Page 8 of Heated
Yeah, her voice matches that hair.
As do her earrings.
I cock my head to the side, studying the incongruity of those large swinging silver-and-red chandelier earrings with the reserve of her clothes.
“Mr.Hart?” she says again, and I jerk my attention from her earrings to meet the dark brown of her eyes.
“Yes.”
Wait. The hell? I shake my head. How does she know my name? And what is she doing on my doorstep after six in the evening? Isn’t that too late to be out selling magazine subscriptions, vacuums, or whatever the hell people go door to door peddling these days?
Lowering my arms, I shift forward, sliding my hands into my suit pockets, the relief that had streamed through me shutting down, as if someone reached inside me and twisted it off.
“What can I do for you?”
I don’t ask her name or ask her to come inside. Something ... ominous knocks inside my chest that warns me against doing either. That I don’t want any part of either. And as she reaches into a dark-red satchel slung over her shoulder, pulls out a sheet of paper, and begins reading, that knocking grows louder.
“Dear Cyrus, for six months you have meant the world to me. When we first met, I believed you were the man I hoped to marry oneday. Handsome, smart, ambitious, driven, a fantastic lover. You’re everything I wanted in a man. But now things have changed.”
Ice creeps through my veins, and my muscles stiffen with the uttering of each word, each syllable, in that whiskey-and-blues voice.
What in thefuckis going on here?
“Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve discovered that while I admire your work ethic, I cannot continue in a relationship where I am second to a man’s job. More and more I find myself alone when that’s not how relationships are supposed to work. I need to feel loved, admired, valued. I need attention and catering to. I deserve it.”
Is this shit really happening?
I blink slow. Blink again.
But no. The stranger with the gorgeous hair and boring pantsuit is still standing on my doorstep breaking up with me via a goddamn Dear John letter from my girlfriend.
I should scrape together the steadily disintegrating scraps of my pride and close the door on this ... this ... God, I don’t even have a name forthis. But I’m frozen, stuck in one of those nightmares where my brain is screaming to move, run, get the fuck out of there, but my body is locked into place, a prisoner of skin and bone, shock and fear.
“I’d like to say it’s not you, that it’s me. But that would be a lie. It is you. You changed; I didn’t. You knew who I was and what I needed when you met me. I feel like there was a bit of a bait and switch. You led me to believe I would be a priority, and I clearly am not. So I’m ending our relationship. It’s better this way. There’s no need to drag this out any longer, as it will only be more painful for both of us. I will always reflect on our time together fondly, but it’s in the past now. I’m looking toward the future, and I hope you will as well. All my best, Val.”
All my best?
I’d been balls deep in her and had planned to propose in another six months andall my best?
That’s it. I’m in the fucking twilight zone.
“Here. This is for you.” The woman (I still don’t know her name. Shouldn’t I at least have a name for the woman who just detonated my world into pieces?) who not only has witnessed my humiliation but read it folds the letter in half and extends it toward me. My arm moves without express permission from my mind, and I take the paper. “I’m truly sorry, Mr.Hart.”
I believe her.
And isn’t that a kick in the nuts?
Glimpsing the softness in her dark eyes, I believe her, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing. For some reason known only to her and Val, my girlfriend—no,ex-girlfriend as of five seconds ago—sent another person to break up with me. If it wasn’t so fucking mind boggling, it would be hilarious.
If it was happening to someone else.
Not me.
Not when I’m seeing my carefully designed plans for my immediate future starting to unravel thread by thread. And if life has taught me anything, it’s that all it takes is that one weak strand to initiate the loosening. One slip of the foot to cause an avalanche.
One neglected pocket of air in a tire. One “I’ll get the tire changed next week.”
One blowout on I-70.
