CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Tammy
Except it didn’t quite go as planned. Instead of getting an email from “Nick Smith” and secretly tiptoeing through the secret passageway, I was actually summoned to Nick’s office by the queen herself.
“Go right in,” sang Jeanette sweetly, looking me up and down and smiling that red smile. “Mr. Martin’s been held up a bit but he said to go right in.”
I knew what she saw. A drab, frumpy, pudgy girl, one who wore not a scrap of make-up, my hair pulled back from my forehead painfully tight, the curls ruthlessly smooth.
“Thanks,” I said listlessly. I was clearly no competition for the blonde with her perfectly manicured nails, chic updo and tailored clothes. I wish I could say that I wanted to smack the smile off her face but the fight had already gone out of me. I just wanted to be gone from Luxor, from this hateful place.
So I let myself into the spacious office, the door snicking shut behind me, and took a deep breath, one last look around. This would be my last time here with the floor to ceiling windows, the modern Scandinavian deco, the private bathroom off to the side.
I wandered around, trailing my fingers on the blonde furniture, the glass tops, even touching some of the artwork. It would be my last time and I wanted to absorb everything, let it flow into my pores before I went back to my old life in the Bronx, a life of hurried microwave meals, scrimping for quarters, scrambling to pay bills as I attended school and worked full-time.
Except I didn’t have a new job yet. Well, that would come with time. For now, I just wanted to breathe in the luxurious surroundings, envelop myself in opulence once more.
So slowly I drifted, circling the office, breathing deeply. And as I came to Nick’s closet, I noticed it was ajar, his blue blazer hanging, waiting for its owner to reappear. On a whim, I pushed the door open and caught the garment to my nose, inhaling the big man’s distinctive scent, the woodsy masculinity making tears spring to my eyes once again. And as I blinked, trying to get my bearings, I noticed something in the pocket.
Slowly, I reached in and pulled it out. It was a pair of panties, lacy and red, flirty and musky with the scent of female cream.
Except they weren’t mine.
They were someone else’s.
And like a hot potato, I dropped the offending cloth, my cheeks flushing again, my whole body on fire as I realized what I’d just touched.
Oh my god. He’d been with another woman recently and I had the evidence right here. If seeing Jeanette leave his apartment last night hadn’t been enough, then this was iron-clad proof that Nick was a manwhore, that he was sleeping around with multiple women, secreting their panties away in all sorts of nooks and crannies, keeping them as souvenirs.
And I thought back to our first time together. What had happened to my panties then? Hadn’t he slipped them into his pocket? This was some kind of sick hobby for him, like notches on his bedpost or a hunter collecting skulls, evidence of his conquests, some type of disgusting ritual that pumped up his testosterone. I literally felt sick to my stomach, bending over with nausea.
Except that Nick entered the office at that moment, when I was least prepared, my emotions on high. And I launched myself at him, kicking, screaming, my small fists flying at his face, his shoulders, his chest, anywhere I could reach.
“How could you?” I screamed. “How the fuck could you? You’re such a fucking asshole, fucking women right and left.”
He held me off, my aggression no match for his superior weight and power.
“What the fuck?” he growled. “Tammy, get a hold of yourself.”
But I couldn’t be stopped, I was too angry.
“Look at that shit on the floor,” I screeched. “What the fuck is that?”
And Nick’s eyes dropped for a moment, bewildered when they saw the crumpled fabric.
“Baby,” he said, shaking his head perplexed, “aren’t those yours?”
And that only made my temperature zoom, turning me into Mount Vesuvius.
“What the fuck, can’t keep your women straight? No, those aren’t my panties, those belong to another one of your sluts!” I shrieked, practically spitting now, tears rolling down my cheeks. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
But Nick just shook his head again, his big body still holding me off.
“Baby, I haven’t been with anyone but you,” he growled. “Listen to me, listen to me,” he shook my shoulders. “There’s been no one but you.”
But I was in no mood for compromise. With two pieces of evidence pointing to his cheating ways, I only screamed louder and kicked harder, this time landing a good one on his shin.
“Oww,” he roared, gripping his leg, letting go for a moment. And that was enough for me to scramble free. I snatched up my purse and dashed out of the office, my face flaming, tears streaming as my breath came in pants and sobs. I wish I could say that no one witnessed it, that I was all alone in my pain, but of course Jeanette saw it all.
“Bye now,” she called after me silkily, her voice pure poison. “We’ll deliver your things to you.”
And I sobbed even harder on the elevator down. Because I was well and done for, I’d gotten lost in a fairytale thinking that Nick loved me, that we were actually something, that I was someone special to the billionaire. But I’d been dead wrong. It’d been nothing but a pipe dream, the hallucinations of a virgin in her first physical relationship, and I’d gotten carried away. I was nothing, and I deserved no one.