“Patricio, I didn’t want to do it like this, but I need to get a few things off my chest. First, I don’t want to marry you or see you anymore. Seems silly to say that after you said we were over this morning and you called me a whore—” I still can’t believe he did that. A-hole! “—but I know you can be a hothead, so I didn’t want you thinking this is a fight we’ll recover from. It’s not because I am cheating on you with Max—I’m not. And that kiss, well, there’s no excuse, but it just shows I’m not ready to commit to you or anyone until I settle my past. Speaking of pasts, I don’t know if you slept with Adeline again, and maybe I don’t really want to know, but I’m not ending things because of her. It’s because we’re not right together. And I’m sorry things ended like they did because…” My eyes unexpectedly started to tear up. Why? Why was I crying? “Because I really enjoyed,” sniffle, sniffle, “our time together.”
Patricio had been the first semi-normal relationship I’d ever had. Okay, maybe not semi-normal since he was a celebrity and our relationship occasionally made the tabloids. But we’d gone out on real dates, unlike my relationship with Max, my boss at the time. He’d taken me on his corporate jet to a fashion show in Milan after asking me to be his ugly-aversion therapy tool. We’d ended up connecting in the strangest of love-hate relationships of all time. Then, that night at the party, after the fashion show where I’d danced with Patricio, Max and I got in a huge fight. He’d completely lost his cool seeing me with another man, like I’d lost mine seeing him with Adeline. The result was Max taking me back to my hotel room for an angry, mind-blowing fuck—my very first ever—that opened up a can of worms I hadn’t been expecting. I had felt, as maybe I did now, that we didn’t make sense and it would only lead to utter heartbreak. That was what I believed, like an idiot, who couldn’t accept a good thing when she had it.
I let out a sigh and then cleared my throat, to finish the message. “Patricio, I wish you the best whether it’s with Adeline or someone else. Goodbye.”
The moment I hit the end call button on my console, I immediately felt lighter. Better. My stomach even relaxed.
I was finally on the right track.
After picking up my rental car at O’Hare, I headed straight to Danny and Calvin’s. I would sleep on their couch and have the comfort of knowing that Danny would be there for me after I said what I needed to say. To Max’s face. But that would be tomorrow morning.
Tonight, because of the hour—almost eleven o’clock—we were going to have a late dinner at their apartment.
The moment I hit the nearly empty freeway, my phone started chirping like mad. My hand twitched with the urge to pick it up off the passenger seat, but at this very moment, my little silver RAV4 rental was approaching the spot where I’d wrecked my car on the opposite side of the freeway.
I took a breath and moved into the fast lane, the closest I could get to the exact spot. I remembered the location because there was an In-N-Out directly to the side of the road. Funny the things you remember when your life flashes before your eyes.
I stepped on the gas and tightened my hands around the steering wheel. My jaw clenched, and I ground my teeth. “You don’t fucking scare me. Fuck you. You don’t fucking scare me.” I blinked and released a breath, glancing at the marker—invisible to everyday passers—in my rearview mirror. “Ha! That’s right. Suck it, accident spot!” I laughed and the sound of sirens filled my ears.
Oh shit. The multicolored lights in my mirrors nearly blinded me. I looked at the speedometer. Ninety-eight? Oh no. What had I been thinking? I flipped on my blinker and began moving the car to the right shoulder. I felt like such a dork.
My car now stopped, I reached for my license and lowered my window. “Hello, officer. Would it make a difference if I told you that I almost died right back there seven months ago and got a little carried away, telling my demons to fuck off?”
The man, with his dark short hair and husky build, gave me a frown.
“Okay, now that I just said that aloud, I get how crazy I sound. I mean, who celebrates surviving a car accident by speeding?” I sighed and handed over my license and rental agreement.
He gave it a glance. “Lily Snow.” He looked down at me. “Wait. You’re the billionaire breaker.”
I held back a groan.
He continued, “My wife really loves her gossip magazines.”
Golly gumps. How awesome for me. “Everyone’s gotta have a vice.”
“Your story really shook her up. I’ve never seen her cry like that.”
“Sorry?”
“When that guy gave the press conference—what was his name?”
“You mean Maxwell Cole?”
The officer snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. When he gave that press conference and told everyone how much he loved you even after you told all of those lies about him.”
I whooshed out a breath. “It was a mistake. A really, really big mistake,” I muttered.
The officer handed back my things. “If it makes you feel any better, a lot of people, my wife included, were extremely upset—all of those horrible things the press said about your looks. And then the accident. Man—” He shook his head. “Everyone thought you were dead. Even I couldn’t look away from the television when they were pulling you out of the wreckage. I’m surprised someone isn’t making a movie about you.”
Seriously. That would be the most boring movie ever.
“So what happened?” the officer asked. “Did you and Maxwell Cole ever get back together? The Inquirer says you did.”
Did this man really expect me to discuss my love life with him—a stranger—on the side of a freeway?
Well, he does have a gun. He was probably used to getting his way.