Page 5 of Sexting the Billionaire

"You are not okay, and that's okay! Where are you now? Do I need to come over? I'll shave his eyebrows off while he sleeps. I know where you keep the spare key."

Despite everything, a small smile tugs at my lips. "I'm at Olivia's. And no felonies, please. I just... I need to process."

"I'm so sorry, Cass." Her voice softens. "I feel terrible. I was the one pushing the proposal idea."

"It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault." Even now, I'm making excuses. Old habits.

"Except Camden's. It's definitely his fault," Mia insists. "Promise you'll call me tomorrow? Or tonight if you need anything? Even just to cry?"

"I promise."

After we hang up, Olivia hands me a tissue. "Your sister's right. Camden is objectively trash."

"Why didn't I see it?" I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. "Was I that desperate to make it work?"

"You saw what you wanted to see. We all do." Olivia tops off my wine again. "The important question is: what now?"

"Now I have to figure out how to get my stuff without seeing him again. And find a new place. And explain to Mia why I can't help with her tuition this semester." My brain spins with the cascading consequences of tonight's humiliation.

Olivia squeezes my hand. "One thing at a time. First, you're staying here as long as you need. Second, we'll get your stuff when Camden's at work. Third..." She raises her glass. "We drink until his name sounds like a made-up word."

Four glasses in, I'm sprawled across her couch, dress hiked to my thighs, telling Olivia things I've never said aloud.

"You know what the worst part is?" I stare at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above me. "The sex was mediocre. Like, aggressively mediocre."

Olivia snorts wine through her nose. "I knew it!"

"He treated foreplay like a box to check on his to-do list," I continue, the wine dissolving my filter completely. "Three minutes, exactly enough to say he tried, then straight to business."

"Stop, I'm getting turned off by proxy." Olivia shudders theatrically.

"And he had all these rules," I continue, the floodgates now fully open. "No morning sex because he'd already brushed his teeth. No shower sex because of water conservation. No noises above a certain decibel because the neighbors might hear."

"Sex with an HOA rulebook," Olivia nods sagely. "Tragic."

"I used to have fantasies, you know." I sit up suddenly, swaying slightly. "Before Camden. I used to want things."

"Like what?" Olivia leans forward, intrigued.

"Like being pushed up against a wall. Having my hair pulled—just a bite of pain, you know? Someone who'd take charge without asking for a signed permission slip first." The winehas turned my brain into a direct line to my mouth. "Someone who would leave marks, not because they're being careless, but because they can't help themselves."

"This is getting good," Olivia says, refilling our glasses again.

"I want to be wanted. Like, desperately wanted." I gesture broadly with my wine glass, narrowly avoiding a spill. "Not scheduled for Thursday night between eight and eight-thirty, pending work emails."

Olivia nods vigorously. "You deserve desperate wanting! You deserve wall sex!"

"I do!" I raise my glass in solidarity. "I deserve wall sex!"

"You know what you should do?" Olivia's eyes gleam with the special light they get right before one of her terrible-wonderful ideas. "Text him."

"Camden?" I wrinkle my nose. "No way."

"Yes way. Tell him exactly what he's missing. All the things you never told him you wanted." She gestures expansively. "Let him know exactly what kind of 'boundary-pushing' you're capable of. Then block his number forever."

The idea plants itself in my wine-soaked brain and immediately takes root. "That would be... cathartic."

"Extremely cathartic," Olivia affirms. "One last communication. A proper goodbye to let him know exactly how comfortable and predictable you aren't."

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