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“My girlfriend, Mia, broke up with me tonight. She was told I was cheating on her.”
“What, you’re kidding me?” He pretended to sound shocked. Then he snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, you were cheating on her. Forgive me if I don’t feel bad for you.” Dane picked up his pencil and the mock drawing he was working on.
Mia? The name sounded familiar.
“Your secretary, Ms. Stileano, is the one who told her. They’re best friends. She lied to you, Dane. She’s a liar.” Champ stepped closer to the desk when Dane raised his head slowly.
It couldn’t be. Not Gabriella. She was the most honest person he knew.
“Are you saying you weren’t screwing your secretary on your desk? She lied about that.” Of all the things Dane expected, he didn’t expect that. He knew she didn’t fake the kind of reaction she had in his office. He knew his brother did what she said exactly happened.
Mia! That’s why the name sounded familiar. She had blurted the name in her tirade before walking out of his office—and his life—forever.
“She lied about why she applied for the job. She thought you were me. Mia told her I needed a new temp secretary. Mia thought I was cheating. She convinced her friend to apply for the job and do some undercover work.” Champ laughed. “She got the wrong brother. She thought you were dating her friend Mia.”
No.
No way.
Yet, he saw the truth written on his brother’s face. Champ wasn’t lying, and he could tell when Champ was lying. He did it so often. He watched as Champ continued to laugh as he walked out of the office.
An entire week.
She had lied to him for an entire week. What he had thought so real had all been a big sham. God, he was such an idiot. She played him. She thought he was a womanizing cheater and liar while he had been having lustrous thoughts about her.
His pencil snapped in half as the anger swirled inside. He didn’t like being made a fool of. How dare she.
I’m sorry for lying. I hope you can forgive me someday—her last words to him.
She tried to tell him in her own way what she had done.
Forgive her? Not likely. He couldn’t stand liars. His brother was a compulsive liar, and he could barely stand him. He only did because he was family, and his mother would disown him if he cut Champ out of his life.
She was nothing. He had no problem forgetting about her.
That’s exactly what he did as he grabbed a new pencil.
5
Gabby groaned, grabbing her head as the pain skyrocketed from her temple down to her toes. She pulled a pillow over her head to drown out the insistent pounding going on. When it wouldn’t disappear, she threw the pillow to the floor. Her visitor wasn’t going away.
She got out of bed and swiped her robe that sat in a tangled mess on the floor. Untying the kinks as she walked to the front door, she had just shoved her arms through the sleeves when she approached the door. She grabbed for the ties to knot it together as her hands fumbled with the door locks. Her expression told her visitor she wasn’t impressed or happy about the wakeup call when she finally opened the door.
“You look like shit, Gabs,” her longtime friend and partner, Jaxson Brandt, said as he stepped inside and closed the door. She sneered at him as she continued to tie her robe closed.
“Gee, Jaxson, is that what you tell all the ladies? You owe me a quarter, too.” She needed coffee—lots of coffee. Without waiting for his response, she turned toward the kitchen.
“You know I never go anywhere without a handful of quarters,” he said with a low chuckle. “Late night last night? What happened? Did you have a hot date, and it got a little rowdy?”
“When’s the last time I had a hot date? Junior high?”
Jaxson leaned against the counter as he watched her get the coffee ready, chuckling. “Oh, someone’s cranky. You always get ridiculous with your sarcasm when you’re cranky.”
“Well, someone did wake me up way too early.”
“Hey, Gabs, look at the clock on the wall. It’s noon. Not that early.”
Gabby watched as his finger pointed to the clock on the wall that read it was indeed twelve o’clock.
