“I’m going to the deli for a sandwich.”
“Ooh, I’m hungry. Can I get a sandwich, too?”
Grant’s eyes grow wide. “Not today, princess, but maybe another time.”
I narrow my eyes at Grant. He knows damn well that’ll never happen. Filling the girl’s head with false hope surrounding me is not cool. “Next time I see you here you can come with me for a sandwich. Deal?”
Isabella giggles. “Deal.”
“Come now, my girl. Say goodbye to Bridget and then you can go to the park.”
“Bye, Bridget,” she says, giving me another huge hug.
“Goodbye, sweetheart.”
I hold back the tears threatening to spill. In a short amount of time, I’ve grown attached to Isabella. I understand Grant’s need to protect her. She’s not mine, but I’d do anything to make her happy after only knowing her for a short time.
I watch as Isabella walks over to give her father a hug. Grant takes her in his arms and kisses her on the cheek. My entire body melts and my heart breaks in the same moment. How long will Chelsea hold Isabella over him? Will he ever be free to love?
I shouldn’t have stopped her. I shouldn’t have spoken to her. But seeing her with him was too much. So once again, I put my own needs before hers and pulled her aside. I’m not blind. I destroyed her. I destroy everything. For a moment there, I was dumb enough to think that I had a chance at happiness.
I was just fooling myself.
Chelsea would never have let me be happy.
Now, I can’t help replaying last night over and over again in my head. It hurt to transfer her to marketing, but I had no choice. It’s for the best. No matter how much it sucks.
“Licking your wounds.” Chelsea saunters into the living room where I’m downing a glass of scotch. At first, I don’t answer. That’s how little she means to me at this stage. But of course, Chelsea has mastered the art of poking the bear and is now someone on PhD level.
“Shame. This one was your favorite flavor. A pretty, broken Barbie doll with eyes like saucers and pure intentions.”
Right. I’m done playing civil with this bitch. “Leave me the fuck alone. Haven’t you done enough?”
“Not nearly.” Her smile is sugar, her words venom. I have no idea what she means, but something tells me by the Cheshire grin on her face that she’s about to tell me. “The opening was a huge success, shouldn’t we be celebrating?”
“I wouldn’t celebrate with you if you were the last woman on earth.”
“Grant, stop being so melodramatic. She was a child. I let you have your fun. Now it’s time to get back to the task at hand.”
“You let me have my fun?” I seethe.
“Certainly, you didn’t think I hired her just because of Spencer, and I thought she’d be perfect to get you out of your funk. Now that you fucked her a few times maybe you’d be motivated to work. Think of it as a thank you to me for getting you laid.”
“You are unreal. You think that’s all she was? A quick fuck. She’s not some pawn to be used in your devious plan.”
“I don’t care what she was. I expect you back to yourself come Monday.”
“Never going to happen.” I slam my tumbler on the table and stand. It shatters beneath my skin, biting into my flesh, making me bleed. With that, I leave the room.
Two weeks. Two weeks of pure hell. I have stayed too true to my word and have left Bridget alone. I thought time would make it easier, but the pain doesn’t dissipate. It only amplifies as more time goes by.
Plus without Bridget to calm my nerves, not only am I in pain, but I’m also a ticking time bomb. I never realized just how much she made me believe everything was going to be okay. Now that she’s gone and I don’t see her every day, it’s hard to stay grounded.
I’m angry all the time. But I guess I deserve to feel bad. Knowing I broke Bridget, I deserve to be in constant pain.
Which is why as Chelsea spends my money, I do nothing.
I deserve it.
I’m knee-deep in self-wallowing when my phone pings with an email. I open it up and see that it’s an email from Chelsea’s account. Once I got the passcode from the investigator, I had her account set up on my phone to monitor her. The email is from an airline informing her that her flight is boarding.
Is her flight boarding?
Since when is she going somewhere and if she’s at the airport who’s with Isabella?
I dial her number, and it goes straight to voicemail.
Fuck.
Saturday morning rolls around. I’m sitting at home drinking a cup of coffee when my phone rings.
“I need to speak to you.”
“Grant, why are you calling me? I thought we discussed this.”
“Can we meet? At the park across from the hotel?” He completely ignores me. Alas, it doesn’t sound like lack of respect as much as sheer desperation. He is fixated. He is determined. He is Grant, and he is your undoing.
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“I’m begging you to trust me.”
I sigh, knowing I’ve lost the battle in my own head. “I can be there in half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
I hurry to get ready and practically run to the park. I arrive within twenty minutes of our conversation and find Grant already there, sitting on a park bench and looking out at the pond. He looks nothing like himself. There are bags under his eyes and his clothes are disheveled. My heart lurches at the sight of him.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” he says, standing when he sees me approach. I take the seat he offers beside him, but I don’t speak. He called this meeting and I’ll let him talk.
He sighs. “I’m going crazy at home. I just don’t know whether I can do it anymore.”
“Chelsea?”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s all too much now. Before you, I didn’t give a fuck. As long as I had Isabella, Chelsea could pull whatever shit she wanted. Then I met you and everything changed. I changed, Bridget. Living in hell isn’t something I can do anymore. Not when I know I could be happy again.”
I remain silent. I don’t want to jump to conclusions. He’s broken me once and I refuse to sit back and let it happen again. I’m stone.
“Chelsea is making a complete mockery of me. I’ve stayed all these years and now she’s throwing it in my face. The only reason I care is because I’ve given up everything. But the walls are crashing down and suffocating me now.”
“Did something happen?” I ask.
“She left Isabella again.”
“What do you mean ‘she left her’?” My voice is lethal. I want to strangle Chelsea with my own damn hands.
“She left her at the house by herself until Rhonda could get there so she didn’t miss her fucking flight with her new boyfriend.” His words drip with loathing.
“Did you call the police?”
“No, I didn’t even know until Rhonda called me in a panic. When she got there, Chelsea was gone. Rhonda called me to find out why the hell Isabella was alone. We’re lucky she didn’t call them.”