Page 45 of The Billionaire Experience

“Why didn’t you sleep with him? Reagan, honey. Live a little!”

The comment hit Reagan sideways. Not only had Kelly accused her of having a “benefactor” and of not being able to house herself, but now she’d quite literally accused Reagan of not living big enough.

Whatever the hell that meant.

“You’re doing enough living for both of us.” Reagan snatched her headphones and phone charger from the end table and packed those as well.

“Don’t be mad because I’m having fantastic sex and you’re not.”

“I’m not mad about the sex! I’m worried about you,” Reagan said, raising her voice to meet the volume of Kelly’s. “I don’t want you to get hurt again, and he has done a lot of hurting where are you are concerned.”

“You don’t understand. You’ve never been married.”

White hot anger flashed inside Reagan like a lightning bolt. This time she had the sense to keep her mouth shut. No, she’d never been married, but she had been in a stable, monogamous relationship. She knew what it was like to love and be loved. She wasn’t a stunted idiot because she hadn’t signed a marriage license.

She zipped her bag and righted her wheeled suitcase, a shake working its way down her arm. Not all of her anger was directed at Kelly.

As much as Reagan had categorized her breakup with Dustin as amicable, there was a nugget of resentment there. Apparently, it had silently festered. She had built dream upon dream during their relationship. Each one of those dreams had gone up in smoke when he’d chosen a job over her.

“You don’t have to move out.” Kelly’s voice softened like she sensed the electricity in the atmosphere.

“I really do.” Reagan forced a smile even as her eyes heated with unspent tears. She wasn’t going to cry over no longer sleeping on a borrowed couch. This hurt ran deeper.

“I didn’t plan this.”

And neither did Reagan plan to break up with Dustin, the man she’d assumed she’d spend her life with, and lose her grandfather’s home in the process.

“You don’t have to explain.” She dragged her suitcase and weekender to the front door. The thought of showing up on Ike’s front porch made her feel half sick. She’d slept at his condo a few times and had sworn not to make it a habit. But what choice did she have?

“We’re going to be okay, right?” Kelly asked at the front door.

Reagan had a lot of feelings to sort out, and her friend hadn’t been careful with them. Rather than start another argument, she promised, “I’ll call you.”

A week later, Reagan was sore from crashing on Ike’s recliner—his couch was too short for her long legs—and was out of contact with Kelly. She had promised to call but hadn’t been ready. She wasn’t confident she wouldn’t explode and say a litany of unfair things. She loved Kelly, and knew that her friend could be thoughtless when she spoke. Her words had cut deep.

Reagan had been hard at work on Brody’s house, though she hadn’t shared that she’d been commuting from the opposite side of the golf course instead of from her friend’s apartment. She also hadn’t shared with Ike the true reason she was crashing in his retirement community condo. Instead of mentioning the sort-of fight between her and Kelly, Reagan had told him she was in the process of looking for a new apartment, and that his condo was centrally located.

She was used to keeping her own tender feelings hidden while reserving space for everyone else’s—a tactic that had served her well in the past. As a result, everyone seemed to have assumed Reagan was fine. No one checked in on her to see how she was doing. So on top of feeling like shit, she was also lonely and suffering in silence.

Her fault. But it still hurt.

Back at Brody’s for the afternoon, she was working on the shelving in the guest bedroom where she’d slept a week ago. In between painting and waiting for the coats to dry, she paced the hallway and made calls to various apartment buildings in the area. The waitlist for Clifton’s Bluff was still around three months. She needed to move sooner than that and was hoping she didn’t have to settle for living in a hotel.

Her best prospect, and she used the word “best” loosely, was an apartment that fit her current budget. It was run down, and if she were being honest, on the sketchy side.

As she was placing a recently dried shelf onto its pegs in the closet, her phone rang. It was a return call from a different complex, farther away from here than Kelly’s, but closer to Reagan’s budget than Clifton’s. It would be a stretch, but if she could forgo the garage rental and eat Ramen noodles, she could swing it.

“Reagan’s Repairs,” she answered.

The friendly woman on the phone introduced herself as the complex manager, and Reagan’s hopes buoyed. They sank a moment later when the woman let her know that they also had a tenant waiting list: two months.

“Thank you for calling me back, but I’m going to need to move sooner than that.”

The woman confirmed that availability was scarce in the area, which Reagan already knew but refrained from sharing. “No need to keep me on the waiting list,” she added before the woman could ask.

On her knees in front of the closet, she felt her shoulders slump. It’d been a long-ass week, and her back was killing her from sleeping on that damn chair. She’d lied to Ike and told him she didn’t mind taking the recliner since she’d been staying up late. The truth was she hadn’t wanted him to offer his bed.

She inhaled deeply and reminded herself that this wasn’t the end of the world. She could check into a hotel in the interim. She didn’t belong in a retirement community, and Ike didn’t need her underfoot. She’d decided she wouldn’t stay at his house for longer than a week. She just hadn’t expected the week to fly by and find herself with fewer prospects than before.

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