Oh God.

Jasmine was still looking angrily at her brother and hadn’t spared me a glance yet. My heart was pounding, and my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Jasmine,” Dillon said softly, “let’s go outside, this is Chloe and Reardon’s…”

“I know what this is,” she said, cutting him off, her coloring rising along with her temper. “This is bullshit.”

“Jazz…”

Dillon reached out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled back.

“I told you to treat her like a princess, not mess with her emotions,” Jasmine said, and my blood ran cold. “You know what that prick Travis did to her, so how could you even think of starting something with her? Jesus, Dillon.”

She’d told him to treat me like a princess? That’s why he was such a gentleman in Chicago? Opening doors, taking me to dinner, acting like what I said mattered?

He hadn’t actually changed his opinion of me, and Jasmine had already told him what happened in Houston. The way Travis had treated me. Dillon had let me bare my soul to him, acting as if it was all new information?

It was all a lie.

Emotion ran through me, wanting to explode out, but I shut it down, turned, and walked away.

I passed through the stares and sympathetic looks to where Mary and Lisa were waiting.

“Let’s get ready to cut the cake,” I told them, grateful that my voice sounded almost normal.

“Laurel,” Chloe said, coming up next to me. “They went outside. Honey, we don’t have to do this. The party has been great. Why don’t you go talk to…”

“No,” I said, a little too sharply. So, I took a deep breath and looked at my friend. “No, this is your party, and I’m working. All we have left is to cut the cake and serve, then the party will be over and we’ll break down. That’s what I have to focus on right now.”

“Okay, honey,” Chloe said softly, her hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. You know Jasmine has a temper, but she and Dillon will work this out. You’ll see.”

There was so much I wanted to say to that, to talk out with my friend, but I knew it wasn’t the time or place, and this wasn’t the way I wanted my first official job to end, so I nodded at her, then at Lisa and Mary.

“Let’s cut the cake.”

An hour later, the cake was eaten, the gifts were loaded in the car, and the guests were gone. Lisa, Mary, Shane and I were packing up and cleaning up, when Dillon came back into the room looking worn out and frustrated.

“Sorry about that,” he began, going to the nearest table and starting to clear the plates. “I finally got her to calm down, then we ran into Chloe and Reardon and she felt terrible, so I was out there talking to them…”

“We’ve got it, you can go ahead and go,” I said firmly as I folded table linens.

“No, I can help…”

“I said, we’ve got it. I’d like you to go,” I repeated more harshly.

Dillon looked at my face for the first time since coming back and flinched.

“Laurel,” he said, taking a step toward me.

“I’m working right now, Dillon, I can’t do this…”

“We’ll just give you guys a minute, yeah?” Shane said, motioning for the girls to follow him outside.

Once they were gone and we were alone, Dillon took another step toward me and said, “Jasmine was taken by surprise, and yes, she got pissed, but that’s just because she didn’t understand how things are between us.”

I ignored his words. Now that everyone was gone, I allowed the emotions in. All the hurt, the anger, the betrayal.

“This whole thing has been a lie,” I said, wincing when my voice cracked.

“What? No, it hasn’t,” he denied.

“Jasmine told you to treat me like a princess … She meant in Chicago, right? That’s why everything was different between us, why you were different. No longer sniping at me, or giving me those dark, untrusting looks of yours, no looking over your shoulder, waiting for old annoying Laurel to ruin your trip.”

“Laurel…”

“The whole thing was a lie. God, you must have had a good laugh at how easy I made it for you. Took your whole attitude change in stride and melted at the thought of Dillon Lewis showing me an ounce of charm. Hell, I even propositioned you, making it even easier for you to show me just how good life could be. What an idiot…”

“Don’t call yourself that,” Dillon said, getting angry himself. But there was no way he was as angry as I was, no way in hell. “And that’s not what happened in Chicago. Sure, she told me to show you a nice time, and that is why I put the past behind us and tried to see the weekend as a new start, but it isn’t why I took you up on your offer. And, it certainly isn’t why I sought you out once we got back here. I wanted to be with you Laurel.”

I heard him, but I couldn’t actually hear him. His words bounced off me like bullets on a flak vest.

“And when I told you about Travis, about what happened in Houston … you let me go on and on, bearing my soul to you, and you never once let on that you already knew.”

That really stings. In fact, out of everything, that may be the thing that hurts the most.

“Yes, Jasmine told me some of it, but I hadn’t heard it from you, and I was honored that you trusted me enough to tell me,” Dillon said, running a hand through his auburn hair in frustration.

“Well, I don’t trust you now, and I need you to leave. I have work to finish up, and then I need to go home and be alone. I need some time to think.”

“Please,” he began, but I brought my eyes to him, allowing the hurt and misery to show through.

“No, Dillon, please go,” I begged, then turned and gave him my back.

A few seconds later, I heard his footsteps trail through the room and out the door.