Page 46 of Trust Fund Baby

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I whispered to the empty room. When the déjà vu hit, it was like I was dreaming. The sinking feeling in my gut grew heavier as I buried my fists into my eyes, the sting of unshed tears burning behind my eyelids. I hadn’t cried over a guy since I was seventeen. Now I bit my lip, doing my best to prevent the tears from escaping.

Sebastian Whittaker wasn’t worth a second more of my mourning.

“You are so fucking stupid, Roxie,” I huffed under my breath as I pulled on my clothes and stormed across the room to rip the needle off the vinyl.

That asshole got what he wanted from me last night, slipped out in the early morning hours without disturbing me, but thought it would be funny to restart my favorite album of all time.

I looked around the space with a growing desperation, as if some hidden clue as to why he’d snuck out might present itself. A piece of paper with a message written on it. A sign, perhaps, to prove that my decision last night wasn’t just a foolish mistake. My eyes scanned the area, but I didn’t find a reason why Sebastian ditched me with no explanation. He couldn’t have been gone long, judging by the fact that the record was still playing.

What kind of sick joke was that, when he couldn’t even wake me to tell me he was leaving.

I sank back against the arm of the couch, staring at the ceiling beams like they held the answers to what happened.

God, I am such an idiot.

I was an idiot the moment I replied to Sebastian’s first email. I should have deleted it immediately. I knew he was bad news when I saw him at McGuire’s that night. Hell, he was on Page Six more times than I could count for his escapades—drugs, partying, and lots of women.

All that talk about second chances. All that fake honesty in his voice. All those looks that made me think we were on the same page for once in our lives.

I’d been made a fool.

I swallowed the tight knot rising in my throat and reached for my phone. The screen was full of unread messages, mostly from Hallie asking me where I was. I flipped over to my email and searched for the thread with Sebastian. Without a second thought, I swiped left, deleting it entirely. Then I searched for his contact.

Blocked.

There. Done.

Clean break. Again.

I wouldn’t let him have another opportunity to slip back into my life.

The fact that my chest was tight and my stomach twisted into a miserable knot as I headed back toward the main house was my problem. My punishment for being stupid enough to believe that people like Sebastian Whittaker changed.

Because they didn’t.

Not really.

They just morphed into a version of themselves that earned your trust long enough to get what they wanted before they left you. This time, I had no intention of sticking around to give him yet another chance to prove me wrong.

“You’ve been awfully quiet since we got home,” Hallie noted as she wandered back into our living room with two plates of fresh pasta she’d made us for dinner.

I had been staring at the rug for ten minutes, my glass of wine remaining in my hand, but I didn’t look up.

Shrugging, I pulled my legs up onto the couch. “Just tired.”

Hallie snorted. “Bullshit.”

I finally glanced up. She was studying me intently. “You and Sebastian both ghosted me and James this morning for breakfast. Sebastian didn’t come back to the house at all, and you didn’t until almost noon. You didn’t say anything during lunch or the car ride back. And you barely took any photos like you said you were going to. So, no, Rox. I don’t believe that you’re ‘just tired’.”

The smell of garlic and butter wafted toward me, but I still had no appetite. Ever since I woke up to find the boathouse was deserted, my stomach had been churning.

“Something happened with Sebastian this weekend,” Hallie said, softer now as she set the two plates down on our coffee table and took the seat beside me. “Didn’t it?”

I finally looked at her. Really looked at her and let her see everything I’d been keeping in, which I knew was now written all over my face. My best friend could read me better than anyone. But she had no idea that this weekend hadn’t been just awkward banter and the occasional biting exchange between me and James’s best friend. Or even between two people that once had a one-night stand—which was the excuse I’d given her when she asked me how I really knew Sebastian over the weekend. Rather, it was a slow, quiet resurrection of all the things I had desperately tried to suppress.

“I might not have told you the complete truth earlier this weekend,” I started, “about me and Sebastian.”

Hallie raised an eyebrow. There was very little that we kept from each other—which is a ridiculous thing to say when you take into account that I’ve excluded my entire upbringing from what I’ve told her about my life, and rewritten it to suit the person I wanted to become. But this weekend had drained everything out of me. The woman that I’d built myself into, brick by city-girl-life brick, was slowly crumbling, and the only thing I could think that would keep me from falling apart entirely was to finally tell Hallie the truth.