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She curled up into his embrace, resting her head on his chest where she could listen to the sound of his heart steadily beating. Layne’s eyes fluttered closed and allowed the rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his body to lull her into a much needed deep slumber.
Unsure of how many hours of sleep she had gotten, she lay there in Joey’s bed, staring up at the ceiling cast in the amber light from the street lamp right outside.
The sounds of car horns, emergency vehicles, and hollering from folks leaving the bar could all be heard despite the window being shut. It truly was the city that never slept, and tonight Layne wasn’t getting much more sleep.
Her brain wouldn’t shut off. It was processing all the scenarios of how all of this could go wrong, all the things she would need to address, who was going to cause problems, and an entire slew of other hypotheticals. Sure, some of these thoughts were warranted, but there was a large chunk that was turned into mountains from molehills - if the molehills even existed in the first place.
The top sheet was still draped over the top of her body providing just enough comfort from the light air movement from the ceiling fan above the bed. She looked over at the clock on the night table next to her, nearly four in the morning. Joey was lying next to her on his back, his body sprawled out comfortably with an arm tucked underneath his pillow.
He must have gotten undressed after she had initially fallen asleep, as he was now in nothing but his boxer briefs. The sheet was just barely covering his hips. Staring at him, he looked so at ease while he slept.
Admiring his body, it brought her a fleeting moment of reprieve from her harrowing thoughts, but only for them to come barreling back into her mind with a vengeance when she thought about all the challenges he would also face for everything that had transpired to this point. Reality is such a bitch.
She may have pulled the trigger on Franzetti, but Joey would be guilty by association if the rest of the Franzetti clan found out. He had cleaned up her mess. Then, there was the concern that her father would lose his shit if he found out that Joey had been screwing his little girl when he should have been focused on the job.
The real kicker was if it ever came out that Joey had been responsible for installing the explosive device that took the life of her mother. It didn’t matter if Franzetti had ordered the hit, it was Joey who executed it. It seemed that she was setting herself up for a life full of pain if she let this continue.
Cringing at the worst-case scenarios, she finally lifted the sheet off of her, moving slowly to not wake him. Layne felt certain she couldn’t do this. She would get hurt. He would get hurt. It was all inevitable.
There was no way she could face her deepest feelings, and she couldn’t risk things going to hell in a handbasket. She sure as fuck couldn’t handle her feelings getting shattered if things did go poorly.
Gathering her clothes that were neatly folded on a chair near the window, Layne stealthily changed from her pajamas into what she had worn that night.
Once she was in Joey’s living room, she found a scratchpad and pen. Tearing off a piece of paper, she quickly wrote a message on it. Her eyes stung with unshed tears as she imagined how badly he would take this.
Thanks for being my best fling yet. Let’s make a clean break while we can. ~ Layne
The tip of the pen hovered over the paper after signing the ‘e’ in her name, catching herself before she added a ‘y’ to the end. Abandoning the pen on the paper, she decided the note said all it needed to. Short and sweet.
Layne reminded herself that he wasn’t the knight in shining armor, he had said so himself.It still didn’t take the ache away from writing off their time together as a meaningless affair.
Leaving his apartment there on the seventh floor of the building felt like trying to pull away from gravity itself. She wiped her fingers underneath her eyes to catch any tears before they fell. Too many tears had already been shed. She scolded herself for being such a little bitch about all of this.
Suck it up, buttercup.There were plenty of other men out there that weren’t nearly as much trouble as he was.A polo-wearing country club type from the Hamptons would be more acceptable, she tried to convince herself.Her leaving things where they were was easier on everybody and quieted the overwhelming thoughts and feelings deep inside of her.
She stepped into the elevator, allowing the doors to seal her decision to end this thing that Joey and her had going on between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next week had been the most difficult for Layne. After the first twenty missed calls and nearly a hundred text messages, she outright blocked his number without so much as giving him any responses.
She should have expected that he would be so persistent despite her note to him, but she naively hoped otherwise for her own sanity.He had gone so far as to show up at her house several times from what she could tell from her security cameras, but she had been spending her time anywhere else except her own residence. Primarily, Layne had been at O’Reilly Manor pretending to sink her free time into work and also where it would be a death mission if Joey tried to show up here.
As far as her father was concerned, the job he had hired Joey for was complete and no one had seen Franzetti. People disappearing unexpectedly in this line of business typically only meant one grim conclusion. Scott wired the balance owed to Joey to the previously communicated offshore account.
The second week after breaking things off, things began to calm down, and by a month later she was considering trying to resume a normal existence again.
Sitting in the cozy reading nook by the third-floor window inside of her old bedroom, she heard her phone ding. When she took a look at the screen, it was a text from Rebecca.
Her best friend was the only person she had confided in, and even then, she only gave the bare-bones version of what happened.Layne had framed it as she determined Joey was bad news with a horrific past and she ended up cutting things off.
Rebecca
Where have you been?
FYI, being a recluse isn’t healthy.
Layne
