seen you like this before. You’ve been in love with her since you met her. And that’s why you get so jealous, because she’s amazing and anyone would love to be with her. But she loves you too, you know. No way a woman lets a guy stay with her for weeks if she’s in
like
with him.”