Page 10 of The Billionaire's Princess

“Carly?”

More nothing. A more emphatic nothing.

I get up, visit the bathroom and do a quick lap around the suite, half hoping to find her passed out drunk behind one of the sofas or some such. At least then she’d be here, and I’d have some sort of explanation that doesn’t make me feel like shit.

No such luck.

The truth hits me slowly by degrees, probably because I’m desperate not to see or acknowledge it. But first, I run several increasingly wild scenarios through my mind, trying them on for size. Maybe she ran out for ice. Except that our suite has ice and she wouldn’t have needed to take her purse for an ice run. Maybe she meant to leave a note but couldn’t find a pen or paper. Maybe a sudden and dire problem with her eyesight prevented her from seeing the pen and paper on the nightstand next to the bed.

But she didn’t even bother to scrawl her phone number in lipstick on one of the mirrors.

She left. She’s gone. She’s not coming back. I’ll never see her again.

In that crushing moment, I’d almost rather believe that a crack team of foreign agents extracted her from the room while I was asleep and plan to hold her for ransom. Anything but the truth.

But the truth is that she walked out on me.

Walked. Out. On. Me.

Another woman has walked out on me with zero warning, and I’m the fool that’s surprised.

Haven’t I learned this lesson already? Didn’t my mother tattoo it onto the empty space where a heart should be when she walked out on her husband and three young sons to be with my dad’s richer best friend? And then again when she got herself killed in a car accident before we could reconcile? This is what women do. They lull you into a false sense of security and then they disappear from your life with no advance warning. They pretend to have a connection with you, then they rip the rug out from under your unsuspecting feet and leave you to try to figure out how to get up again.

I have temporarily and foolishly forgotten this one crucial fact about women.

I won’t forget again.

I seethe for a minute or two, plotting next steps.

My relentless and determined side demands that I hire an investigator to start downstairs at Bemelmans and track her down like bloodhounds after an escaped criminal. Her crime? Making me feel like shit.

But my pride won’t let me chase her. If she doesn’t want me, that’s her loss. Like Beyoncé says, Carly’s replacement will be here in a minute. Fuck Carly.

Fuck her.

I try to focus on my anger, but my hurt refuses to sit down and shut up.

My brain refuses to accept the idea that that was all of Carly I’ll ever get. I’ll never have the pleasure of seeing and feeling her pillowy lips wrapped around my dick while she sucks me off. I’ll never get to taste her pussy or discover the color of her nipples. I’ll never see her smile again or laugh with her again or find myself on the wrong end of her tart humor again.

That was it. One and done.

I rub my hands over my face, laughing bitterly at my own stupidity. But what can you expect from a fucking loser like me? I just had sex for the ages, and she couldn’t even be bothered to give me a fake phone number and pretend she wanted me to call her tomorrow. I just spent the better part of five large for this suite to impress her (I didn’t become a near-billionaire by wasting money), and she was so impressed that she didn’t even stay an hour or, hell, try to steal my credit cards.

The worst part?

I know, deep in my gut where it counts, that I can march around impotently cursing her for the rest of the night, but all she has to do is show up again, smile at me and issue some sort of half-assed apology—any sort of apology at all—and I will sign up to be her fool again. Whenever she deigns to reappear and crook her little finger at me, I’ll be her puppet. I know I will.

Fucking Carly No-Last-Name.

Honestly, walking out is the best thing she could have done for me. I’m glad I’ll never see her again.

I mean it.

Glad.

I don’t lose control of my feelings like this.

Not for anyone.

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