“It’s not fine, Madelyn.”
“Madelyn again?” She laughs. “Please, darling. Don’t be all formal. I’m so glad that you are back.” She moves in closer as she speaks, emphasizing glad as she presses her fingertips to the front of his shirt.
My head explodes. Or at least it feels like that, but since there isn’t brain all over the antique everything in Scott’s lobby, I guess that was just me not being able to cope with this porcelain doll come to life.
Touching my man like she knows him.
Because obviously, she knows him. And I don’t know her, but then she turns to me, flashing green eyes curiously blinking out of that peaches and cream complexion, and she tilts her head to the side. “And you must be Alison.”
My mouth drops open.
She knows me, too.
Well, f*ck
.
“Who are you?” I don’t care if I’m being rude as I take a step back.
Her eyebrows raise just enough to confirm that yeah, I am.
Still don’t care.
Scott crosses his arms and frowns at me as I move further away. It’s a small lobby, I can’t go that far, but he’s still scowling at me. “This is Madelyn Dunn. I wasn’t expecting to see her this trip. I apologize for not giving you a heads-up.”
“A heads-up about what?”
“Honestly, Scott, must you always be so locked-up tight?” She smirks at me, like we’re in on a joke together. But we’re not. Hot, achy panic is settling into my chest, because I don’t like that she knows all this stuff about Scott. I don’t like that she assumes we’re on the same level in that regard, and I’m pretty sure any second she’s going to realize that actually, I don’t know him nearly as well as she does.
And then I’m going to find out why that is.
I want to know, because f*ck
him for keeping secrets, but I don’t want to know, because f*ck
me…I’ve fallen into caring about us. Valuing what we have, and now I don’t know what that is.
What do we have?
Secrets, apparently.
And a beautiful British woman ready to spill them.
She smiles at me. “Scott and I were close once. We’re still close, really.”
I want to scream at her. Tell her to get her mitts off my man, but they are still close and we just have midnight hook-ups. And a single date with a tequila bottle. And this European adventure, although I’m starting to think that in the catalogue of our limited relationship, this might not fall into the relationship-building category.
I don’t know anything about Scott and she knows everything, including why he’s come back now and apparently what his business is.
My head hurts.
And she’s still touching him. Her hand is wrapped possessively around his biceps and a vein throbs in my head as I stare at that point of connection.
I edge backward, nodding inanely.
Scott says my name, but it’s like he’s talking at the far end of a tunnel. Everything is fuzzy and echoing inside my head. My pulse is pounding in my throat and my eyes are itchy.
I know this feeling.
It’s rare, because it’s practically been bred out of me, but I’m going to cry.
Oh, no.
No, no, no, not effing happening, no.
Not going to cry over the guy who took my virginity. Nuh-uh.
He doesn’t get that power.
I try to swallow. Oh, shit, that’s hard. I try again, forcing the lump in my throat to move out of the effing way, because I don’t have time to care.
I need to get my bag, find a cab, and get the hell out of this country.
“I forgot something upstairs,” I say inanely and punch the button for the elevator. Lift. What-f*ck
ing-ever. The doors open and I stumble inside. There’s no button to make it close faster, so I just stand there, face burning, as Scott glances back at me and talks faster at Madelyn.
I’m not listening. If I listen, I’ll cry. If I cry, I’ll lose my mind. So I think of Research Methods and try to guess where in the fourth floor stacks I’d find a book on quantitative data gathering, and do not think about the man I just realized I thought of as my man, and how f*ck
ed up that is.
How immature and pathetic I am.
Definitely not thinking about that.
Nope.
Quantitative data gathering. That’s all that’s on my mind.
And the doors close, just as Madelyn lifts her voice in my direction. “Really, genuinely lovely to meet you.”
Nothing has sounded less genuine or lovely ever in the history of polite conversation.
—twenty-four—
Scott
I’m going to kill Madelyn.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, shoving her away from me. I need to go after Ali, but I need to know that Maddie won’t follow, either. For all I know, she’s got a key to my flat, and that’s not on.
“Getting to know your…friend,” she says.