The last week had not been a particularly good one. That was putting it mildly.
I’d been betrayed. Again. But this time it was worse than ever. For the last five months I’d been dating Rich Stirling. For the last five months I’d thought I was dating a nice guy who worked in Glasgow for a recruitment agency. I’d only just discovered that in actuality he was a corporate spy for a competitor of Braden’s in Edinburgh. This property developer was so desperate to outbid Braden on a piece of coveted land down by Commercial Quay that they’d enlisted Rich to get close to me, to get close to Braden, to unearth Braden’s bid and offer more money for the land.
I wasn’t in love with Rich but I’d let the sleazeball into my life, into my bed, and I’d given him a piece of me. I don’t think I’d ever felt so completely stupid in my entire life. All of my friends and family kept telling me I was too nice, that I didn’t have good intuition when it came to people, that I let a-holes into my life, and I was finally starting to believe they were right.
I could close down, refuse to let people close, be smarter, more selective… but that wasn’t me, and that was somehow letting Rich win. So I refused to change and there was a tiny sense of victory in that, at least.
It still stung like a mother that I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t take some kind of retribution. So when Braden turned up at my flat — this gorgeous property on Dublin Street that he’d renovated and then allowed me to stay in rent-free — to tell me he and Adam had bumped into Rich out on the town the night before, I’d held my breath, knowing exactly what was coming. Sure enough, Braden had had to haul Adam off of Rich and take him home to calm him down and ice his knuckles. Apparently, Adam had let the whole world know how he felt about anyone betraying me. He didn’t like it. And when he didn’t like it, he’d acquaint your face with his dislike.
As soon as Braden left I buzzed around my flat in a tizzy, wondering what I should do.
Should I call Adam and thank him? Should I go to his place and thank him in person? Should I berate him for using violence to make a point? No, that last one definitely wouldn’t wash with him. He wasn’t a violent person. In fact, although he could be intimidating and had warned off a number of bullies when I was younger, this was the first time I knew of that he’d actually gotten physical with someone on my behalf. I’d half expected him to go after Rich. Adam had exploded and stormed out of my mum and Clark’s house when Braden relayed the news to them all. Braden had told them after he told me but my throat was still tight with tears as I had to hear it a second time.
After Braden’s departure, I finally made the decision to cancel my night out with the girls.
I jumped into the shower, blow-dried my hair straight, and threw on a long skirt with a low waistband, my Uggs, and a wooly turtleneck with a cropped hem. I wanted to be casual, of course, but whenever I knew I’d be seeing Adam, I liked to remind him in some way that I was a woman with a woman’s figure. Not that it made any real impact. Despite evidence that he checked me out sometimes, Adam had been carefully platonic in our interactions since our lip brush three years ago. I had dated three guys in a bid to get over him. It never worked.
The guys just paled in comparison to him and the relationships fizzled out.
With a mind to the cold, I’d thrown on a short wool jacket over my top, along with a scarf, and I’d flagged down a taxi outside my flat. It was only as the cab was pulling up to Adam’s place that I thought maybe I should have called to warn him I was coming over. It was a Saturday night. He might have company.
My stomach lurched unpleasantly at the thought. The last time I’d visited Adam unannounced had been four months ago, and I’d walked in on him with a girl called Vicky.
Not only was I horrified once more to play witness to one of his sexual interludes, but I’d been shocked to realize that he and my brother shared women. Not at the same time, thank God. I knew they shared (and I didn’t want to know if it was a reoccurring thing) because Braden had been seeing Vicky for three months. In an effort to soothe my severely bruised romantic notions, Adam had explained Braden and Vicky were really casual and when Vicky had said she fancied Adam, Braden had mentioned it to his friend and Adam had—la, la, la, la, la, la, la! I didn’t hear the rest of the explanation because I had indeed stuck my fingers childishly in my ears and “la, la-ed” at him.
Sex was not casual to me. Not only was I annoyed that my brother, who had once been a secret romantic, had turned into a serial monogamist, I was even more annoyed at Adam for encouraging it. I couldn’t even describe how angry I was at Vicky.
After asking the cab driver to wait a second, I pulled out my phone and called up to Adam.