Page 47 of Fauxmance in the City

“I can’t do this.” He steps back, his hand raking his hair back.

“Why did you push me away after our first kiss?” Sam asks, and my chest contracts.

“You don’t remember?” I wiggle off the desk and cross my arms over my midsection protectively.

“I remember everything about that night,” Sam says. He shivers, and the same chill runs over me.

“What about the next morning?” I ask, and Sam stares at me in confusion. I laugh without humor. Of course, he doesn’t remember. I’d kept this part secret from everyone. It was so humiliating. “I thought about that kiss, and everything you said to me, all night. It was the first time since Christophe that I believed I could open my heart to someone new. I bounced in here the next morning full of hope and promise.”

Sam moves his head in a little shake. “No. You rejected me. You told me you didn’t want me.”

My jaw drops. “I never said that. You were wasted, and I wasn’t about to have a big conversation about us when you were like that. I told you we’d talk when you were clearheaded in the morning. But when I got here, you were with someone else.” Tears prick my eyes, and I swipe them. “I was humiliated, Sam. I’d trusted you. You’d kissed me. Told me you cared about me and that you wanted me, and I show up here and your tongue is down another woman’s throat!’

His face collapses. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, fuck. I thought what happened that night was special. But I stood right outside that door, and you proved who you are, who you’ll always be,” I say, my voice high-pitched, remembering it as if it just happened.

“It was special.” His voice shakes, and I snap my gaze to him, surprised by the emotion. “I told you I had feelings for you, and you shot me down.”

I rub my temples, trying to remember the exact details of that night, but the following morning had quickly overshadowed it.

“You wanted me to come home with you,” I scoff, but the pain he’s desperately trying to hold back makes me falter. “You were just trying to get in my pants.”

“I was trying to get into your heart.” He clenches his jaw, and I swear I can hear his teeth grinding. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“No,” I say, my throat thick. “You were dating that doctor. You kissed me, but you were with her. I saw you.”

“It wasn’t her I wanted. I wanted with you.” He scrapes his hands through his hair, pulling at the roots. “When I ran into you at the bar, it felt like kismet. I gave you my heart on a platter, and you mutilated it.”

“I didn’t.” My voice rises, angry that he’s changing our history. “You kissed me, and the next day you practically fucked her on this desk!”

“Because you said you didn’t want me!” Sam kicks his office chair, and it flies across the room, slamming into the far wall. “You didn’t want me, and she did. Did you expect me to sit around and pine for you?”

“No, but—”

“You made it clear that you didn’t feel the same way, so I made a choice.” He takes two long strides until he towers over me. His palms cup my cheeks, and he tilts my head up. “Either I could continue to pursue someone who didn’t want me. Or I could put you in the past and focus on someone who didn’t reject me. Excuse me for choosing hope over self-flagellation.”

I open my mouth to respond, to say something, anything, but I’m stunned by his alternate view of what happened a year ago.

He drops his hands and I stumble, my hip banging the desk.

“I think I made the right choice.” His gaze is ice, and I wince. “Don’t you?”

twelve

One Year Ago

* * *

“I want to die.” I smashed my Jonathan Adler pillow over my face.

I was sprawled out on the floor in my office, dejected. Sam sat on the floor next to me, his back against the sofa.

I raised my phone again to read more comments, and Sam plucked it from my hand and threw it across the room.

“Hey!” I yelled, but I made no move to retrieve it.

“Reading those stupid comments are poison. Those trolls will move on soon enough. They’re parasites. Don’t let them feed on you.”

---