CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Whitney
I rritation.
It’s what I expected to feel the next morning when I saw him.
I’d had enough time to process the fact that we’d slept together. That I really, really like him when I don’t want to. And yet, he’d invited me up to his place but when I’d said no, he went out to find another woman for the remainder of the night.
Cheap. Used. Duped.
Again.
Those were the three words that came to mind—well, maybe those and motherfucker —when I got the text from Suri that said, “Well, I guess you lost your courage then.” Followed by a link to a social media page. I clicked the link to be greeted with a picture of Hardy with his arm around a gorgeous woman and her mouth nuzzled up against his neck at a club.
The high of being with him that I’d woken up with? Yeah. That vanished in an instant, deflating me like a helium balloon.
What did I expect though? Didn’t I already know it when I answered his question?
Better or easier?
Both.
And that shit’s on me.
I said I didn’t want complications. I played off everything when my insides felt like an interwoven mess of confusion. I stared at him and fell for his playfulness and quips before stopping just outside of the parking lot where he no longer could see my car and contemplated for way too long if I should drive back and take him up on his offer.
But I didn’t. I hesitated. I figured if I’m going to do whatever this is with him, I need to take it slow so I don’t spook myself. He’s giving me the grace to take it at my own pace and so I need to do just that.
Decided, I then drove home and crawled into bed with a goofy grin on my lips and two contrasting images in my head.
The intensity in his eyes when he demanded I look at him.
And the earnestness when he told me he needed me to leave the parking lot first to make sure I got home okay.
But for as euphoric as my thoughts were as I drifted off to sleep, the irritation and hurt that hit me when I saw him walk into the facility like nothing ever happened between us or after I left was ten times worse.
Entitled and arrogant. Like it’s no big deal for me to sleep with him and then for him to go out with someone else hours later.
The problem with all of this is that after I finally had sex with him, after the playfulness in the parking lot and his calling me on why I didn’t want to go back to his place, I could feel my heart and my resolve softening toward him. No, I don’t want a relationship with him— I know I’m not ready for that . But I do think I was ready to consider a little more. More sex. More time. More fun. More him .
Consider? I laugh. More like acknowledge because isn’t that what I’d already done when I showed up here in the first place?
But the joke’s on me, isn’t it because I thought he might have wanted that more with me too.
Alexander Hardy knows his way around a soccer pitch, but he also knows how to charm me with patience and pretty words to get what he wants.
He got what he wanted, and I fell for the bit hook, line, and sinker.
He’s a player in every sense of the word.