Page 117 of Falling for the Grumpy Bad Boy

“Phil will be back any minute,” he murmured.

I understood. We did not need to get caught with our pants down. I slid off him. We both dressed in the quiet.

The sudden shift from the passionate man to the guy that appeared to be bored left me reeling. “Rhett⁠—”

“You should fix your lipstick,” he said without looking at me.

I fumbled in my purse for my compact, hands shaking as I tried to repair the damage. In the small mirror, I looked exactly like what I was, a woman who’d just been thoroughly fucked and was now trying to pretend it hadn’t happened.

A tap on the window made us both freeze. Phil was back.

“Ready to go, sir?” the driver called.

Rhett looked at me and then popped open the door a few inches. “We’ll be taking Ms. Hartley home first.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the limo pulled away from the hotel, the silence between us felt suffocating. I wanted to reach for him, to try to bridge the sudden distance, but he was staring out his window like I wasn’t even there.

“So I guess I’ll see you on Thanksgiving for the grand opening?” I said as we approached my neighborhood. “I told Simone I would like to be there. I know I wasn’t scheduled to help in the kitchen, but I am going to.”

He finally looked at me, and his expression was completely shuttered. “Actually, you’re off the hook for that. I don’t need you there.”

The words hit me like a slap. “What do you mean you don’t need me? I’ve been part of this project from the beginning.”

“You’ll just be a distraction,” he said flatly.

“A distraction?” Hurt and anger warred in my chest. “Rhett, I want to be there. This soup kitchen means everything to me too.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, not meeting my eyes as the limo pulled up to my house. “Tonight has made one thing clear. We don’t always get what we want.”

I stared at him, this man who’d held me so tenderly just minutes before was now looking at me like I was a stranger. “So that’s it? You’re just going to shut me out completely?”

“It’s better this way,” he said. “Cleaner. That’s what you wanted, right? We said one last time. We had that time. It’s done. It’s over.”

Phil had gotten out and was walking around to open my door.

“Rhett, please.”

“Goodbye, Clementine.”

The finality in his voice made it clear the conversation was over. I got out of the limo on unsteady legs, my heart shattering all over again. I watched it drive away and realized that losing him twice in one night was worse than losing him once.