Page 85 of Unfinished

Derek had been grilling me the entire ride home from the Gala and I had about enough of it. He’d never gotten like this over anything, so why now? Why was he acting like this because we ran into Liam?

“Do you still love him?” Derek asked.

“Of course not,” I lied and I hated the way it felt. Liam wasn’t someone you ever fell out of love with.

All I could hope for was that I’d never run into Liam again, and I had a hard time even hoping for that. Even if I stopped coming to events like this, I wouldn’t be able to stay far away from him. If I ever became an executive, I’d need to come to these events often. If for no other reason than to make the company I work for look good.

Though now that Liam knew where I worked, he’d probably try to woo me or something. How was I going to avoid Liam? Breaking up with Derek wasn’t going to be easy now. He’d think it had everything to do with Liam when honestly, I had no interest in continuing this relationship anyway. Especially after the way Derek acted tonight.

We arrived back at my apartment and I turned to Derek, “I have an early morning thing with Aston.”

“You don’t want me to come up?”

“I have loads of research to do tomorrow since I couldn’t do it today because of the gala you gave me less than a day’s notice on attending.” I didn’t hold back the irritation in my tone.

Derek’s expression went dark but I gave him my own death stare in return. There was no way that I was going to be able to sleep next to Derek tonight. What I needed was time with Ashley and Aston to talk this out, figure out what just happened, and then come up with a plan to break up with Derek in a way that wouldn’t end badly.

“Fine.” Derek kissed me and I got out of the car and walked up to my building. The car drove off and I watched it as it turned the corner and disappeared.

“Shit, fuck! Motherfucker!” I yelled, trying to relieve some of the anxiety I was feeling right now.

“Sweetie, I can hear you,” Aston yelled out of his window with a laugh, “Did you forget your keys?

“No, Aston.” I took a breath and I unlocked the door and headed upstairs to the apartment.

“What is going on?” Aston asked when I walked in. Ashley, who was in her pajamas, and Aston were on the sofa watching some reality TV show together. Just a typical Saturday night for us.

“I love that dress on you!” Ashley exclaimed.

“Thank you.” I walked off to my bedroom, “You’ll never guess who I ran into.”

“Who?” Aston asked from the living room.

I pushed my dress off and tossed it on a chair in my room and tugged on Liam’s old t-shirt and jogger shorts. I often slept in this t-shirt out of habit at this point. Coming out of my bedroom, I said, “Liam Teresi.”

“What?!” Ashley shouted, lurching forward on the couch and turning to look at me.

I spent the next couple of hours telling my friends all about what happened tonight. During that time, we all absolutely agreed that Derek had to go.

"I think you should give Liam a chance," Ashley remarked.

"Me too," Aston agreed.

"He kept secrets from me. He manipulated me," I reminded them both.

"And he did it for your protection. Babe, you love him. You've always loved him and no one has lived up to him. You need to forgive him and hear him out." Ashley put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.

She was right, I still loved him but he hid so much from me I didn't know if I could get over the hurt of it all. Would I be able to fully let go of the way he manipulated me during our friendship? Was it possible to trust him in a relationship knowing he didn’t have a problem withholding information from me? That wasn’t forgetting that I was no longer the same woman he loved back then, and he might not be interested in me if he knew everything that had changed in me.

“Good morning, Hannah,” Declan greeted as he walked into the meeting room where my team and the lawyers were already setting up. This would be a preliminary meeting where we heard from the lawyers about specific legalities we would need to follow.

My team, at that point, would start working on a plan and put together a tentative timeline for the project. The advertising company reps would be here to explain their specific needs as well as some of the software my team would need to work with or around.

I turned to Declan and smiled, “Good morning, Declan.”

“Picked a good team, lots of brilliant minds,” Declan scanned over my team members with a nod and my team all sat a little taller at the compliment.

“You said we needed fresh and I wanted team players with great brainstorming and teamwork capabilities. We are all excited about this project.”

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