CHAPTER THIRTY

HOLLY

“Okay, but can I just say something?”

My mom, the woman who had reacted to the end of my relationship with Stephen with, “Well, I can’t say I didn’t see that one coming,” didn’t need to give me her two cents on my running out on a gorgeous multimillionaire.

“Oh, please, Kathy. Go ahead,” Esther urged, lifting her cup of tea to her lips.

And you call yourself a friend, old woman.

Mom spread her hands out on the table, looking into her own mug. “I just want to point out that my daughter, my first born, slept with B. Davis. I just …” She closed her eyes, relishing in the details of my tornado of a romantic life. “I just can’t wrap my head around that.”

“He really is a hot one,” Esther grinned, waggling her eyebrows at my mother.

“God, he really is,” Mom sighed. Her eyes snapped open, looking directly at me with the heels of my palms squashing against my forehead. “How did you not know, Holly? How did you manage to talk to the guy for months without any clue of who he was? Are you living under a goddamn rock?”

“Gee, I guess so, Mom. Just installed some new moss. You should come over and check it out sometime,” I grumbled, but the absurdity wasn’t lost on me.

“It’s almost as good as her not knowing the guy she was dating was gay, right?” Liz mumbled, peering at me over the steaming mug she held.

“Oh, low blow,” Esther said with a cackle.

The meeting of the minds had been orchestrated by Liz immediately after receiving my phone call. I had assumed it to be some sort of intervention when we got to the house to find the two women sitting at the kitchen table with prepared mugs of tea waiting for our arrival. Maybe to insist that I should just stay away from men for a while, but no, Heaven forbid I assume they cared that much about my life. Because instead of an intervention, they had gathered to gawk over my apparent one-night stand with a celebrity, who just so happened to be one of my mom’s favorite authors.

Seriously, how did I not know who he is?

Holly freakin’ Hughes. Freakin’ oblivious.

“So, when are you seeing him again?” Mom asked, rubbing her hands together, making no attempt at hiding her scheming. “I need to know so that I can bring my books for him to sign.”

My hands dropped from my forehead to stare at her, throwing forth all of the disgust I could muster in one look. “You are kidding me, right?” She shook her head, raising her hands with confusion. “You guys are completely overlooking the fact that the guy hid this pretty important little bit of information from me after telling me he loved me, after having sex with me. And never mind the fact that he is way out of my league. I mean, this is all a—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa … wait a minute. He told you that he loves you?” Liz’s mouth fell open, so that she resembled a bug-eyed fish. “Holly … A very rich, very famous, and very—” She flashed the Google page of Brandon pictures she had been scrolling through on her phone toward me. “—very, very gorgeous man confessed his love for you before giving you the best sex of your life, and you walked out on him?”

For the record, I had never said it was the best sex of my life.

Also for the record, it really was.

“How very shallow of you, Liz,” I said flatly, my mouth forming a tense line as my eyes narrowed.

Mom shook her head, her mug hitting the table in a declaration that she was about to say something simultaneously annoying and truthful in the way only a mother can.

“This isn’t about being shallow, okay? Let’s forget that he’s rich, famous, and incredibly beautiful.” Liz shoved the phone at her. “I get it, Elizabeth! I’m well aware of what he looks like, but let’s just pretend he’s not any of those things. The fact here is that, Holly, you enjoyed his company for months. You said yourself that you had feelings for him, didn’t you? You had a great day with him, and he committed himself to you, and you’re—what? Going to pretend that never happened because he didn’t want to flaunt the fact that he’s a celebrity?”

“It’s really easy for you all to judge when you’re not in this situation,” I mumbled, staring blankly into my untouched tea.

“So, then explain it to us,” Esther pleaded, reaching over to place a frail hand gently on my arm. “Because from where we stand, honey, you’re looking like a fucking idiot.”

I withdrew from her touch and she pulled back without the slightest hint of being hurt or startled. Instead of being grateful to have such a wonderful friend and family, I stood up from the table with my mug and spilled its contents out into the sink. I geared myself up for a grand exit to my room, and away from these people that were only going to shoot down any explanation I had.

Slamming the cup onto the counter, I found the sound of the ceramic against the countertop to be louder than expected and it startled even me, causing all of us to flinch. But I stood there unwavering, determined to not skip a beat as I readied myself to leave them in the dust of my anger.

“He … lied … to … me.” I enunciated every one of the words in a tone that I hoped would scare the sense into them. “He took advantage of my ignorance and used the fact that I had no clue who he was against me. How can any of you expect me to just crawl back to him and tell him it’s okay to do that to someone?” My chin wobbled fiercely with the images of his tears suddenly rushing in. He certainly hadn’t looked like someone who thought it was okay, but he had done it anyway. “He … He built me up to feeling like someone again, and tore me the fuck down. I’m nobody, and all I want is for him to know what that feels like for one fucking second and I can’t even do that! Because there are millions of people out there who can keep that from happening to him, but it took nothing to remind me that I’m just a fucking speck for people to lie to and walk all over.”

My feet moved me quickly from the kitchen through the living room and down the hall to my room, ignoring their pleas to come back. I stopped myself from slamming the door behind me, my conscience reminding me that Anna was still sleeping only two rooms down. I threw myself on the bed as a startled Camille jumped off and scurried underneath, peering out from the darkness to wait for the hurricane to pass. My face buried into a pillow, catching the remnants of Tobacco Vanille. Now a tainted scent, I threw it to the floor with a disgusted grunt followed by a downpour of tears.

My arms captured the memory of being wrapped around him in my bed, remembering the fragmented night of regurgitating my stupid choices while he held my hair and carried me back to bed repeatedly. I couldn’t recall just how many times he brought me back to a place of calm with his gentle strokes against my back and his soothing words in my ear, but however many I remembered, I struggled to come up with any ulterior motive. And God, I wanted there to be one. I wanted to conjure something up that would further ruin any memory of him, but I came up empty.

I remembered what he said, that if he had only wanted a quick fuck, he had his pick of them. My stomach churned at the thought; armies of women conjuring up fantasies of doing with him exactly what I had done. I envisioned them hanging all over him, throwing themselves at him like disposable dolls, and if what he had said was true, he turned them all down, and yet …

He chose me.

Camille felt safe again, jumping up next to me and flopping herself down against my thigh. I pulled her up towards me, burying my face into her fur before hiccupping a sob against her body.

“I really am a fucking idiot,” I whispered into her fur, and I wondered if my pride would ever allow me to admit that to him.