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“I’ve already lost her,” I said. “In fact, I never had her. She has never been mine because she belongs to someone else.”
“She doesn’t belong to anyone, nor will she ever, no matter who she marries,” Lindsey snapped.
“You know what I mean,” I said with a smirk. “You can’t lose something that you never obtained in the first place.”
“You are making a huge mistake,” she said, picking up her purse and turning to the door. “There has never been anyone else in this world for Amanda. Even before she met you, she loved you.”
She walked out of the office, and my face began to droop down. I could feel the pain surging through my chest, thinking about Amanda and the love that I thought we had. I stood up and walked over to the bar, pouring myself a big glass of whiskey and setting it on the desk. I made my way to the door and stuck my head out.
“I need you to cancel everything on my schedule today,” I instructed my secretary. “I don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances, and there are no exceptions. The building could be burning down around me, and you leave that door closed and that intercom off. Hell, tell people that I went home for the day to get them off of you if that helps. Not John, Jordan, or anyone else. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, looking at me with worry.
“Thank you,” I replied, closing and locking the office door.
I sat down and started drinking, thinking about what Lindsey had said and everything I had been through with Amanda. She had gone and done it, just like John, planting that tiny seed of doubt in my mind. I had never heard of John screwing Sarah, and if he had slept with her more than once, I was sure he would have told me about it. John was not the kind of guy to cover his territory twice, which made me believe that the entire story was a load of bullshit.
I sat back in my chair and downed the glass of whiskey, staring at the bottom of the glass. I was completely down, and I could feel myself growing closer and closer to a full meltdown. Everything I had worked so hard for and built meant nothing to me at that moment. All that I cared about was the full carafe of whiskey on the shelf. I got up and grabbed the bottle before settling down in the chair by the windows. I drank myself to the point of blacking out that day, passing out in the chair of my office, trying to forget. It was definitely not my finest hour.
Chapter 19
Amanda
There were only two weeks left until the wedding, and luckily, Lindsey had made sure that all of her modeling contracts ended by that point. We were running around all over the place, trying to tie up the last-minute errands that needed to be done. We met with the DJ to okay the playlist, the band, to talk about what they would be playing, and the violinist that would be playing the music when she walked down the aisle. I showed Lindsey the table setting that I had picked out for her, and we went over to the venue just to take one last walk around the room, envisioning what it would look like during her reception. I was exhausted, walking two steps behind her at all times. I could remember a time where I left her in the dust, but with my body going nuts over this pregnancy, I felt like I could take a nap every five seconds.
When we were done at the venue, we hopped in the back of the town car and sat back, both of us propping up our feet. We still had to go to Jordan’s parents’ house and talk about the rehearsal dinner over a late lunch, but for that moment, we were both sprawled out in the car. Lindsey looked stressed, and I hated that I couldn’t do more to help her. At least we both knew that in two weeks, this would all be done, and she would be enjoying being a new wife, jetting off to their honeymoon. Jordan had bought the honeymoon as a surprise, and it made me think about how Nathan loved to do things to surprise me. My heart still hurt every time I thought about him.
“You know I went to see Nathan,” Lindsey said, watching my face across the car.
“You did? What did he say?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me,” she said. “I got so angry and frustrated with him, I was pretty sure he almost threw me out. I left
before it got to that point, though. I figured it wouldn’t look good on Jordan if his future wife assaulted his boss.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “He must have been pissed.”
“He is the most stubborn man I have ever met,” she said. “It was obvious that he was miserable without you. It looked like he hadn’t slept in years. He was shut in his office, his beard half grown out, and his tie halfway undone.”
“I would have thought he’d be partying by now,” I said with a pout. “You know how guys are when they go through a break up. They find the first girl they can screw and use it to get over the girl that broke their heart. I can’t believe that he won’t even listen to reason. He knows about Sarah. I told him what she did in the past.”
“Yeah, well, this thing has him so screwed up in his head that he can’t think straight,” she said. “He accused me of being in on some sort of scheme to steal his money. I was kind of offended since I have my own nice bank account, but I let it go, knowing he was just hurt. On top of that, the place smelled like booze, and I’m pretty sure that he was drunk.”
“Drunk? In the middle of the day at his office?”
“There was a big bottle of whiskey behind him on the bar, and he smelled like alcohol,” she said, shrugging. “Of course, it could have been a binger from the night before. Jordan told me that he has been drinking a lot. Apparently, he got into it with John in a pub one night, screaming at the whole bar before stumbling out to his car. He said that John hasn’t seen him out ever since then, but he still comes into work looking like hell and smelling like a frat boy every day, so they are assuming that he is drinking at home.”
“John should be there for him,” I said angrily. “If they think he is doing this to himself, then why doesn’t John stop him? He cared enough to ruin his relationship with me but not enough to stop him from ruining himself.”
I was really worried about Nathan. I knew that if he was drinking every day and looking like that in the office, then he was really struggling. He didn’t really have anyone he could talk to, and from the sound of it, he didn’t want to talk to his best friend, John. I tried not to be upset with John. He was coerced by that bitch, and he was only trying to protect his best friend. Still, he should be playing clean-up crew and getting Nathan back on his feet.
“Have you talked to Sarah?”
“Hell no,” Lindsey said. “That bitch can kiss my ass. We may be sisters, but that is not an obligation to play nice. I will treat her like any other crazy bitch that tries to pull some shit like what she did.”
“Do you think she will try to show up to the wedding, even though you told her not to?”
“She might try, but none of us will ever know about it,” she said. “I told my parents everything that she did, right after I punched her. I wanted them to know what happened before she got in there and told her little lies. We all know she was sick as a child, and that made my parents coddle the hell out of her, but it’s time she started facing the backlash for the things she does. My parents don’t want to talk to her either, so they hired security to stand out front and intercept her if she tries to come in.”
