Page 57 of A Billionaire Dom

Linsey

One lookat my face when she’d gotten home had Kasey offering to move her date somewhere else, but I’d told her it wasn’t a problem. My fight with Davin hadn’t changed my plans for the night. If anything, it had made me more determined to get to the bottom of what’d happened to Heidi. It’d be worth losing Davin if I could get answers.

Not that I’d told any of that to Kasey. I’d simply told her that Davin and I had ended things. I hadn’t offered details, and she hadn’t asked. We trusted each other to be honest about what we needed. If I said I was okay, then she took it at face value and vice versa.

Besides, when I’d seen Kasey’s face when her date first arrived, I’d known that her plans for that night had been important. Detective Mitchells – Ilysa – had clearly been as enamored with my friend as Kasey was with her.

I hoped things would work out for the two of them.

I’d spent most of the weekend locked in my room, using my wall to organize my thoughts since I didn’t have another surface big enough. Having the Holden name on my wall didn’t do anything to help me sleep. Each time I put up more damning information about Jude, I got an unpleasant jolt reminding me how angry Davin had been.

The worst part was, the more time that passed, the more I had to admit to myself that his reaction had been warranted. Yes, he’d hired a PI to look into me, and that wasn’t something I had to completely excuse, but I also couldn’t use it to justify my having kept important information from him. I’d had options and no one to blame but myself that I hadn’t made better decisions.

“Linsey?” Kasey knocked on my bedroom door.

I went to the door and opened it enough to see her, but not so much that she could see everything I had up. It was best to keep her in the dark as much as possible when it came to my less-than-legal activities.

“I’m going out to dinner with Ilysa.”

“Have fun.”

“Linsey…”

The concern on her face made me feel guilty enough to snap, “I’m working, Kasey. I don’t need a babysitter.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she pointed at me. “No. I’m not having you lash out at me because you’re too scared to get your shit together.”

“I’m not scared.” Off her look, I sighed, letting out the breath I felt like I’d been holding for hours. “Okay, I shouldn’t have snapped at you, but I’m just tired. That’s all.”

“I call bullshit, Linsey.” Her expression softened. “Look, you miss Davin, and that’s okay, but this isn’t healthy. You either need to go get him back or get over him. Moping won’t help shit.”

I shook my head. “You mean well, but you don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

I ran my hands through my hair, grasping at the roots in pure frustration. “The short version is, we both fucked up, and he’s not going to let it go. Besides, it’s not like we were dating or anything.”

“Come on, we both know this wasn’t some one night stand you could walk away from without feeling anything. You care about him a hell of a lot more than you want anyone to know.”

“I’m. Fine.” I glared at her. “I’m working, not moping.”

She looked like she was going to argue with me, but instead, she just took a step back. “Fine. If you want to keep doing whatever it is your doing, that’s your business. Just don’t lie to yourself that you’re in this all alone because you’re the one not accepting help when it’s offered.”

As she turned to walk away, I closed the door and rested my forehead on it. Great. I’d not only lost whatever it was Davin and I had been building, but I’d caused a rift in my friendship with my very best friend.

This was why I didn’t let people get close. All it did was cause problems. I wished I’d stayed in Denver when Kasey had told me she wanted to move. Or, better yet, I should have left Denver a couple months after getting there like I’d done the other places I’d lived since leaving Nebraska. None of this would’ve happened if I’d just followed my plan to move from place to place, see the world, live a life where I didn’t have to worry about anything or anyone.

But I hadn’t done any of that, and now I had to deal with the consequences.

And if I was going to be honest with myself, I wouldn’t have been happy with that life, no matter how much I wished I could’ve been. I liked being Kasey’s friend. I liked that the two of us watched out for each other. Even if the Davin part of things had been a mistake, becoming friends with Kasey hadn’t been.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

I needed to apologize to Kasey and tell her what was going on. All of it. I’d told myself that the fewer details she knew, the safer she’d be, but that was only an excuse. I was putting her at risk, no matter what she knew or didn’t know. No one would believe that she and I had lived together, and moved to a different state together, without her being aware of what I’d been doing all this time. I’d been scared that she’d be angry and leave or that she’d look down on me because of it.

She deserved to know the truth, no matter what her reaction was.

Maybe I’d make her dinner tomorrow and take it to work. The schedule would probably be light enough that we could talk, and if she told me to leave, I’d have time to get my stuff out of the apartment.

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