“I know.” I sighed. “But she left me a huge mess and she knew it. She wanted to haunt me, I swear.”
“Just like Maribel.” We were both quiet for a moment. “I’m still sorry you lost your best friend, Mo. I’ll be your second, not very present one always, okay?”
I smirked as I added some shadow to my eyes. It was the night of the gala and I was almost ready.
“Anyway, I’m going to a gala for Tropical Oil tonight.”
“Oh my God,” Linny squealed. “Because of that stallion you’re dating? Who knew my dare would have gotten you here?”
She didn’t know the real story but she thought she did.
“Have you been approached by the media yet? They freaking love you guys. I see your face on fucking magazines, Morina.”
She was much more excited about it than I was.
“It is what it is,” I mumbled as I finished my look off with some lip gloss.
“Oh, my God. Seriously, though, can you even walk? You must be banging the shit out of that man.”
“What? No,” I screeched. But most people thought this was for real. “I mean, we’re just taking things slow.”
“Slow? You moved in with him, Mo! It says it in a magazine.”
“The magazines are wrong. I’m just staying here a few nights a week.” The news would explode with our engagement soon but I was going with Bradley tonight and that was our story.
“You better be fucking that man every day. Don’t get all weird on him. You’re committing. He committed by getting that penthouse. Maribel is probably dancing in her grave right now.”
I wanted to tell her all the details but now wasn’t the time. Maybe next year when it was all said and done. “That’s not commitment, Linny. He already had this place.” I scoffed and cracked my door open.
“No. What? I read the tabloids. Girl, I know how much your place costs. He’s got it bad.”
I cleared my throat. I needed to do a google search but I wasn’t going to admit that, since his fiance should’ve known the cost and when he bought it. The tabloids lied about that stuff, though. Bastian surely had this place before me.
This conversation was painful but good practice for me, I guess. Even if I felt a little bad for lying to my friend, she’d forgive me one day when I got to tell her the whole truth after my divorce.
Divorce. I sighed at the thought of that word.
“Is something wrong in the bedroom or something?” Linny took my sigh for something it totally wasn’t.
Nothing was happening in the bedroom. That was the real problem.
“We just want to keep things slow.”
“Is he holding out now or something?” She mumbled something to someone. “I’m about to jump on my connecting flight. I have just the thing though. I’ll send it to you. I have your address, just need the penthouse number. Text me, chica. Love you! Bye.”
She hung up before I could even protest. I wasn’t going to, anyway. She’d find a way to get my address if I didn’t text it, so why fight it?
Bastian tapped on my door before pushing it all the way open. “Will you be ready in an hour?”
“I could have been naked.”
“That’s what I was hoping for.” Bastian Armanelli stood there clean shaven, in shoes that must have been shined and a suit that cut around his physique like a skilled sculptor. The man looked devastatingly hot.
I rolled my eyes and stood to twirl in the silk midnight blue dress I’d ordered online for the event. “Not naked. Actually, I’m just about ready.”
He’d been smirking but as his eyes trailed down my body, he leaned on the doorframe and his smile disappeared.
The slits up my legs were high enough that my thighs would be on display but the dress hugged my waist and breasts in all the right places too. His stare raked up and down once, twice, three times and hovered where the dress fit snugly. “The blue matches your eyes, ragazza. You’re breathtaking.”
I yanked my heart back from running toward him when he murmured his compliment. “You have to say that after I spent hours in here getting ready.”
“I don’t. But I want to anyway.” He took a large breath and closed his eyes with his next admission. “I won’t enjoy practicing restraint tonight.”
“What do you mean by that, Bastian?” I asked, wanting to make sure I didn’t do something stupid like kiss him again.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing. What more do you have to do to get ready?”
Back to the man who kept it all together, I sighed and turned to my drawer to pull out five crystals. “Do you think we need poise tonight?”
“For the board members?” He shrugged against the doorframe.
“Sure.” I didn’t wait for him to answer and swiped two back into the drawer. “These three will do. Sexuality, beauty, and determination.”
“Sexuality? Really?” His brow slammed down like he had something more to say about that.
“Well, yeah. For being on men’s arms. I need to look better than the women on your arms in the past and look good on Bradley’s, right? I’m selling the view, am I not?”
His jaw worked before he backed away from me. He didn’t comment. He just mumbled that a driver would be downstairs for me when I was ready. I left the penthouse without saying another word to him.
I rode quietly in the back of the SUV to get Bradley and he stood there in a black suit that didn’t quite fit the way Bastian’s always did. He’d never been good at wearing them. He belonged on a beach in board shorts and not much else. “This good?”
“It’s great, Bradley.” I patted his shoulder as he entered the SUV Bastian had arranged for Dante to drive for us. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“What happened to your guy?”
“It’s complicated.” I almost combed a hand through my hair, then remembered I’d curled it around my face for tonight.
No beaded bracelets or boots to wear either. I wore strappy black heels and had a small purse that fit just my phone, a few cards, and the crystals.
“Does being complicated mean you’re still with him, Mo?” Bradley asked.
I glanced away and wrinkled my nose. “I’m probably using you a little tonight.”
“What, like a rebound?” He chuckled. Then he held up a finger. “No wait. Please tell me this is a revenge fuck. I’d love to get that out of it.”
Dante sighed from the driver’s seat as he maneuvered onto the busy roads.
“Bradley.” I rolled my eyes. “You should feel bad I’m doing this. I feel bad I’m doing this.”
“What for?” He shrugged and put his arm around me to pull me close. “We’ve always used each other for sex. It’s not like that was going anywhere. You’re too much like me for that.”
“What do you mean?” I jerked back to glare at him. “I’m not like you.”
“Of course you are. We never move from the water and we’re not quick to commit. You’re a lot like your parents in that way. They never said they’d do anything. Remember the way your dad would navigate out of any responsibility, and no one even knew he was doing it? He was such a charming guy. Man, I wish I had that same skill.”