Page 87 of Duty and Desire

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“She traded up,” he stated conversationally. “Now can we finish this and get back?”

“She didn’t trade up, Mo,” I told him quietly.

He sighed again but said no words through it this time.

“She totally didn’t. And she knows it.”

“Lottie—”

“She either dumped you so you wouldn’t dump her, because, really, she’s a bitch and probably knows it and definitely knows you aren’t stupid so you’d figure it out. Or she instigated a faulty play, thinking you’d come to heel if she not only cheated on you, but acted like she was down with losing you and prepared to move on, all this so you’d fight to keep her.”

“You were around her for maybe ten minutes. I lived with her for two years. I was there, Lottie. I know what happened.”

But I wasn’t seeing straight.

I wasn’t seeinganything.

They’d beenliving together?

From far away (even though he was still right there), I heard him murmur, “Oh fuck.”

I started walking.

Fast.

“Where is that bitch?” I demanded, still walking (fast).

I came to a halt when he caught me by the waistband of my jeans again.

He used it to turn me to facing him and kept his hand there.

My breastsalmostbrushed his chest, we were that close.

We’d never been that close.

I was also standing in the curve of his arm.

He was almost…

Holding me.

Whoa.

“She’s history,” he shared.

“She’s a bitch,” I returned.

“Yeah. And so she’s history. Move on. I did.”

“She didn’t trade up, Mo.”

“Okay.”

He said that just to appease me.

I was not appeased.

I was a lot of things, including laser focused on his face.

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