Page 80 of The Plus One Professional

“I’ve got it. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.” I turned toward him and looked at him—reallylooked at him—for the first time.

His eyes were red and a little swollen, like he either hadn’t slept or he’d been crying. In all the years I’d known Simon, I’d never actually seen him cry.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Okay.” I nodded.

“Inside, maybe.” He motioned to my building.

“Oh, yeah.” Holy crap. I hadn’t even considered the fact that I should invite him in. That was how differently I felt about him now.

If he had shown up a month ago, even a week ago, I would have immediately asked him to come up to my apartment. Sometime over the past three days, it had started to feel like he was…not a stranger…but someone from my past. Someone I didn’t know anymore.

We walked inside the building and rode up the elevator with Mrs. Johnson and Cruella, her two-year-old Dalmatian, who was named after the breed’s nemesis, ironically. It was a funny name for her in particular because Cruella was the sweetest, friendliest dog in the building. She loved everyone.

I reached down to pet her and say hi, and I noticed that Simon didn’t acknowledge her or Mrs. Johnson. It struck me that that wasn’t new behavior for him. Unlike Cole, who was friendly and didn’t seem to meet a stranger, Simon didn’t speak to the general public. I’d always thought it was just because he was reserved, but now I saw that he was dismissive. I was starting to see why Billie had always thought he was an arrogant asshole.

“You two have a lovely Sunday,” Mrs. Johnson wished us both when the elevator stopped at her floor.

“You, too.” I smiled and gave Cruella another pet as the duo stepped off the elevator.

Once we were alone, we continued up the building in silence. I didn’t have the bandwidth to make small talk. My mind was too busy trying to process what had just happened with Cole. What had he wanted to tell me? Why had he gone from hot to cold on me so quickly?

When the elevator doors opened on the ninth floor, we walked down the hallway in silence. We didn’t say a word to each other until I opened the door to my apartment, and we went inside.

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked as I shut and locked the door behind us.

“Old fashioned.”

I stared at him for a second, thinking he must be joking, not that he was ever that funny. When I saw he was serious, I explained, “I don’t have bourbon or bitters. It’s ten in the morning. I was thinking more like water or maybe coffee.”

“Coffee’s fine.”

I nodded and walked into the kitchen, where I found Duke sunbathing in his favorite spot.

“You got a cat?” Simon had always been good at stating the obvious.

“Two, actually.”

“When did you get cats?”

“Three years ago.”

Whiskey got up from her morning chair and left the room, flicking her tail dramatically as she left the kitchen. She didn’t like people in general, but she was particularly standoffish toward men. Except for Trevor, that is. She tolerated Trevor. Most men, though, if they tried to touch her, she’d try and claw their eyes out. It would be difficult since she’d been declawed at the shelter, but still, claws or not, I wouldn’t put it past her.

I finished making Simon’s coffee and handed it to him, then lowered onto the chair across from him. He took a sip, and I waited for him to speak. The look in his eyes was a combination of pain and confusion. I’d never seen it before. Ever.

“What’s going on?” I asked quietly. “Why aren’t you on your honeymoon?”

“There’s not going to be a honeymoon. It’s over.”

“You just got married yesterday,” I stated aloud what I was thinking in my head.

“It was all a lie. Everything. Devin told me she was pregnant. I did the right thing. We were supposed to have a quiet, intimate wedding. She turned it into a circus. There were three hundred guests. It was all too much. And then there was you. She knew who you were when she hired you. It was all a premeditated, calculated, manipulated lie.”

“What was?” I asked just to try and keep up with the conversation. I was still trying to wrap my head around the ‘she’s pregnant’ statement. Of course, there’d been murmurs and mumblings at the wedding that it was of the shotgun variety, and I’d thought the same thing before she’d downed several glasses of champagne while dress shopping, but it was true. Simon was going to be a father.

“All of it. It was all a lie. When we got back to the hotel room last night, we had a big fight over you, actually.”

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