Page 19 of Flirtatious

Her eyes fill with sadness, and she asks, “Is this about Michael? Is that what this is all about?”

Suddenly, I can’t stop the tears from coming. Burying my face in my hands, I let the misery I’ve felt since I saw him standing there with that girl in his apartment wash over me.

“I thought he cared about me. I thought that it didn’t matter that we weren’t sleeping together because he loved me. I thought we were soulmates, Ains. I really thought he cared about me. That he proved that someone could care about me and prove Jonny was full of it. I was so wrong. God, how could I have been so wrong?”

I feel Ainsley’s arms envelop me, and I sink into her embrace. I’ve needed this from the second I realized Michael never cared like I thought he did.

“Oh, honey. He did. He cared about you. Whatever happened, he cared.”

Shaking my head against her shoulder, I sob harder as I say, “No, he didn’t. My mother fired him for getting me the hotel room, and he had a girl with him not two days later when I went to his place to talk to him. I thought after all that time we spent together after Jonny and I broke it off that he really cared about me. Not the me everyone else sees up on stage but the real me.”

“I don’t know why he did that, Mia. I just know he cared about you and he would have never let anyone hurt you.”

“Then why was he with someone so soon? Days, Ains. Days. That’s all it took to replace me. Days. It’s been weeks and I’m still all alone,” I ask as I lift my head off her shoulder and wipe the tears from my cheeks.

Ainsley gently takes me by the shoulders like she always does when she wants to make sure I’m listening to something she has to say. She looks straight into my eyes and shakes her head. “He wasn’t good enough for you. He knew that, I bet. Don’t give him another thought. You deserve the best this world can offer. Michael wasn’t that. He knew it. Now you know it too.”

I take a deep breath in and let it out in a rush, wishing all my sadness could go with it. “What if I’m not the best? What if I’m just some spoiled little girl who got lucky because of her voice?”

My life coach shakes her head again, but now she looks angry. “And just who told you that little bit of nonsense?”

“Jonny was the one who said that to me. Remember?”

Ainsley screws her face into a tight grimace. She never did like Jonny.

“Your ex was a horse’s ass. Period. Full stop. You know better than to believe that guy. I know you do.”

I hang my head and sigh. “Yeah. I guess.”

“I thought maybe it was the new person in your life. I was really starting to dislike your new head of security if it was,” she says, still scowling.

With a shrug, I try to tell her Liam isn’t why I’m questioning everything about myself. Not really. “No. He didn’t say anything. He’s not like that. Well, maybe he is, but that’s not why I’m asking you these things,” I say as I sit down on the bed next to her.

“Then why? You’re a beautiful person, Mia. Inside and out. I know you don’t let everyone see that all the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are. What’s got you thinking that you’re some spoiled little girl?”

I try to think of a way to explain what I’m feeling without bringing Liam into it. I don’t need my life coach hating the only person I truly have to depend on when I leave this house. He’s not the reason I’m doubting I’m worthy of having the best or ever finding love either.

Well, not the entire reason.

Wiping my tears away again, I shake my head. “I’ve been so lucky, Ains. So lucky. I wanted to sing, and the world has taken to my songs like I never dreamed it would. All the hard work has been worth it, so don’t think I’m doubting that. It’s just that at the end of the day, I sleep alone in my bed and it’s been a long time since anyone even tried to be with me. The tabloids and social media are so sure I’m sleeping with half a dozen guys a week. If they only knew how it really was.”

I stop before I say the one word that will get me crying again. I can’t say it or I’ll turn into a blubbering mess because it’s true.

But before I can warn Ainsley not to say it either, she blurts it out. “How lonely it really is for someone like you?” she asks.

The tears come just as I knew they would, and this time I can’t stop them. My body shudders as sobs wrack every inch of me because that single word is the truest expression of what my life is like.

Lonely.

I read in those rags they sell at the grocery stores that my mother insists on buying that I can have any man I want and I pick and choose who comes and goes from my bed. What a joke! My bed has me in it every night. That’s it. Me and too many pillows because I went through that faze when I couldn’t have enough of them on the bed.

But that’s it. Mia and pillows. No hot men lining up to spend their nights with me. No picking and choosing. Just a single lonely woman wondering why if she’s supposed to have her choice of everything in the world does she has nothing she wants.

Ainsley wraps her arms around my shoulders and squeezes me to her. “Oh, Mia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing. I know this life is hard for you. From the outside, you look like you have a picture perfect life with everything you want. Those horrible social media people make up all those stories about you being a terrible person or sleeping around, and every time I see one of them, I want to scream, so I can only imagine how you feel. Don’t let them get you down. You aren’t anything like those people say, and anyone who’s close to you can attest to that.”

“I wish.”

That’s not true, and she knows full well it isn’t. My mother can’t attest to that. She says what she knows the world has to hear to love me so the money can keep rolling in, but she doesn’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth.

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