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Avery frowns, clearly confused. “Uh, okay…”
Lexi’s brows furrow in obvious concern. “Are you okay, Mads?”
The tears are threatening to spill down my cheeks. I fear that saying anything will open the floodgates. And if that happens, there’s no way my roomies will give me any peace. With the best of intentions, they’ll insist we pick the issue apart, analyzing every angle, ad nauseam. And there’s just no way I’m up for that. I honestly just want to sleep for three hundred years and then forget Evan Kohl ever existed.
“I’m okay. Please, just let me be alone for a while?” There’s a tremble in my voice with the plea.
Lexi presses her lips together and nods tightly. “Sure, yeah. We’’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
“Thanks,” I say and smile faintly as they file out of the room, each one throwing me a look of concern or pity—or both—over their shoulders.
As soon as I’m alone, I fall facefirst onto my bed. I’m so tired. Emotionally tired. All this shit with Evan—and then Keith—is too much, and I have no idea what to do or think. All I know is that the deepest parts of me miss Evan Kohl—my heart, my soul. All that cheesy Hallmark shit.
But he’s so fucking unavailable, it’s not even funny. Even if he’s telling the world he loves me, it’s just another manipulation. I mean, fuck, didn’t Sam even say he was interviewing for another mistress? How can you declare on a televised interview that you love someone while also vetting the next woman you are planning to fuck regularly under a contract? Something just doesn’t add up, but honestly, I’m too tired and too heartbroken to do that math.
Pulling my pillow under my head, I tuck my hands underneath and close my eyes. I school my thoughts into nothing, as I’ve taken up meditation recently to help me with handling my emotions. A meadow with yellow flowers…something, anything, other than Evan Kohl and the destruction he left behind.
I must have drifted off to sleep for a few minutes because I’m jolted awake by a loud knock. Our bedroom window is directly above the front door, so whenever we have a visitor, I can hear it, clear as day.
Scrambling off the bed, I pad over to the window and glance down. I can’t see very much, but I open my window and the voices from below drift in. I suck in a breath when I hear Evan’s deep baritone. I can’t really hear what’s being said, but after a few seconds, I hear the door slam shut—probably Avery or Lexi telling him to fuck off, in not so many words. Good for them.
Stepping back, Evan curses loudly and turns to stalk down the walkway toward the street. My heart lurches when I see him, even if it’s just the back of his head. From any angle, he’s beautiful, wearing the same tailored gray suit from earlier in the day, his hair neatly combed. He walks like he owns the world, even after being shut down by one of my roommates. I bet that really fucked with him. Evan Kohl never gets shut down. He never gets told no.
Well, he’s just been told “no” by me. I can’t go back to what we had before. I want more. And that, by his own words, is more than he’s willing to give. I can’t—I won’t settle for less.
As he reaches the curb where his black Tesla is parked, he stops and turns to look back at the house. My heart stops as his gaze flicks up and collides with mine. For a second, we’re suspended in time, our gazes locked. A sexy and, dare I say, hopeful half-smile tugs at the corner of his lips. I feel the sudden urge to call out to him. Beg him to come upstairs, take me in his arms, kiss me, even to fuck me until we’re both lost in the bliss of each other’s bodies. But I know, if I do that, nothing will ever change.
I’ll always want more.
He holds that gaze but doesn’t move until he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, probably to call me. Kohl isn’t one to lurk beneath a woman’s window and yell up to her. I’m assailed with the ridiculous image of him climbing a nonexistent trellis, all Romeo-and-Juliet-like.
Instead he fiddles with his phone screen, then brings the device up to his ear, meeting my gaze again. He’s calling me. But though my phone is right beside me on the night table, it doesn’t ring, because I’ve blocked him.
After a moment, he seems to realize I’m not going to answer, and that’s when I take a deep breath and force myself into action, though more than half my body seems to be resisting me.
Swallowing hard, I pull the window closed and let the curtains fall back into place, shutting him out. I step back and fall on the bed once more to stare helplessly up at the ceiling.
There’s really nothing to say anymore. All I can do is cry.
Chapter 35
On His Knees
The next day, I drag myself out of bed and force myself to take a shower, get dressed and put on some makeup. I have very little desire to leave the room I share with Sam. But if I don’t, I’ll end up spending the entire day in bed, wallowing in this misery. Keeping myself—and especially my mind—busy will keep me from the endless thought-loop of all things Evan Kohl.
I opt to suspend the job search I’d been engaged in for the past week to replace my barista stint at the coffee shop. But there’s a special lecture being held across campus later this morning. I’m tempted to ask one of my classmates to take notes for me, so I can skip it, but decide against it. I have to get out and get back to the life I’d been busy rebuilding in the wake of the breakup. I’d been doing a decent job of it, I thought, until Evan decided to drop his mindfuck bomb on a nationally televised interview yesterday.
Fucking asshole move. But he’d been successful in tying me in even more knots than before. It hadn’t been enough to just see him across campus while I’d been walking close to Keith. Or to have him text me asking for—no, almost demanding—I meet him for coffee. He’d had to declare to an interviewer, and subsequently, the world, that he was still in love with me, calling me by name. Without any thought of what that violation of my privacy might do to my life.
So far, it had brought a crowd as I left campus last night, along with some phone calls from the press, which my roommates had kindly handled. But given the several sheets of messages piled by the house’s landline, there are quite a few.
And now, after having been turned away at my front door, Evan is well aware that I want nothing to do with him, blocked his number and shut him out—quite literally. I hoped he’d drop this and move on. But Evan wasn’t that kind of man. Once he’d decided on something, he pursued that outcome relentlessly.
Wasn’t that how the entire arrangement between us had come about? Had he taken my previous rejections as final before, this would never have even gotten started. So of course, I suspected this wasn’t the end. I would just need to hold my ground.
Taking no chances with possible photographers lying in wait for me at the house, I slip out the back door and down the alleyway, taking the long way around toward campus. I have no idea if anyone is waiting to snap my picture to publish in a gossip blog or tabloid.
As I walk into the lecture hall, I realize I should have left five minutes earlier, because the room is already packed to the brim. I scan the crowd and spot an empty seat, way, way, way in the back. Perfect.
