Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“What?” I wrote back as fast as my fingers could move. “He did that?!”
The guy sent me a pic of Louis’s business card with a message scrawled on the back in his familiar handwriting. “If your HEA turns into a WTF.”
I stared at it in shock.
After offering prolonged, embarrassing apologies to him and every other client I could remember Louis meeting—because of course, it hadn’t been a onetime thing—my hands were shaking. Unfortunately, Oscar was on the other side of the world and would most likely be in the middle of his important meeting in Macau, so I couldn’t bother him with something so trivial. Instead, I sent a text to Rafa.
Hugh
Louis fucked with my HEA reputation. What do I do?
Even though Rafa was supposed to be working a corporate happy-hour event, he called me immediately. “Tell me everything.”
After blurting it out in one long run-on sentence, I heaved in a breath. “What do I say to him?”
“Two words: Fuck. Off. That’s what we say to men who toy with our hearts, Hugh. We don’t let them get away with it.”
Rafa knew that wasn’t my style, so I had to wonder whether he was projecting a little bit. I hadn’t heard his telltale Grindr notifications going off in a long while, but when I’d asked about it, he’d been remarkably close-lipped. “Okay, I think I’m going to sleep on it.”
“Better idea: sleep on it with vodka.”
I rolled my eyes. Rafa knew I tried not to drink during the spring and summer wedding rush. There was nothing worse than trying to work late hours while sweating your balls off when you’d started the day already dehydrated and hungover.
“Sure,” I joked. “Solid plan.”
“I’m serious. Get some clothes on. I’ll be home in forty minutes, and we’re going out. Tonight, we’re drinking to forget.”
I groaned, but I knew better than to argue. Rafa hadn’t liked Louis to begin with, so he was itching to spend several hours saying I told you so without actually saying “I told you so,” while also reminding me that the world was full of men who weren’t assholes, so maybe I should consider finding one.
But I knew plenty of non-assholes. Guys who were smart and charming, who made me laugh and sent me birthday bacon. The trouble was, none of them were ever interested in a lifelong commitment… at least not with me.
And sometimes, like right then, I honestly didn’t know what to do about that.
Continuing to put myself out there constantly, actively searching and never finding, seemed a little bit… well, pathetic. But the alternative—giving up my dream, building defensive walls around myself so wide and thick that love couldn’t find me with a GPS tracker—seemed downright impossible. I wasn’t choosing to want love any more than I chose to breathe oxygen. I simply didn’t know any other way to be.
That didn’t mean I didn’t feel like a total fool for getting my hopes up yet again though. It didn’t mean I wasn’t scared that I might spend my whole life dreaming about love—making it my literal job, for god’s sake—and never find it for myself. It didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt.
So I did what I swore I wouldn’t do and got absolutely, horrendously shitfaced. Drunker than I’d been in a very long time. Drunk enough that I called Louis from the bar and broke up with him immediately, while I was still incoherent enough to ignore all of his excuses.
The only silver lining was that Rafa kept up with me drink for drink and ended up passed out on the floor of his bathroom in agony.
If only that was what I’d done too.
7
OSCAR
My phone buzzed just as my team and I returned from lunch to the sleek conference room. The large table’s surface gleamed in the sun slanting through the wide wall of windows. An expansive view of the city stretched from end to end. Macau had an interesting history and a unique skyline, but this time, I was finding it difficult to appreciate any of it.
I was tired. Tired of traveling. Tired of working. Tired of feeling restless in a way that no amount of busy-ness or excitement seemed to cure. But this meeting was a critical part of determining the operational strategy of a new investment. Even though several leaders from my investment team were on the project, it was important for me to be present.
I pulled my phone out, ready to decline the call and put the phone back into Focus mode for the duration of the afternoon, when I saw who was calling.
Hugh.
If he was calling instead of texting, it meant something was wrong, especially since Macau was thirteen hours ahead of New York, making it around two in the morning where he was. My heart rate skyrocketed in fear as I stepped out into the quiet hallway without even muttering an explanation, shocking my team and leaving a table full of wide eyes and dropped jaws.