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I down my soda in one gulp, hoping the cold fizzing would distract me from thoughts of Bran. But I have no such luck. Something has changed between us. I'm more aware of how badly I want him.
Meanwhile, there's something different about him. He wants me less.
I turn to Andrea, desperate to get a second opinion. She has her eyes on her phone and is smiling brightly, no doubt chatting with her husband. I hate to break her happy moment, but I cannot hold this back any longer.
“Do you always know when a guy is over you?” The question is completely pitiful, but I needto ask it. I’ve never been on this side before. I was always the one to break up relationships first.
Andrea pulls her attention away from her phone and looks at me. I can tell she’s confused. “What?”
I swallow hard, wishing I was drinking alcohol and not soda. “Brandon appears to not be as interested as he was,” I say. If I haveto say why that bothers me, I’ll literally jump out of a window. So, I focus on his behavior. “You know how he kept inviting me on dates?” Andrea nods, still looking a bit confused. “Well, he’s stopped.”
“Maybe he is busy with his brother’s campaign,” she says.
I feel irritated. But then again, Andrea doesn’t know about us having sex.
Because I still don’t want to tell her.
“Well, he didn’t seem busy when he was asking me out on dates.”
Yeah, I can hear myself. I sound like a fool.
On the off-chance that Bran’s plan from the beginning was to get me to fall for his charms, mission accomplished.
“He needed something from you, remember?” Andrea tells me, sounding like she does not understand why this is such a big deal for me. “He needed you to know who he was, and for you to stop printing those articles about him. Maybe he has relaxed now that he has gotten what he wanted.”
She turns her attention back to her phone, not realizing that her words carved out a hole in my heart.
He needed something from you.
Andrea has no idea why what she just said would hurt so much. She has no idea that I even liked Brandon enough to have sex with him. All she sees is a Gigi who went on a couple of dates with a nice guy, realized he’s nice, and stopped writing about him. She might believe that I’m slightly interested in him.
But she could notbegin to know how used and abandoned I feel.
I stare at my text again, confusion welling up inside me.
I’d always known that Bran took me on dates because he was hoping I’d see a different side of him. He had been honest about that.
Why did I expect more? And why am I disappointed that this chapter is ending?
* * *
“Haveyou seen the news on Theodore Stawarski’s campaign?” Danielle asks me as soon as I amble into the office.
“No,” I say as I walk to my cubicle. The weekend had been strange. A part of me was waiting for Bran to text me, and a part of me was trying to move on. But nopart of me was interested in researching the Stawarski campaign. “What’s up with it?”
Danielle shoots up to her feet, shoving her phone in my face. “Apparently, one of Theodore Stawarski’s campaign staff came forward.” She scrolls on her phone. “He accused another member of mishandling the campaign finances.”
I sigh as I set my bag and files on my desk. “That doesn’t sound like it’s true.”
Danielle is staring at me in shock, as if I just grew a pair of horns. I know why. I started the articles on the Stawarski brothers inEnchanté, so it makes sense that she would think I'd be eager to go digging for information to write a new article.
“Who are you and what have you done to Georgina Harris?” she asks, her eyes dilated in mock disbelief.
I open my mouth to reply, but I’m interrupted when Ella calls my name. “Hayley Bretford asked to see you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
Ella persists. “She wants to see you right away!”
