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“I wouldn’t have cared if you told a stranger, Luc, but tellinghim? You told him about us, about what we had, about me?”
“Like you talked to him aboutme?” The words shot out of my mouth on automatic.
My words hit Joe hard. He shot a furious glare at Sam.
“Oh, Joe, don’t blame Sam. You and I parting ways had nothing to do with Sam. We moved on because what we had was broken beyond repair. And even if there was something left to salvage, we still wouldn’t have.Youwouldn’t have.” I shrugged unapologetically. “You didn’t make time for me.” I repeated Sam’s earlier words that Joe hated to hear. It was the truth. At this point, I didn’t care that it would hurt him to listen to my words. Joe had already hurt me so much more than this.
Sam set a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “If you truly care about Lucille, you should be thanking me for holding her up when she was moving on from you.”
Joe jostled his gesture away. “And thank heavens you were there, unexpectedly waiting to catch her from falling.”
“You shoved her straight into my arms. And let me tell you, from that moment on, she never shed a tear for you again.”
“Oh, come on now. We both know you would have had her either way. As always, you take everything you set your mind on. You don’t really want her. You simply want to strike me. You’d stomp on the girl’s heart and you wouldn’t care one tiny bit if you ruin her as long as you get to me.”
You don’t want her.Now to hear that hurt too. Even more so when Sam was not even attempting to deny it.
My jaw began to quiver with the mess of emotions hitting at once, with the devastation of betrayal leading above all.
“Lucille, now you must knowthosearen’t my words, right?” Sam began to walk around the table toward me.
“No. Stay there.” I commanded at him with my harshest tone.
How could I have been so stupid? Sam was a tornado willing to destroy everything as long as he’d succeeded in his mission. I’ve allowed this man to get through me, to take what he wanted and now he got his victory off me. All because I was blinded by his charms.
The first teardrop ran fast down my cheek. “You pretended to be my friend. You made me trust you and share my burdens with you so then you could use them as a new weapon against your enemy. But what did you care about me? I was just the easy target who gave you that little extra perk of being jerked off during office hours. And all this time we were sharing secrets, you didn’t think to let me in on my job application process. So that’s why I got called for the interview just an hour before. Because I was a last-minute choice. Because you wanted to act up quickly and snatch me from Joe.”
“Snatch you? He practically handed you over to me on a silver platter.”
“No, I didn’t.” Joe protested. “Why do you always have to be an asshole? You’re not the fucking pivot the world revolves on.”
“Me? I’m not the one who –”
“Enough!” My assertively loud voice echoed. “Both of you. You can go ahead and attack each other all you want but please leave me out of it. You already tossed me right in the crossfire of your stupid, idiotic competition. I’m not a trophy either of you gets to hold in the end.”
“I didn’t mean to do that, Luc.” Joe retorted.
“Neither did I.” Sam responded next.
“All I did was recommend you to him.”
“I simply hired you.”
“You got yourself between us when you kissed him. You were safely standing on the sidewalk before that.”
“Lucille, if you hadn’t kissed me, he wouldn’t be accusing me of using you.”
“I probably wouldn’t, no.”
If all that I’d heard by now didn’t stun me enough, this took the cake.
“So that’s the one thing you can both agree on? Thatmykiss was the biggest mistake? I was…”
Stupid. That’s what I had been. And what I still was. A stupid woman who came to work commando to seduce her boss. The same boss who hated my best friend yet conspired with him to intervene in my life.
Standing on the other side opposite the two men, I felt myself sinking deep into the quicksand I let myself fall into. There I was. In a weirdly strange triangle with these two. Me, my former best friend and my boss joined by three wonky lines.
Joe was my family and he breached my trust. And Sam, with him, I always knew it was an affair. But an affair for personal revenge? I never dreamed it possible.
