How was I ever in love with this asshole?
“No it wasn’t. You did it before. I fell for it the last time you apologized, and I’m not falling for it again. We both know you’re never going to change.”
The mask of repentance dropped, his expression immediately morphing into one of annoyance. I took a twisted pleasure in knowing how much I was pissing him off, especially as I didn’t care.
Dick.
“I would if you married me. I told you, it won’t happen again, I promise.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have got to be joking. Do I have ‘sucker’ written on my forehead?”
“Emerson, why won’t you marry me?”
“Because you can’t keep your dick out of other women!” I explained, making sure to speak really slowly so he could understand.
The vein on his temple popped as his anger rose. “If you married me, I would. What do you expect me to do when you keep rejecting me?”
My jaw ground hard in frustration and I took a deep breath. “As per usual, this conversation is going nowhere. What part of ‘no’ do you not understand? I’m not sure how to make it any clearer. It’s been six months, Richard, we are done. Please go away and leave me alone. This is really starting to get boring.”
He glared at me. “No one walks away from me, Emerson.”
I stepped back. “Well, I am, so maybe you need to get used to it.”
I walked off, turning the corner of the next block, out of his sight - and hopefully out of his mind. I kept going until I reached Chelsea Park, sitting down on the nearest available bench with a sigh, willing my boiling blood to cool down.
My ex-boyfriend was clearly not good at letting go.
I slurped my juice loudly, startling a passer-by.
We’d met at college back in California, where I grew up. He was so charming, vibrant, and funny, that I immediately fell head over heels. We’d stayed together almost five years as we moved through school, graduation, and beyond.
But it was all a front.
After his first indiscretion, my girlfriends had whisked me away to Vegas.
Oh, Vegas.
The saying was true, because what happened there had stayed there. I’d never experienced anything like it since… Or before, actually.
I’d been ruined by Vegas.
Or more specifically, I’d been ruined by a sex god; a god with the face of an angel and a body of well… a god, with heavily sculpted muscles, thick and hard from years of training. He was so perfect he could have come straight from Olympus.
We’d met on the casino floor. I’d refused to tell him my name, trying to hold a semblance of composure, as I was already jolted by the effect he had on me. So he’d called me his Lucky Charm, and I was his prize.
For one night he worshipped me, giving me the type of sex you only ever read about in romance novels, sex I didn’t even know existed in real life. Sex I definitely hadn’t been experiencing with the guy I was supposed to be in love with.
And then he left my life as quickly as he entered it, disappearing that morning before we were supposed to meet one last time.
He left me wanting more, and consumed with disappointment.
When I got back to California, Richard pleaded with me to come back to him, and I believed his remorse and his promise to change. Three months later, when the opportunity for him to move to New York had come up, we decided to make a fresh start and I’d transferred my job from L.A.
But with the fresh start came fresh co-workers, and few months of living here later, history repeated itself, with a nurse from his hospital.
And I’d found him balls-deep in trouble.
I’d almost been expecting it, but I was more shocked that I didn’t really care, knowing it had everything to do with my Vegas Sex God, who was still in my thoughts way more than a one night stand should be. I’d moved out of our apartment that day and decided I wanted to stay in New York. I could have moved back to California, but this city had grown on me and I wanted to give it a go, to stand on my own two feet. I had a job I loved and goodfriends. I wasn’t going to let my ex-boyfriend dictate my life any longer.
