CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Becca
Legs. That’s all I saw. Legs that went on forever. Legs that made me look down at my own as I sat at my usual table in the dining room and cringe at how incredibly average length my legs were.
I’d always thought my legs were my best part of my body, but one look at the legs on the blonde with Zane made me doubt what I’d believed since I was a teenage girl. So much for decades of confidence.
How strange that a single person could make an accomplished woman with a fair amount of self-confidence feel so much less simply because she existed. Other women didn’t typically intimidate me, but I couldn’t deny it. Sitting there looking at Zane with the tall blonde with those legs and a body that surely had to have been bought and paid for bothered me.
There was no way breasts sat that high and large naturally. They defied gravity and basic physics altogether.
I thought a few more nasty thoughts about her, mostly focused on the fact that she didn’t even look like a real human being and more like some tacky Barbie come to life, before silently scolding myself for acting like the kinds of women I disliked and looking back down at my menu. I wasn’t a catty woman or the type to put another woman down just to make myself feel better. It simply wasn’t my way, and I didn’t approve of women who tore one another down like that.
After all, Zane wasn’t mine. I had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t every single time he had tried to be. Well, every single time but that last one. Against my better judgment, I’d slept with him, and the very next time he knew I’d be here, he trotted out her?
How dare he treat me like some school girl whose emotions had no meaning to him? It was crass, and I had no time for crass. I wanted to kick myself for having slept with him the weekend before. I had known it was a dumb move then, and he proved it to me every minute he sat there with that life-size Barbie.
As the waiter asked me for my order, I gave it to him hastily and could have sworn I saw pity in his eyes. I looked around, and it felt like the entire room, especially the staff, was looking at me. What a sucker they must see me as!
At a place like the inn, gossip traveled fast, and they probably knew Zane and I had something going on. I shook my head to dispel the thought. No, we hadn’t.
Zane and the blonde stood to leave, and I looked over, trying to glean how serious they were from body language alone. When had all this with the new woman happened since I had thought he’d been chasing me?
What a fool I’d been! Had I just been something to pass the time while he waited for this woman to show up?
Before I could get too deeply into those thoughts, Zane and the woman approached my table, forcing me to deal with them.
“Hey there, Becca.”
I gave him a small smile and a nod, not wanting to betray how I felt, even as I wanted to smack his face.
“This is Stacey, an old friend of mine,” he explained with a smug smile. How had I ever even thought that smile was charming?
His old friend Stacey giggled and playfully slapped Zane on the shoulder as she purred, “Old friend, my ass. We were together for two years, and in all that time I don’t recall us ever doing anything friends do together. Maybe friends with benefits, but not friends.”
I looked up at him as I tried to mask the emotions that began to bubble up inside me. Anger, jealousy, and hurt all blended into a Molotov cocktail of feelings that threatened to explode from me if I didn’t keep them in check. I pushed them down and focused on keeping my cool. Zane Gilford had just proved to me that he wasn’t worth me getting all emotional over, least of all in public, and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know I was upset.
Zane cringed and laughed nervously. “We’ve known each other for a long time. She lives in California, so when I came East, we broke up.”
I didn’t say anything and did my best to keep my face emotionless as Stacey responded by squeezing him tightly to those fake breasts of hers and kissing him hard on the cheek before saying with a huge grin, “But now that I’m on this coast for a while, that whole breaking up thing won’t be lasting very long. Right, Zane?”
He didn’t say anything, so she looked at me and smirked. “We just can’t stay apart. Besides, why would we want too, right?”
I held in the murderous rage that coiled inside me as I looked at him and said, “Well, when you have time, Zane, I’d like to discuss the campaign. I’ll be here until tomorrow afternoon, but then I have to head back to the city for an important meeting.”
Zane nodded, but as he opened his mouth to answer, the annoying blonde interjected, “Well, I’m not sure he’ll be able to make that appointment. Sorry, sweetie. We have a lot of lost time to make up for. That might be something you need to reschedule with his staff. Granted, they aren’t very competent, so try and speak slowly for them.”
My hands curled at my sides. I hated hearing her insult the staff I knew to be good people who tried hard to run the inn and keep it like it had been under Zane’s mother.
Quickly, Zane said, “I look forward to hearing your ideas, Becca. I’ll let you know what time I’m free tomorrow morning.”
Without another word, he hurried the two of them away. I got a quick glance over the shoulder from Barbie on his arm that told me exactly what the two of them were off to do. Clearly, they were both in a hurry to get upstairs and get out of their clothes.
I shouldn’t have been so damned foolish to believe that Zane Gilford could be anything but the kind of guy who flaunts a woman like that in front of the one he’d spent the night with just a week before. I sat staring at the food on my plate, but I had no interest in eating anymore.
Why did any of this bother me anyway? I didn’t want to be with him, so I shouldn’t have been so hurt by his behavior. Still, I shouldn’t have slept with him. I knew that the next morning. But I couldn’t help but be filled with immense regret over that.
He was an ass, and I had always known that.
If only I’d listened to my gut.
I looked out the window and saw rain begin to pour down, mirroring how I felt. I couldn’t take it one more second. I decided to abandon my food and the dining room altogether since sitting there made me feel exposed and humiliated. As I hurried past the check-in desk towards the stairs, Mandy gave me a look of pity that only made things worse.
And then, as I walked up the stairs to hide away in my room for the rest of the day, my phone vibrated and my day instantly became ten times worse.
“What do you want, Dustin?” I asked sharply, not bothering to hide the anger in my voice.
If there was one person who I didn’t care to manage my tone around, it was my annoying ex. Sure, he might have been getting some overflow from the anger I felt towards Zane, but I simply didn’t care.
Dustin or Zane. The difference between them at that moment didn’t seem much.
“You should watch that tone of yours, Becca. It’s what got you into this mess in the first place.” Dustin smugly said, angering me further with his cocky attitude.
“This mess? Are you implying we divorced because of my bad attitude? I’m sorry, Dustin. Maybe my memory isn’t serving me, but I think your proclivity for sleeping with other women probably hurt us more than my bad attitude.”
“There you go again. Do you ever take responsibility for anything? Maybe there was a reason I didn’t want you and wanted someone else.”
Disgusted already with how this conversation had turned, I began to take the stairs two at a time. “Well, you sure picked a winner, Dustin. How’s that gold digging bitch of yours doing? Still going into debt with your lawyer trying to get a townhouse to sell to fund the lavish lifestyle you can’t afford?”
My words were hateful and rude, and I meant every syllable from the bottom of my heart. I was sick of the men in my life thinking they could just walk all over me. The time had come to let this one have it.
“Sure, Becca, keep digging your grave. You know, you’ll never find love if you’re such a bitch all the time. It’s not like you have any other redeeming qualities except your bank account to fall back on.”
“Why are you calling me? We agreed to keep things between our lawyers. Your voice isn’t on my list of things I’m interested in hearing, so whatever you have to say, you need to say it or get the fuck off this phone call before I hang up on you.”
“Wow, real nice Becca.”
“Fuck you, Dustin.”
“Nice. Well, I wanted you to know your lawyer will hear from my new one. Her name is Angela Wolfson. Maybe you’ve heard of her?”
I stopped on the landing between the second and third floors and took a deep breath in. That explained the arrogance in his voice. I had heard of her. Other authors called her a powerhouse. She was widely regarded as the nastiest and most effective divorce lawyer in Manhattan, and she had a track record of winning every case that came her way. Some said it was because of her pit bull-like-viciousness. Others claimed she had an almost mob-like connection within the system. Whatever it was, she was a force to be reckoned with.
I stood there in the hallway leaning against the wall stunned, mostly at how Dustin would have been able to afford such a formidable lawyer. My head began to spin. Could this day get any worse?
“I’m going to guess by your silence you have heard of her. Good. I’m getting that townhouse, Becca. Make sure you keep it clean for the people I end up selling it to. I don’t want to have to pay for some cleaning crew to get that stink of lavender you love so much out of every square inch. I’d keep that attitude in check too. The judge isn’t going to like what a bitch you are, and at this rate, you’ll be losing that townhouse sooner than you think. My gold digging bitch and I will love selling it right out from underneath you.”
With that he hung up, leaving me there with the phone to my ear and the overwhelming need to cry like a baby. I rushed to my room on auto-pilot. I didn’t want to be around anyone, including the staff that passed me on the stairs and in the hallway who kept giving me looks that told me my emotions were written all over my face.
I shut the door behind me, and before I knew it, the tears began streaming down my face. I closed my eyes and collapsed on the bed, letting my head hit the pillow and hoping I could forget about how bad my day had suddenly become. Much like the weather outside raging against the glass window panes in my room, when it rained it poured, and it sure was raining a lot in my life now.
Dustin didn’t have to be such an ass, yet he never failed to be just that, but he wasn’t a big surprise. Zane, however, had been. I couldn’t get the thought of that woman hanging all over him out of my mind, and I had the horrible feeling that somewhere in that hotel while I cried into my pillow, Zane was fucking her into his.
The thought only made the whole situation worse. I couldn’t help it, though, and I decided just to let myself have a good long cry. Why couldn’t I attract good men who didn’t want to take my home from me or throw women like that life-sized Barbie in my face after having sex with me?
What did it matter? There was nothing else to be done about Zane or what we’d done together, and for once, I didn’t want to be the problem solver or the strong one. I simply wanted to cry.