Page 19 of Blurred Lines

“All you have to do is ask her. I’m sure she won’t mind helping out.”

I didn’t like Theo’s tone. He made it sound as if I were being the unreasonable one.

“And if I don’t?”

“If you won’t do one little thing to help my business, I guess it would mean the past three months have been a mistake.”

“Are you serious? You’d dump me because I won’t promote your stupid app?”

“Threadz isn’t stupid.” Theo sucked in a breath. “You don’t even know what it does.”

“Because you never bothered to freaking tell me!”

“Yes, well, you’ve always been too busy fantasising about other men to learn the intricacies of my profession.”

“Fantasising about other men? I’m a romance author—creating hot book boyfriends is literally my job, and you have no clue how much work goes into publishing and marketing a novel.”

“Sure I do—you write porn, and Violet Miller posts about it on her social media accounts.”

That—I channelled Cristian—that motherfucker. How could I have been so stupid? Again?

“Get the hell out of my life. I never want to see you again.”

“What about my stuff? I left my favourite jeans at your place.”

And I had clothes at Theo’s apartment, but I didn’t care anymore. Screw him and the app he rode in on.

“They’ll be in the trash bags at the end of my driveway. Have fun rewriting your marketing plan.”

I tossed the phone onto the couch and burst into tears. This week—this month—had been too much. All the little stresses had piled on top of each other and broken me. My phone buzzed, and I choked out another sob. I almost hoped Mario did show up because I really needed to punch something, but instead of checking the screen, I did the adult thing and hurled the phone at the wall.

Just leave me alone.

Just leave me the hell alone.

Hammering on the door woke me. I’d finally fallen into a dreamless, alcohol-induced sleep, and when I raised my head off the couch, my temples throbbed with the anger of a woman scorned. I grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen and marched through the hallway, fully prepared to smash whoever had dared to disturb my misery.

“Whoa!” Brax and Kane leapt backward in unison.

“What are you doing here?”

The two men exchanged a glance.

“Violet’s freaking out because you’re not answering the phone,” Brax said.

“It broke.”

“What happened?” Kane asked. “You look terrible.”

I practically snarled, and he wisely took another step back.

Brax curled an arm around my shoulders. “What Kane means, my lovely, is that you seem a little upset.”

“I managed to date another asshole, that’s what happened. Men suck.”

“I won’t try to argue with that. What can we do to help?”

“You can shut Theo’s testicles in a vise and wind it up as tight as it’ll go.”

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