Page 120 of Wingwoman
“I wasn’t askingyou,” Jenn snapped, glaring at him for the briefest moment before her eyes softened back onto me. “Josh?”
Shit. “Jenn, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said quietly.
The hope in her face deflated like a two day-old balloon. “Please,” she pleaded. “I won’t be a problem. I promise.”
My gaze fell to the scars on her arms and I cringed, looking quickly away. “Maybe next year, okay?”
A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “You promise?”
I swallowed against the lump at the back of my throat.
“Hello, I need to report a violation of a restraining order,” Matt said into the phone.
I snatched the phone out of his hands. “Nevermind,” I said to dispatch. “Everything here is fine.”
I hung up, then handed the phone back to Matt just as Nina came rushing up behind Jenn. “Josh,” she heaved a breath, “I’m sorry. Jenn and I were grabbing lunch and…well, she just—”
“It’s okay, Nina,” I said, offering my oldest friend a weak smile.
Then, turning once more to Jenn, I said, “I promise that I will truly consider it for next year, okay? But not tonight.”
In truth, despite the fact that I knew everyone on my team would tell me it was a bad idea to invite Jenn, I wanted to. I wanted to put all this behind us. I wanted to move on. Lift the restraining order.
A small part of me wondered if keeping these restrictions in place was what held back her progress.
A sad smile lifted the corners of her mouth. But like everything else about her, it was hollow. “Thanks, Josh,” she whispered.
Just then, my phone buzzed at the same time Jenn’s cell phone gave a chimed beep I recognized to be a Google alert.
A Google alert we both shared… my name.
No. That could only mean one thing.
Jenn’s eyes drifted to her phone, pale cheeks draining of what little color was already there. The dark bruises beneath her eyes seemed to deepen as she snapped her dull green eyes back up at mine. “Who is this?” she hissed.
I winced, not needing to look at the photos she was holding up.
I had picked them myself. Curated them. Chosen exactly which ones to leak to the press of Hope and me out and about. “It’s been ten years, Jenn,” I said. “I’m moving on. You need to, too.”
“Moving on,” she snorted. “You don’t move on. You move through. You tear through women and leave them shredded and alone.”
“Jenn,” Nina said, her voice more gentle than I'd ever heard it with anyone. “You can’t be here. Come on. We need to go.”
Nina gently took Jenn by the shoulders and turned her to guide her out the door, but Jenn broke through, rushing at me. She was so tall she almost stood nose to nose with me. “You’re going to ruin her,” she whispered. “You’re going to ruin her just like you ruined me.”
Gently, I curved my hands around Jenn’s arms and pulled her into a hug. She was the one biggest regret of my life. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into her hair, raising my eyes to meet Nina’s across the room.
Only… it wasn’t Nina standing there staring at us.
It was Hope. Her eyes locked on me. And Jenn. In what seemed to be an emotional embrace.
Thirty-Four
HOPE
My heart was slammingagainst my ribcage while a white hot knot twisted in my stomach.
I had come rushing back to Josh’s house because the photos of us on our date the other night went live. I ran up his driveway and into his open front door, phone in hand, only to find him holding another woman in his arms.
