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“Can’t you buy her out?” I asked, barely able to speak.
“Britney would never sell. She knows how much that house means to me. I have to stay married to her until I can find a way out of this fucking mess.”
I took a deep breath. My heart had almost stopped beating.
“What about us? I’m not sleeping with her. I never will.”
“I don’t know what to do, Lachlan.” I removed my hand.
“We can still see each other secretly.”
I frowned. “Secretly?”
He rose and paced about. “I know you deserve better. Much fucking better. I hate hearing myself suggest that. But I wouldn’t be cheating, technically. I hate that woman. I’m never going to go near her.”
“But you have once already, haven’t you?”
“That was a mistake. I was drunk, and she took advantage of me. That’s Britney for you, a scheming bitch.”
I let him hold me then followed him to the door and told him I needed time.
As I closed the door, through the closing gap, I caught sight of his pleading blue eyes. He looked as broken as I felt.
I cried my heart out then threw myself into work, where Ethan stood on the sidelines, waiting for me.
As we shared a few shots and I began to thaw, I said, “Ethan, I’m not ready to be with anyone. I’m still in love with Lachlan.”
He shrugged. “I’ve started seeing someone, though I’m not into it. I want you. You know that.”
I smiled. “She seems nice.”
“Hm. She’s not you.”
“Ethan, don’t.” I let out a sigh of frustration, more with myself than him, because I could do worse. If Lachlan hadn’t stolen my heart, I would have dated Ethan for certain. “I hope this won’t affect our working relationship.”
“No way. I love this place.” He took another shot of vodka. “My life’s changed. I’ve got direction now.”
He poured two more shots, and we clinked glasses. That’s what matters, I reminded my pained spirit. Direction. My ambition had been realized much sooner than I could have dreamed of, only one year after college. Not many in my chosen field, an industry crowded with unemployed graduates, could claim that brag-worthy achievement. Lachlan or not, my life was on the right trajectory.
I smiled at Ethan, then my phone buzzed. I took a peek, and there was Lachlan’s sexy bedroom gaze. I inhaled deeply and read the text.
I need to see you. I’m missing you, he wrote.
Just like all the countless other messages he’d already sent that week, I ignored it.
I’d never been so strong in my short life, because walking away from Lachlan felt worse than losing an arm.
Harriet, unsurprisingly, screamed at me to keep being his lover and to stop the Stepford wifeact. “Passionate love is never tidy. But it’s all that matters,” she argued.
But I could never be anyone’s mistress, not even Lachlan’s.
