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My eyes burn with tears, and I pray I have the power to keep them from falling until I’m alone. He’d probably laugh at me. I let my heart get broken when the damn thing was never supposed to get involved in the first damn place.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t argue or fight for me to stay. He doesn’t claim that he wants more from me. Maybe his game was over last night. Maybe he wanted to see if he could ignore me for an entire week and I’d still be willing to land in his bed.
Instead of sticking around any longer and looking for my dress, I head toward the hallway. It’s not like I could ever wear that dress again. It’s now tainted with his lies and manipulation.
He doesn’t call out to me or seek me out after a few minutes of ruminating over what I said. Why would he when this was probably his plan all along? I have no doubt he would’ve strung me along a little longer, dug those talons of his a few inches deeper into my skin until what he was doing finally dawned on me. I also have no doubt that would make this game he’s played at my expense even more fun for him.
I swallow down the threat of tears until I’m in the shower in my own room, the bedroom door locked to prevent him from coming in to tear at me anymore.
***
“You seem miserable,” Adalynn says, her nose scrunched as if she smells something horrible.
“You’re supposed to say I look tired and wait for me to spill my guts about why I look miserable,” I grumble. “Have you forgotten all of your debutante training?”
“It was three finishing classes, not debutante school,” she counters, her smile growing a little when my lips turn up slightly at the reminder that we both had to take those classes given at the library when we were seven or eight years old. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or will you avoid the subject like you did last night?”
By the time I got out of the shower, Chase was already gone. Instead of coming back to the house, he stayed gone for hours.
I knew I’d never be able to face him, so, after a restless nap, I left the house. I tried going to my parents’ house, but his SUV was parked next door at his dad’s, so I ended up at the bakery, knowing full well I’d have to give Adalynn more information the second I walked through the door.
I left with Chase for a second time after getting a ride up there with her. The mind-your-own-business excuse only goes so far around here.
I look over my shoulder when the chime above the door fills the room.
“Hold that thought. You’re not getting off that easily,” she says, pointing at me before walking toward the register. “Hi there, stranger! What can I get for you?”
I know by the tone of her voice that she doesn’t recognize the person stepping up to order, but the person on the other side of the counter would never separate that ire from her Southern drawl.
I’m smiling at her sneakiness until I turn to see the woman standing at the counter. It’s the same woman who was grinning at Chase when I came out of the restroom at the bar last night.
She places her order, looking in my direction when she’s done.
I read a smugness in her eyes as if she knows exactly who I am.
I want to go to her and ask just how unhinged someone has to be to look smug when I was the one who left with him last night.
Then it hits me. Maybe she’s part of Chase’s game. Her being there last night and here today is too coincidental to not be related.
I shake my head, and she frowns at me. Chase wouldn’t do something like that.
I stop myself before I think he was raised better. He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The woman smiles at Adalynn as my friend hands her a cup of coffee. Knowing what her real smile is from last night, I can tell the one she gives is fake.
Her attention is back on me as she walks past. I let her leave my field of vision, refusing to give her more than she’s already taken.
“So,” Adalynn says as she steps back in front of me and leans over the counter. “You were about to tell me what’s been going on between you and Chase.”
I ignore the part of me that’s screaming to keep my mouth shut, certain that Chase’s manipulation and betrayal is cause for voiding that damn NDA. Besides, the only judge in Llano County, Texas is a sixty-year-old woman who’s never been married. If there was ever a woman scorned with a high probability of hating men, then it’s Judge Karen Brown.
I lean right back in toward my friend and I give her as much of the details as I can. I don’t pull back when it’s time to confess my own failures and how he’s manipulated me, how obsessed I am, nor do I keep from telling her how foolish I was to fall for his lies and how heartbroken I am.
Adalynn listens intently, and for the first time in our long friendship, when I finish, she doesn’t make suggestions. She has tears in her eyes to match mine, and she pats my hand in commiseration. She doesn’t go so far as to tell me all men are pigs because, despite my current situation, she fully believes her knight in shining armor is still out looking for her.
Chapter 29
Chase
