Page 4 of The Love Destroyers

He doesn’t react whatsoever, so I continue, “She’s this big social media star with this pet rabbit named Carrot.”

“Carrot?” he says with a snort.

“Carrot,” I repeat. “Creative, she is not. Anyway…she was eating up all of my time, even though her marriage had lasted about five minutes. I was getting calls from her ten times a day. I wanted to drop her, but Jeffrey, that’s my ex—”

“Your ex?” he asks pointedly.

I hold my hand out. Without needing to ask what I want, he pulls out the flask and hands it to me. I take another swig before returning it. “Yeah, my boss is my ex, although we were together at the time.”

The words have a bitter mouth feel, but they want to come out. I’m not the ball buster he thinks I am. Not anymore. The knowledge of my defeat is soul-crushing. I’ve always had a hard time losing, but it’s worse now, after a career of bringing in wins for other people. I swallow nothing, giving myself a few seconds, then clear my throat and continue, “He did more general practice, and I handled most of the divorce cases. No need to tell me it was stupid to get involved with him.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. You already know I like to get handsy with the hatchbacks. How old is this guy?”

I shake my head slightly, at myself as much as him. “Fifty-two.” I shouldn’t be telling him any of this. But at the same time…I don’t want to stop. It’s like Ican’t.

He wings his brows up but doesn’t comment.

“He looks younger.”

A snort escapes him. “Sure he does. I’ll bet he even gets carded by people who want a good tip.”

I roll my eyes, but I don’t want to defend that asshole—just the poor decision-making that led to this lifetime low. “Anyway, he wouldn’t let me drop her as a client. It seemed a little weird, but he insisted it would be bad for our public profile. I didn’t think too much of it until I figured out they were sleeping together.”

He whistles. “Jeffrey and Rabbit Lady?”

“Yeah,” I say through a dry throat. “After I found out, I confronted them at the office. And they…”

“Were fucking like rabbits?” he suggests after a moment.

My laughter is bitter—like a pill you try to swallow but crunch between your molars instead. “I didn’t see it happening, thank God. But I saw enough. It was a setup all along,” I say. “She got me yelling at him on camera. He wanted to attack my image so no one would believe me about the embezzling. But I didn’t figure it out until it was too late. No one knew he and I were together, so he pretended I was an obsessed employee. Inappropriate. Unprofessional. He didn’t press charges, but he fired me and made a professional complaint against me.” I reach back and rub the tips of my fingers against the brick wall, needing to feel the rough burn against my skin. “The accountant, who I thought was my friend, backed him up. Probably because she didn’t want to be in deep shit for not catching it herself. There’ll be a disciplinary hearing before the state bar in a few months, and I could lose my license to practice law. Permanently. And then there’s a restraining order.”

I take a deep breath of frigid air, still tinged with smoke and back-alley trash. That and the brush of my fingers against the bricks helps ground me in the present, but I still feel the pull of what I’m telling him. The horror of knowing it’s not over.

I’ve always valued my ability to discern the truth, but I trusted a man who gleefully destroyed me. I’d thought Jeffrey and I were partners, equals, but he’d been making a fool of me behind my back in more ways than one.

That’s the kind of realization that makes a person question themselves. It’s kept me up at night, wandering the halls of my mother’s house like a lost ghost. I’ve been drinking too much, sleeping too little, and the worst of it is the feeling of helplessness. Of not being able to change the tide and turn this loss into a win.

I glance at Seamus and see he’s frowning at me.

“What, you’re afraid I’m going to hit you in the balls after all?” I quip, even though I suspect the frown has more to do with his changing assessment of me. Maybe he sees me as weak now.

I steel my spine and add, “If I didn’t hit him, I won’t hit you. Physical violence doesn’t solve anything.”

He shrugs, his eyes on mine. “It can. But that’s the extreme option.”

My lips part in surprise. “Uh…I’m already in deep enough shit, thank you very much.”

“Who’s the restraining order for?”

“It’s from him, against me. He didn’t want me getting anywhere near the office.”

“Couldn’t you prove you were a couple?”

I force a sardonic smile. “He was always so careful about secrecy. We used a private messaging app, and I regularly deleted the history. He said he did too, but…” I shrugged. “He cherry-picked texts to make it look like I’d been harassing him.”

“Brutal,” he says, lifting his eyebrows.

“It’s already been weeks, so I’m guessing every hint of evidence at the office has gone through the shredder. There’d be nothing to find if I could get in. He’s backed me into a corner.”

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