Page 95 of Give Me What I Want

“What?” I blinked. “Why would I tell you about it?”

Sabrina’s shoulders raised and she tightened her fur coat around her body. “You tell me everything.” Then she straightened her spine, smiling again. “Anyway, how’s Maverick’s uncle? I’m guessing that with sales as high as they’ve been you’ve raised plenty more money for research.”

“He died,” I whispered, not particularly wanting to tell her, but knowing she’d find out eventually someday.

“What?” Her hand flew up to her chest and her lips parted. “Oh, my god, how are you? How’s Mav? Why didn’t you tell me?”

What?

Why didn’t I tell her? Was she fucking serious?

Sensing the shift in my mood Joel moved to my side and dropped his mouth to my ear. “You told me no scenes, Miss Bolton. Please, walk away.”

Ignoring him, I took a step forward. He stepped with me, not backing down, but not putting himself in the middle, almost as though he knew better than to put himself in my way when there was a chance that I was about to blow.

“Why didn’t I tell you?” I sneered, ignoring the voice in my head that was telling me to just walk away. “Why? Because you were nowhere to be found. You disappeared. I reached out. I shouldn’t have, after what you did, but for some stupid fucking reason, I was prepared to forgive you. I left you messages, and you ignored me. I reached out the day after he died, and I was met with your fucking voicemail, again.”

“I was busy, I’m so—”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. You’ve had months to get in contact. I’d have probably still managed to forgive you if you had apologised back in August, even in September.Fuck,I might have even done it in October, if you’d grovelled enough. But now, you’ve lost the right to be in my life. You’ve lost the right to call me your friend. Friends don’t act the way you have. Youusedme as a scapegoat, and you ignored me in my darkest moments. Sabrina, we were done a while ago, so turn around, walk away, and never speak to me again.”

She gawked at me, making a noise of indignation in the back of her throat. “You need me, Bea. You don’t have any other friends,” she said icily.

“Actually, I do have friends, better friends than you,” I said with a saccharine smile as I twirled my finger in a circle and shooed her.

She didn’t move, placing her hands on her hips and she made the same noise in her throat over and over. I tutted, shrugged, and turned my back on her.

“Come on, Joel. I don’t want to be late,” I said to my security guard, then looped my arm through his and strutted—yepstrutted, ass wiggling and everything—down the street away from the girl whom I had once thought of as a friend.

“Fucking some rando behind your boyfriend’s back, real classy, Bea!” Sab called after me.

I glanced over my shoulder at her and laughed. “Oh, Sabrina, if you want to talk classy, I could tell a million stories about you. I do hope that you’re going to keep your mouth shut, last I saw you were dating a politician, weird lane change, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want any scandalous stories leaked about you.”

She pursed her lips, and I nodded, smiling at her before I continued down the street with Joel, knowing that I’d have yet another thing to unpack in therapy next week now.

“Shouldn’t you have just corrected her instead of threatening her?” he asked.

Shaking my head, I looked up at him. “She wouldn’t have believed me, better to just shut her up with a little threat.”

“You’re a delight,” he said with a grin.

“I know, you’re going to miss me.”

“The interview drops in an hour, why won’t she pick up?” I complained, holding my phone to my ear as I paced the kitchen, cup of tea in hand, splashing droplets on the tiled floor each time I turned at each end of the room.

Cole slurped loudly, sucking down a long string of spaghetti. We had decided on a big lunch as dinner tonight was going to likely only be hors d’oeuvres, shit ones too if previous events were anything to go by. “She’s probably busy getting ready herself, she is coming tonight, right?”

“Yeah, they all are,” I said, pulling my phone away from my ear and redialling her number. “Come on, pick up.”

“Hello sexy lady,” Cece said when she answered on the fourth ring. “Sorry, I left my phone in the bathroom andsomeonedecided to distract me, but don’t worry, now it’s out of his system no more distractions, we’ll be there on time.”

“I’m not worried about that,” I said, feeling a little calmer now that I had her on the phone. “Although, now that I think about it, I probably should have been. Anyway, I have something important to tell you, and it can’t—”

“Me too!” she squealed. “Shit, sorry. You go first.”

“No, you,” I insisted, half guessing what it might be anyway from the excited noise that had left her. Although I wasn’t sure if it was better that she tell me her news first and I shit all over it with mine, or the other way around.

It was too late to change my mind though. “So, you know that party that we ended up cancelling for E’s birthday… Well, there was a really good reason for it.”

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