Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84401 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
And now I was that conquest, only nobody would tell me beautiful lies. The bed shifted under someone’s weight. He was still here?
Hope flooded me. Slowly, I rolled over until I faced his direction.
His back was turned toward me, ripped and broad. Glorious muscles. I fought the urge to run my fingertips over them. I licked my lips, wondering what to say. Too many thoughts whirled in my head.
I was glad that I didn’t find words before Xavier turned around to me. His expression silenced any romantic nonsense I’d wanted to utter.
I was one of those girls.
The girls I’d pitied for being stupid enough to think they could finally be the one for Xavier. The one to change his Casanova ways. Hadn’t Xavier himself ridiculed their idiotic hopes?
Good lord, I was a stupid cow.
Xavier’s eyes were guarded, and worse: guilty. He didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. I knew how this usually went, had been there to usher the girls out or see Xavier practically push them out. I wouldn’t let it come to that. I wanted to salvage the little bit of dignity I still had. I slid out of bed, pulling the blankets with me. I couldn’t bear the idea of Xavier seeing my imperfectness in the bright morning light.
Wrapping the blanket around my body, I began picking up my clothes from the floor, then quickly left the bedroom and headed for the guest bathroom downstairs. My first walk of shame.
I didn’t bother with a shower. I needed to get out of Xavier’s apartment as fast as possible. My composure was hanging on a thread.
I stepped into my skirt, dragging it up over my too wide hips. Then my nylons ripped as I tried to pull them up. I dropped them in the garbage bin, and tugged my tank top and sweater over my head. I slid into my pumps before I hurried out of the bathroom. Xavier was standing in his open kitchen, two cups of coffee in front of him, his eyes following me with that horrible guilty look in them.
If he thought I was having awkward post-coitus coffee with him, he had lost his mind. It was obvious that he wasn’t sure how to let me down easily. I was his assistant after all, and not some stranger he could give a fake phone number to. I considered saying something like “thanks for the night” or “good lay,” but I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
Instead I snatched my purse from the sofa and practically fled the apartment without another word. I wasn’t sure if I could ever face him again.
Evie escaped from my apartment as if the devil was after her. There really was no other way to describe it. I couldn’t deny it: I was relieved. I rubbed my temple. Last night was a huge fucking mistake. Not my first and definitely not my last, but perhaps the one I’d come to regret the most.
I got up and went upstairs into the bedroom. I needed to grab a shower. My eyes landed on the white sheets. I stopped. “Fuck,” I said at the not-so-white sheets. Evie was the funniest woman I knew. She was the best assistant I’d ever had. The first female friend. And I had listened to my fucking dick and popped her cherry.
She knew me. She knew I didn’t date. Then why was I feeling like the biggest asshole in the world?
She knew me. Maybe this was just sex for her, an easy way to get rid of her V-card. Fuck. Evie was a friend. She was…more than that: my conscience and ass saver. And even that still felt too inadequate a description for what Evie meant to me.
The sound of a key being turned gave me a burst of hope as I hurried to the landing, but it disappeared when I saw Nancy come in to clean the apartment.
It was my day off, nothing scheduled for the day except for training with Connor in the afternoon, but I felt restless.
Nancy came upstairs and gave me a curt nod in greeting. She was one of the least talkative women I knew. As usual she moved toward the bed first to strip it and do laundry. She paused, eyes going from the red spot to me.
“Evie is a good woman,” was all she said. I wasn’t sure how she knew. “She came out of your apartment looking like she’d seen a ghost. What have you done now, Xavier?”
That was a guilt trip I didn’t need. I moved into the bathroom and got into the shower, needing to clear my mind. If Nancy didn’t want to see my meat she’d just have to clean with closed eyes, damn it.
I hauled my ass over to the gym. Connor and I wanted to do weights. Of course, I spotted Fiona with him, sitting on his lap in the waiting area of the gym. She was already dressed in street clothes, so she wouldn’t bother us during our session.