Page 16 of Silent Cravings

“Oh, no!” She shook her head hard, laughing softly. “No, everything’s great. Like, really great. It’s…” She trailed off, biting her lip. “It’s you I want to talk about. I want to make sureyou’reokay.”

I knew it was too good to be true—to have a day where everyone would focus anywhere but on me. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, scrolling through a couple of new emails that had come in while I was trying on my dress.

“Could you put the phone down for a second and actually look at me? I’m standing right here in front of you.”

Lowering the phone, I sighed. “I’m just fine,” I insisted, although it took considerable effort to keep from sounding as annoyed as I felt. “A little overwhelmed with all this work, but things are going better than I expected.”

“That’s not answering my question, and you know it. Did you forget who you’re talking to?” she whispered when I rolled my eyes. “This is me. I want to know about you,my sister.Not the girl planning this wedding. Are you all right with all of this?”

I didn’t have time to be coy, and my patience was alarmingly thin. Rather than pretend I didn’t know what she meant, I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to say you aren’t as stricken and devastated as you looked at the engagement party. It’s okay to hurt,” she assured me, but I couldn’t help but scoff and roll my eyes. “But when you pretend you aren’t hurting, that’s when problems start.”

“I know that!” I replied. It wasn’t easy not to flip her off and storm out. “I honestly don’t know why you’re so worried. It came as a shock. It set me off after I’d already had a few drinks. It’s over.”

Her teeth sank into her lip. “You know why. I’m only concerned about you.”

“And I appreciate that, but you don’t need to be. I’m okay.”

“So I was imagining things when you looked like you were going to burst into tears?”

“Can we not talk about that? That was two damn weeks ago,” I hissed out. “And it’s over now. Yeah, it sort of surprised me in a bad way, but I’m over it. Let me be over it.” It wasn’t until I said it out loud that I understood how much I needed to move on. To put it behind meagain.I couldn’t spend the rest of my life crying over something that happened so long ago. There was no way to change it, like there was no way to go back and slap the shit out of Evan for letting me down.

That still wasn’t enough for her. She opened her mouth, but I held up a hand, scowling. “You promised me we would never talk about it. Remember? Not ever. It’s over.”

“You honestly believe that? We are not kids anymore,” she reminded me. “That’s the kind of thing a kid says and actually believes. This is real life. We can’t run away from the things that hurt.”

“Thank you very much for your advice.” This was getting to be too much. I had to leave before I said something I couldn’t take back. Not all of us were lucky enough to find the perfect person. “I really have to go, or else Bianca’s head is going to explode, and I don’t feel like having to cleanthat up.” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, making my escape before she could try to stop me.

“We couldn’t have donethis without you.” Hunt Kennedy, the owner of Club Urge, raised his glass to me, his leg brushing mine when he angled his body toward me on his barstool. The club was packed on a Saturday night, only a little more than a month after it opened. There had been a dozen obstacles in my way, including the complete irresponsibility of the man now toasting me, but I had made it work despite him.

From then on, I would not trust a client to get their permits arranged in time for opening. Lesson learned.

I laughed off the compliment, holding my glass high. “You must know what you’re doing because you’re packing them in.” Somebody bumped me from behind and almost made me spill my martini, but I recovered quickly and laughed it off.

“You’re pretty fucking cool,” he announced, narrowing his steely eyes. He was hot in a dangerous, you-might-wake-up-to-find-your-wallet-missing sort of way. “Nothing throws you off, does it? You’re, like, made of ice.”

It was what I wanted people to believe. The truth was different, but people weren’t interested in the truth. That had always been my experience anyway. The illusion was much more interesting. Safer too. “You have to be when you do this kind of work,” I told him.

Lowering his brow, he growled out, “I bet I could get you to melt.”

That was surprising. There had never been anything flirtatious between us, but then we had been working onpromoting the club’s opening. That was over now, and it seemed like he took it as a green light to try his luck. I could feel his lustful gaze crawling over me, and while I wasn’t turned off, it didn’t get me excited either. I may as well have been dead below the waist.

Get it together. He’s hot. He’s available. And he’s eye fucking you at this very moment.Yes, and I could have used a good, hard fuck after two weeks of longing for what had exploded between Evan and me. Two frustrated weeks full of dirty dreams and an overworked vibrator. I was just as frustrated as ever. He could be a lot of fun, and he might have made it possible for me to put Evan behind me and move on.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine it. Maybe I didn’t want to. “You know,” I said before downing the rest of my martini. “I wouldn’t be any good tonight. It’s been an extremely long week, and I’m exhausted. But thanks for the offer,” I added when he scowled.

“Yeah, sure. Have fun tonight.” Just like that, he was gone, probably in search of a willing pussy after being turned down.

I was in trouble. I had to get past this. Otherwise, I’d never get laid again.

But nothing compared. Sad, but true. One regrettable night had erased all the work I’d done to get Evan out of my system. The men who’d come after him during my twenties paled in comparison. They might as well have never existed.

It would be better for me to go home rather than drink myself into oblivion in yet another dark, loud club where everyone was having fun except for me. I could curse myself for free in my apartment and wish like hell there was a way to erase the past.

6

EVAN

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