Chapter One
August
New York City
Aidan:Sorry, babe. Not gonna make it.
Babe! The audacity to call her babe in this moment! Not even an attempt at an explanation.
Melynda Taylor stared at her cell phone in disbelief for so long that the screen darkened. She shouldn’t have been surprised. This was par for the course. Even so, the hastily sent text message, arriving mere minutes –minutes!– before curtain, immediately called tears to her eyes. Tears she refused to shed.
She swallowed down the lump forming in her throat and hit the icon next to his name on her screen, taking a steadying breath as the phone began to ring on the other end.
Aidan had always been unreliable, but lately, it was more than that. She could hear him now, justifying standing her up – he loved opera but he wasn’t a fan of Korngold; his suit needed to be dry cleaned; why couldn’t she be happy with a bottle of wine and watching the new James Bond movie again?
Ever since she’d suggested that maybe it was time they weremore– more than being each other’s late-night booty call or a warm body to cuddle up with every time she was insecure, or angry, or scared, or had any other uncomfortable feeling – ever since his eyes had gone wide with obvious panic and he’d dodged the topic altogether, he’d also begun dodging her. Which hurt more than the idea that he didn’t want more, too, even after nearly a year.
“Not a good time, Mel,” Aidan said by way of greeting when he answered, the aggravation in his voice obvious despite the din of house techno in the background.
“You’re not coming?”
“Don’t be like that, babe.”
She gritted her teeth and rolled her head, forcing her shoulders to relax. She would not let him ruin her night. “Just tell me what name the tickets are under,” she said.
“I thought you were buying the tickets,” came his distracted reply.
“Are you kidding me, Aidan?” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down so as not to attract any attention from the other patrons in the opera house lobby. “You didn’t even get the tickets?”
“You can come by and hang later if you want. I’m gonna warn you, though, the guys and I have already had a few rounds. Might be a late night,” he said.
The line went dead.
She blew out a breath, focusing on breathing in and out, in and out, a steady, slow rhythm to calm her soaring blood pressure.
She wasn’t angry with Aidan. Not really. It wasn’t his fault that she’d taken what should have been a two-week fling at best and held on for nearly a year. Aidan was who he had always been – a cocky, careless, entitled boy who drank too much and couldn’t commit to anything, least of all her.
But if she wasn’t angry with him, then she had to admit she was angry with herself. For agreeing to this no labels, no commitment bullshit. For falling into his bed every time he deigned to call, even though he would never acknowledge that they meant anything to each other in public. For choosing him time and again, despite the unsettling rumors she couldn’t quite believe and the frustratingly frequent reminders that she was not important to him. And, most of all, for falling for his charm and his sweet words in the first place. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe he had ever noticed her at all.
So she knew it shouldn’t hurt that Aidan stood her up. At the last minute. On her birthday.
But it did.
Mel thumbed through her contacts, her finger hovering over her best friend’s name, hesitating only a moment before placing the call. He answered right away. “Hey, doll,” Jeff’s voice came through the phone. “Shouldn’t you be at the opera by now?”
“I’m here,” she said, once again swallowing down the desire to cry. “Alone.”
Jeff swore. “What’s Aidan’s excuse this time?”
“He didn’t even bother to give me one.” She swatted away a stray tear threatening to ruin her mascara. “I just feel so stupid, Jeff.”
“If Aidan doesn’t see how fucking fantastic you are, that’s his loss, okay?”
“I should have known better. Guys like him never stick around for girls like me.”
“Stop that,” Jeff said. “Guys like him know how to say all the right things to get what they want, and they don’t stop to consider who they hurt in the process. That’s on him. Not you.”
“Maybe,” she said, unconvinced. After all, Aidan was just the latest man in her life to decide she wasn’t worth hanging around for.
