Page 48 of Guarded Love

“Don’t do this.” He threw his hands into the air. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? After that performance you just put on? You have the nerve to tell me I’m being ridiculous when you made a complete fool out of yourself.” I placed a hand on my chest. “He said he loves me. Hell, even if he doesn’t mean it, do you know how many men besides you have ever said that?”

I brought my fingers and thumb together in a circle. “Zero. You ruined the first good thing that’s happened to me in my whole life. All I ever wanted, and you came in here and blew it all away. All because you can’t trust me or your supposed friends enough to step back and let us live our lives. I am so disappointed in you right now. I can’t even look at you. So I’m going to go.”

“At least let’s talk it out,” Lourde pleaded.

“Thank you, but no. I have nothing more to say.”

“She’s determined to fuck up her life, so let her do it,” Barrett snarled. “Here I am, coming back a day early for work, and this is the headache I come back to?”

“Poor you,” I whispered as I moved quickly, cramming everything into a bag and doing my best to ignore the tears in my eyes. There would be plenty of time to cry once I got back home, where I belonged.

If there was one thing I was used to, it was crying alone.

22

MAGNUS

The only rash thing I had done was drink myself into oblivion for two days straight, then spend another day trying to recover before I even managed to drag my ass into a shower. It turned out there wasn’t enough alcohol in existence to blot out the memory of Evelyn’s tear-stained face in the moments before I left the penthouse for probably the last time.

“Man, where are you? I’m waiting here.” I didn’t know what the hell had gotten up Ari’s ass. Since when did he need my opinion on a new space for Farrah Goldsmith Couture? He and Connor had been insufferable the past week, coming up with reasons to get me out of my apartment, like they were afraid I would do something rash if they left me on my own.

“I’m crossing the street this very minute.” The sun was too bright, the traffic too loud, and I was fairly sure I was still hungover. Binge drinking hurt a hell of a lot worse in my thirties than it ever had in my twenties.

“The door is open. Come right in.” He ended the call, and I could only shake my head. It was nice to know I had friends who cared whether or not I would dive into a bottle and drown in it, but some things a man had to handle in his own way. I knew if I’d said I wouldn’t come down to tour the space, he would’ve come up with another reason to drag me out and force me to function without Evelyn.

Even thinking her name hurt. How could I still hurt this much after a week when we had barely been together for an entire week before everything went to hell?

Because you love her, genius.

Because this wasn’t some wild weekend in the Hamptons or a drunken fling in Vegas.

Because I had lost the one good, true thing to ever step into my life.

That was what I had on my mind and my heart as I opened the very old, creaky door to a warehouse in the garment district. And came face-to-face with none other than Barrett Black.

“Are you fucking kidding me.” His jaw tightened, and his eyes blazed. I really wanted to ask who the hell he thought he was intimidating. “Fucking Ari.”

Ari, who, no surprise, was nowhere to be found among the random crates and bolts of fabric strewn around the otherwise lifeless space. It was only the two of us, face-to-face. “I guess he thought we needed to talk.”

“I don’t have shit to say to you,” he growled out.

“Yeah, congratulations. I don’t feel like talking to you, either.”

“Why the fuck are we here?”

“Because obviously, Olivia made him watchParent Trapor some shit, and he thought they could throw us together. That we would iron everything out.”

“How do you know aboutParent Trap?”

“I was born rich. Not under a rock.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Well, they wasted their time, and I’m wasting mine.”

“Sure.” I snickered as he tried to walk around me and head for the door. “You fucked Lourde behind Connor’s back, but you had all the reasons in the world to do that, and I’m just a piece of shit.”

He stopped dead, glaring at me. “That was different.”

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