Page 84 of The Fake Out

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. It just proved to me love isn’t real. Everyone leaves in the end. So what’s the point?”

I frowned at that. I wished I could get her to accept my love, but she had been firm for so long that we had an expiration date. Nothing I did would convince her otherwise.

She wiped at her eyes, and that set my anger ablaze. She might say she didn’t still love him, but what he did had affected her so much. I was angry for her, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to attend this wedding without trying to drop the gloves with that asshat. How could he have done that to her? He took the coward’s way out of not even telling her to her face, and that pissed me off even more.

“Sweets…”

“Please, Blaise, don’t give me that pity. It’s the truth.”

“V…”

“I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told me quickly and then hung up.

I hated that I was in Buffalo, and I couldn’t comfort her the way I wanted to. I wanted to hold her in my arms and dry her tears. She didn’t want my pity, and she didn’t want my love, and I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more. Going to this wedding was a bad idea, but pretending we were dating was an even worse one. I wasn’t sure how I was going to let her go after this.

Chapter Twenty-Four

VERONICA

I twirled around in the living room of Alex and Eddie’s apartment. “How does it look?” I asked them.

Alex and Eddie weren’t much for fashion, but they were good at telling me if I looked like shit. Brothers were so great! Thank god for Olivia. She helped style my hair and did my makeup.

“I think he’s gonna shit a brick when he sees you,” Eddie said with a big grin.

“Who’s the ‘he’ in this situation? Seth? Or Blaise?” Alex teased.

I rolled my eyes. “Blaise!”

My brother walked over to me and smoothed down the skirt of my black dress. “Look at you, little goth girl in black again.”

I stuck out my tongue. “It was Olivia approved.”

Olivia beamed from her perch on the couch. “She looks so sexy in that.”

“She does!” Eddie agreed. “Blaise won’t know what hit him.”

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my purse, smiling at the text from Blaise that he was outside waiting for me. I slid my feet into the black wedge heels Olivia forced me to wear. Blaise would still tower over me despite wearing them.

“Can you even walk in those?” Eddie asked.

I shrugged. “I’m gonna try.”

“Take a jacket, will you?” Alex urged.

I shrugged on my signature leather jacket. “Okay, Dad!”

Alex put an arm around Eddie and smiled when Eddie kissed his temple. They were such a cute couple, and I loved that I got a second annoying brother out of that surprise marriage. Actually, three if I counted Eddie’s brothers, Frankie and Tony, too.

“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Eddie teased.

“What, like get drunk married in Vegas?” I teased back.

Alex shrugged and looked at Olivia and Eddie. “We like Blaise, yes?”

Olivia nodded. “They would have such cute babies.”

“The cutest,” Alex agreed.