Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
My heart throbbed for him. The pain that must have caused.
But it didn’t excuse going to see her five days before the election. It didn’t excuse hiding it. It didn’t excuse anything.
“That must have been hard to hear. But you could have told me that. I told you when Josh showed up in my apartment. I turned my husband away, who I had been with for five years, and the first thing I did was come to see you.”
“I know but…”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The manic laugh that erupted out of my chest. “I don’t want your buts. I don’t want your Upper East Side Court Kensington bullshit explanation for why you should get out of this. I once said that I’m not sorry for being the only person holding you accountable for your actions. That doesn’t stop today.” I swallowed back my own pain at the words. And the heartbreak in them. “You could have told me. You chose not to. And worse than all of that, Court, you just ruined everything.”
“Come on, it won’t be that bad,” he said optimistically.
“I spent the last six months making you the golden boy of the Upper East Side. I did everything in my power to distance you from Jane and the person you had been before, who gave her money. Now, five days before the election, you decided to go see Jane in prison. What the fuck do you think the headlines say?”
He didn’t answer. His face had gone pale.
“Collusion. That you’re helping her defense. That you were in on it all along. That you got away with it because of who your mother is.” I shook with anger. “Your mother’s reelection is in five days. Jane’s trial is in a month. This could not be worse timing.”
“Okay, I fucked up,” he said finally. “I just had to see her.”
“Do you still love her?” I asked, forcing the words past my teeth.
I didn’t want to know the answer. In some ways, it was unfair of me to ask. I still had feelings for Josh despite his bullshit. It would take time for them to go away. But we’d been married. We’d had a life together.
And suddenly, I was seeing the truth. How he’d been more worried about her well-being when she hadn’t taken the plea deal. He’d been stressed that she didn’t have the right representation. He’d wanted to help. The way he’d reacted when I suggested that he’d cheated on Jane. It was the only time I’d seen him so pissed off. He’d thrown me out because of it. And then the other day… I’d jokingly asked if he’d ever wanted to marry someone. He’d come back with one name—Jane.
I took a step back.
My stomach twisted.
He still loved her.
Was that… was that possible?
“Does it matter, English?” he begged me. “She’s in jail. She’s not going anywhere. And whatever we had wasn’t even real.”
“It was real to you,” I whispered.
Fuck, I’d fucked up.
My trust was so fragile. It always had been. Ever since my dad had cheated on my mom and married someone else without a backward glance. Ever since my mother had been more interested in oxycontin than raising her child. The world wasn’t kind, and it wasn’t fair. I’d been used and abused and cheated on. I’d felt my heart be torn out of my chest and smashed into pieces. And somehow—somehow—I’d deluded myself into thinking that Court Kensington, of all people, wouldn’t do the same.
“English, this is real to me,” he said. “You and me.”
I took another step backward. “I can’t do this.”
“What? No. We can fix this. That’s… that’s what you do. You fix things.”
“I don’t know how to fix this, Court. Not the campaign or the pictures or us.”
“Please don’t say that. It was one stupid mistake,” he begged.
“Yeah,” I whispered, “that’s what Josh said, too.”
“I am not Josh.”
“And yet, I can’t trust you either.” I swallowed hard, hating the words coming out of my mouth. “I’m just going to go.”
I turned and headed back to where I’d left my clutch with Katherine’s and Whitley’s bags. Court followed close behind me.
“English, you can’t do this. You can’t just leave. We should talk.”
“I’m done talking, Court. If we keep talking, I’ll say something else I regret,” I snapped back at him.
“At least let me drive you home.”
I stood up with my phone, prepared to pull up Uber. “No, I’ll take an Uber.”
He sighed heavily. “English… Anna…”
“Jesus,” I muttered when my phone lit up.
“What?”
I had nineteen missed calls, twice as many texts, and five voice mails. I clicked the call list—fifteen calls from Taylor, three from Lark, and one from an unknown number.
“Oh god,” I said, my stomach dropping to the floor.
I’d thought Taylor was just being her normal teenage self. I hadn’t thought that she really needed to talk.