Page 53 of Prince of Darkness

I nod, unable to say anything. My throat closes up thinking about my always bubbly angel hurting. I head out to my car, telling Smith the address to her place. I try and text her but she doesn’t respond. After I talked to Amelia last night I used her phone to call mine so I have her number.

Message after message starts coming through with responses to all of the orders I fired off. I go over them as we pull up to her apartment building, knowing that there is no way in hell that I’m leaving this place without my angel.

17

MIA

“Isaw it printed in the paper, Amelia,” I tell her. She is pacing back and forth in front of the sofa where I’ve planted myself. My eyes hurt from all of the tears that I’ve shed over this and I know if I look in the mirror I’ll see a hot mess staring back at me.

“I’m going to kill him.” Her hands are clenched into fists at her sides. She is a mama bear. She can go fromLet me do your hairtoI’ll fuck someone upin about .2 seconds.

I sniffle. I’ve calmed down some since I got here. Something about watching Amelia be mad for me has gotten me to stop crying. At least for the moment.

“What did Kim say?” I ask. It’s so hard to believe that he’d do this. The way he touched me. The way he made love to me. It felt so real. I can’t imagine that it was fake. Maybe I was his last fling before he got married. I feel mortified at being the other woman. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that he’s made me that. I may not have liked the catty blonde in his office but even she didn’t deserve this.

“I’m not talking to her right now.” She stops pacing to look at me. “She shouldn't have set you up with him when I suggested it.”

“Maybe she doesn't know?”

“Ha! She is always on his ass about his dating life. Those two are best friends at the end of the day. Their fights are just how they play together. If he is dating someone she knows about it.”

“She might hate the girl?” I try again. Still there’s no excuse for her setting me up with him if she knew that he was already with someone else. Again, I know the woman is cold. I picked up on it as soon as I saw her. She’d slipped from one person to another. It was strange to watch. I was only now putting together how odd her behavior was. I’ve been so upset that I haven’t had a chance to process everything that happened. I’m sitting here playing it all over and over in my head. Maybe the blonde was upset too, which made her act oddly. I couldn't imagine being engaged to Max and finding out that he’d spent a night with another woman. Not only that but he had the audacity to bring me into the office for everyone to see. It’s probably the real reason he took me into his office so early. That way no one would see us together and we wouldn't run into her.

“It’s still not okay.” Amelia agrees with my silent thought.

“What did he say to you on the phone?” I tuck my feet under me, reaching for a tissue.

“That’s what I don’t understand. I’m good at reading people. When I talked to him last night he was so smitten with you. It was adorable. So I decided to let him live. I’m second-guessing that decision now.” I have to fight a laugh because it’s really not the time. “It’s not adding up to me. Tell me again everything that happened.”

I start from the beginning, trying not to leave out any important details except for the part about Max having me for breakfast on his desk. I let her know that the woman heard us fooling around. Besides that, I give her every detail that I can think of. My phone keeps ringing from all the calls and messages from Max. He programmed his number into my phone and now he’s blowing it up. I continue to ignore it.

“So she was a bitch and then she suddenly got upset?” She cocks her head to the side. “’Cause if I came at you being a bitch, you’d lock up.” Probably. I was ready to bolt back into Max’s office. “But if I started to cry. Told you I was hurting.”

“You think she was manipulating me?”

“I don’t want to say that yet, but yeah. That’s got to go on the table too. There’s something off about this whole thing and we need to sift through every detail.”

“Is it so hard to believe that he could have been dating someone at his office in secret?”

“For a long period of time. Yeah, it is.”

“She said she’s been in love with him for years. That she only recently got him to agree to marriage. He could have run the story to tip the newspapers to get his sister to knock it off with her games. Then he met me. Had a change of heart but went about it all wrong.”

Amelia stands there with a look of realization on her face. “Or Kim-” We both look up when a loud knock sounds next door. It’s coming from my place.

“Angel, open up.” I pop up from the sofa. We both rush over trying to look through the peephole. “Angel, please.” We watch as he presses his ear up against the door. “I’m coming in.”

“You gave him a key?” Amelia hisses at me.

“No.” I shove her over a little to get a better look.

“Is he picking the lock?” She pushes me back. “Let me look. If anyone knows what picking a lock looks like it’s me.”

I step aside, not one bit shocked that she knows how to pick a lock. My eyes start to water at the sight of him and the sound of his voice. He seems as though he’s truly upset so none of this makes any sense to me.

“He chased after me.” God it’s so wrong for me to be happy about this. He’s engaged to another woman. The same thing could happen to me. I could marry him and then what? Some woman could call him and he falls in love and I’m out?

“He’s not even doing it right.” Amelia barks a laugh. “Oh shit.” She jumps back from the door. “I think he heard me.” Her eyes are wide.

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