Page 81 of Hired Help

“Thisis why you broke up with me?” She holds up my phone and when I try to snatch it back, she shoves me away, thumbs flying over the screen before she tosses it back to me.

“We agreed, no cheating.” And my voice sounds like it’s coming from a million miles away because she’s not denying it, she’s not giving me the sliver of hope that there’s been some gargantuan mix-up that we’ll laugh over one day.

Instead, her face is strained, on the verge of collapse. Her eyes are creased with concern. “Where did you get this? How did you find it?”

The last of my composure shreds.

Not, ‘I’m sorry.’

Not, ‘It was a mistake.’

Not, ‘I’ll never do anything like that again.’

Where did you get this?

Because she doesn’t even care that she’s been exposed, all she wants is to stop the video circulating any further.

“Alicia showed it to me.” The pit opens its maw, ready to swallow me whole. “She saw me fussing with the engagement ring and thought I should know before things went too far.” I shake my head, hair falling forward to shield my eyes. “She was looking out for me.”

“Engagement ring?”

I glance up and have to look away again. Brooke’s eyes are hard, splintered with shards of sea glass. She’s in damage control mode, perhaps the only useful thing she ever learnt from her father.

The pain twists, finds a new way to wring another level of agony from me. It’s debilitating and the only thing that lessens it is to share.

“I was going to ask you to marry me. While you were fucking thecook, I was out putting together the perfect engagement ring.” A harsh laugh tears from my throat. “The only thing I thought I had to worry about was you saying no. Guess that was a lucky escape.”

But she’s gone. The door slams behind her like she’s storming from my room rather than hers.

I get to my feet, adjusting my clothing, slowly following her. So slow that by the time I reach the student housing lobby, Brooke is outside, getting into a car.

She’ll go to my dad. Ready to spill a wealth of lies so he won’t be as blindsided as I was by the revelation.

Good riddance. They deserve each other.

Except those thoughts don’t stick. They don’t plant roots and grow.

I imagine spending the rest of the year hearing on the grapevine about Brooke’s wedding plans. The whole school abuzz with the news, students jostling each other in the corridors as I walk by. The boy who got cucked by his own dad.

My fury surges again. Fuck them both.

If I can’t have Brooke, buggered if my father can either.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

DAEGAN

The hammeringon the door is so loud, so urgent, that in the few moments I take to answer it, I think open warfare has burst out on our street. Instead, another form of battle waits for me on the front step.

Harrison stands there, bedraggled, hands clenched in fury. A grenade that Brooke pulled the pin on before tossing my way.

As I open the door, waving him inside, I peer over his shoulder, searching for her. That she’s not there confuses the hell out of me. Surely, she wouldn’t leave me to explain our news to my son on my own.

I indicate a seat, but he remains standing, every muscle in his body held tense. “Where is she?”

I shake my head, but he doesn’t accept the answer, stomping through the house, investigating every room. “There’s no one here,” I tell him twice, then move to the couch to wait for him to confirm it for himself.

“She told me you’redating. That she wants to get married.”

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