Kate had taken one look at the expression on my face and dragged me out of the cafeteria. Now we were in a smoky little dive bar where the cigarette fumes were stronger than a tobacco plantation on fire, hiding at the corner booth with ripped red plastic seats and a nicotine-stained plastic palm tree strategically hiding our faces.

Above us, a blinking white light made me feel like I’d been dragged into a police interrogation as Kate pushed a ginger ale across the table at me—it was the middle of the work day, after all—and demanded that I first drown my sorrows (for whatever value of ‘drown your sorrows’ you can get with a ginger ale) and then spill my guts.

“—and then he was like, ‘so it’s over,’” I finished. “Like I’m being completely unreasonable to just want a cordial work relationship!”

I wasn’t being unreasonable, right? We’d had some good times, but I wanted more and he didn’t, so the best thing for everybody had been for me to pull back, hadn’t it? Why did I have to keep second-guessing myself?

I took a swig from my bottle, trying to pretend the bite of the Jamaican ginger was the bite of alcohol.

“I can’t believe he’s acting like this,” I went on, stoking my rage to avoid thinking about my pain. “Okay, I threw him for a loop, but obviously he’s fine, the company’s going to bounce back fine, why the fuck can’t he get over it? Why does he have to shut me out? What’s with the fucking Ice-Man act?”

Kate stirred her own non-alcoholic drink and tried to suppress a small smile.

“What’s with the Mona Lisa face, Katie? And which part of this is amusing to you?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “It’s just…don’t you get it? He’s never been dumped before. Ever. He obviously doesn’t enjoy having his pride get kicked in the balls. Especially not in public.”

Kate smirked again but I didn’t have the heart to join in. There was no way I could tell her about the money. Or the fact that I was sending it back in full.

“But the engagement wasn’t even real,” I reminded her. “So why can’t we just go back to having a nice, boring, professional work relationship?”

“Oh, girl,” Kate said sympathetically. “The thing is, you gotta remember that Grant Devlin? The one constant thing about him, besides his hotness? It’s the fact that he’s a huge fucking asshole. He always was a huge fucking asshole. He always will be a huge fucking asshole. Somewhere there’s probably some mystical prophecy about him being the once and future huge. Fucking. Asshole.”

“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “But I really thought I saw another side to him…”

“You saw excitement,” Kate said, placing her hand over mine. “You saw adventure, and money, and hot sex, and you let yourself think that was another side, because you’re a good person and you assume everyone else is as good as you. And you let yourself fall a little in love. But I bet that, before you know it, you’ll realize that you miss the adventure and excitement more than you miss him.”

“Maybe,” I said with a sigh. “But right now, I just miss him.”

And I did, more than I ever thought possible, even after I had admitted to myself that I loved him. I missed the warm of his lips, the shelter of his arms. I missed that slight sly smirk, and that shy boyish grin. I missed the dark storminess of his eyes when he was consumed with passion, and that sunlit sea blue when he was unexpectedly tender. I missed the way he said my name, his voice lingering on the sound of it, long Australian vowels making me sound like a gift, like a treasure, like someone else entirely.

Kate raised an eyebrow imbued with more skepticism than a room full of atheists. “And you don’t miss the whirlwind dashes through gala balls and the limo rides and the designer dresses, not one little bit.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I miss that a little, too. I’m only human!”

But even my self-deprecating humor rang hollow to my ears. What was the point of all that stuff without Grant? He was the one who had made it exciting and fun. He was the one who had made it worthwhile.

“So…any idea on how you’re going to go forward?” Kate breached the subject tentatively, but with a resolute cast to her chin that told me she wasn’t going to let me wriggle out of an answer with vagueness. “Knowing what it’s going to be like from now on, working with Grant.”

I sighed heavily and swigged the last of my ginger ale. “Find another job, I guess,” I said, trying to speak casually and not like the bottom was dropping out of my stomach.

I’d never been married to the idea of staying with Devlin Media Corp forever, but it was the first place I’d really been valued for my education and skills, and not my ability to maintain a smile while scooping fries in a bucket for a screaming customer. And it wouldn’t be easy to find another job in this economy, especially with the reputation I’d given myself to save Grant… A wave of despair threatened to wash over me, but I willed it back. I’d gone into the trenches of job interviews before; I’d do it again.

“I can’t see him every day,” I admitted to Kate, and it felt as if something broke inside me, just a little, as I said that. “Even if he were being civil right now. It would still hurt too damn much. And since he’s not being civil—since he hates my guts and doesn’t feel like hiding it—well. I just can’t.”

“He has no right to treat you like that,” Kate said quietly. “He can be angry, fine, but you don’t deserve how he’s treating you.”

“I don’t blame him,” I said, and I was astonished to find that I was speaking the truth. For all my earlier anger towards him, the person I was really angry at was myself. I buried my head in my hands. “I made a fool of him in front of everyone.”

“Lacey, have you met Grant?” Kate asked. “He has a high-profile romance fall apart once a week. Sure, he’s never been on the receiving end of the dumping, but you didn’t lock him outside your hotel room in his underwear like that Russian model, or dare him to moon the mayor like that Brazilian heiress. It’s not like the public hasn’t seen him totally humiliated a zillion times already. Okay? Grant is definitely overreacting here.” She hesitated. “Oh, God. Unless he’s…I mean, it’s almost like…”

“Almost like what?” I said from the shelter of my hands. “Like I irrevocably fucked up and hurt him more than anyone else ever before?”

Kate gave me a little shove. “Almost like maybe the jerk actually has some feelings for you too, dummy.”

I peeked out at her from between my fingers. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“What’s to kid?” Kate asked. “You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re fabulous as hell. I don’t want you to get your hopes up or anything…but damn, girl, usually when a guy pulls a bitchfest like this, it’s because somebody’s reminded them they have a heart, and they’re not liking the feeling of it getting stomped on.”

I pondered her words. Could it be true? Could Grant really have had feelings for me? I felt regret begin to blossom in my chest, heavy and unrelenting. What if—if only—

No. No. I clamped down on it, squeezing that thin sad wondering voice into nothing more than a whisper. It didn’t matter what Grant had felt for me then—he hated me now. And there was no use wondering where our relationship could have gone, because I’d chopped a tree down over that road and declared it closed.

As Grant had said, it was all over.

* * *

Unfortunately the universe showed no signs of slowing down time to accommodate feelings breaks, so I had to ditch Kate and the ginger ale after only half an hour and get back to the office pronto. There was a big executive meeting, and I couldn’t afford to be a mess in front of Grant. I needed to show that I had caught up, that I was on the ball and un-intimidated.

I had reviewed all my presentation materials, double-checked my online calendar to review the time, sent e-mails confirming the main points others would be presenting, even considered sending Tina out to the water cooler to eavesdrop on gossip before realizing that I was over-thinking things, and also that Tina would be a terrible spy. I set off towards the boardroom, as prepared as I could possibly be.

…well, there was one more thing…

I checked my watch, and satisfied that there was just enough time, ducked into the executive bathroom. I pulled my lipstick out of my satchel, and quickly applied a fresh coat. There. Battle armor donned and ready.

“Hello, Lacey.”

“Aaaaaaaah holy—er, hello, Portia,” I mustered in reply to Grant’s decidedly un-fairy godmother. I steadied myself against the bathroom counter and forced myself to smile back pleasantly—although I’m afraid the result was much more like a terrified baboon rictus—at Portia’s reflection where it had popped up behind me.

What the hell was it with this woman and ambushing me in bathrooms? Did she use them as her evil portals? Was she the ghost of someone who had accidentally drowned in a toilet? Being long-dead would explain a lot about her cold-bloodedness.

“How are you doing, my dear?” asked Portia, or rather, asked the skilled actor I knew must be impersonating Portia, since Portia herself would never show actual human emotion to this extent. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were pursed. Her brow was actually furrowed in concern. “I’ve been so concerned about how you’re holding up under all this pressure.”

“Fine,” I managed after a few stunned seconds, trying not to openly gape at the robot faultily programmed to portray a Portia-like being—that still made more sense than Portia being nice, right? She’d never supported my relationship with Grant, even knowing it was a hoax all along. “Um, I mean. You know. Fine.”

If this had really been Portia, she would have taken this opportunity to issue a stinging insult about my capability for stringing words together into a sentence of comprehensible English.

But the genetically modified shape shifter currently wearing Portia’s skin just smiled sympathetically—an actual smile! It stretched the length of her lips and everything!—and said, “It’s difficult, isn’t it? Oh, the press are such animals. And they never stop to think how you might feel, do they?”

I listened intently for the sound of the Twilight Zone theme music. It stubbornly refused to play. “Uh, no? I guess?”

“I think you’re holding up marvelously, myself,” she said, giving me a supportive little squeeze of the arm. “Shockingly classy. And your parents?”

“What about my parents?” I demanded, suddenly sure I knew where this was going. Portia had found out about all their hippy-dippy nonsense, and this nicey-nice act was just to throw me off-balance before she hit me with a really cutting one-liner about their organic toilet paper or something.

Portia just blinked innocently, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “Are they well? I do hope they’re well. It can be so stressful, when a young person you care for is first encountering the rocks and shoals of fortune.”

“Uhhh, they’re fine.” Now I was really thrown for a loop. “Holding up great. Eating a lot of quinoa.”

“Really?” Portia said with so much enthusiasm I was worried she might burst a blood vessel. “I’ve heard simply wonderful things about that. You must ask them to pass along some recipes for my chef.”

“Er…okay?”

“Well, I must be going!” she trilled. Honest to God trilled. And then she clasped my hand earnestly. What the hell was this? “My dear, I wish you the very best.”

She must be more relieved than I ever thought possible that Grant and I were kaput. Sure, it wasn’t the best PR move for Grant and the company, but he was free and clear of me now and I was no longer a financial liability nor a smudge on their good family name. No wonder Portia was in such a good mood. Too bad I wasn’t.

Portia swept out of the bathroom, leaving me with but one thought in my severely rattled head:

What the fuck?