Chapter Forty-four
Brynn
I sit by myself on the bathroom floor for a while after Killian leaves.
I’ve taken the terrible shoes off. I feel like I’ve taken my sanity off, too, and I forget where I put it.
My heart feels ripped into pieces and dragged through mud, but then stitched back together all out of place. It’s Frankenstein’s monster, and it doesn’t beat right.
Maybe I should have changed his name to Victor in my phone.
When I feel like I can stand again, I do.
I wander back upstairs, but I’m in a haze.
I left the room so fast, and for such a clear reason, everyone is looking at me when I come back in. I attempted to fix my makeup a little, but I didn’t have my purse with me, so I definitely do not look my best.
Thankfully, the lights are still dimmed.
“Sorry,” I murmur, my face warm as I make my way back to my spot on the couch.
This time, I can feel Sloane looking at me, but I can’t look at her. I don’t think she suspects anything aside from what Killian said—that I was crying in the bathroom—and that would also explain why my makeup is wrecked.
But I know what happened.
I don’t know how I feel about it, and honestly, I don’t want to dissect it right now.
So I don’t.
I let myself escape to Barbieland and reality, and when that one is over, we watch Crazy, Stupid Love. And I can agree that love is crazy and stupid, so maybe I enjoy it a little more than I did the last time I watched it.
I love you too, you know.
My Frankenstein heart has wings, but also a front-row seat to a reality that doesn’t quite match up with Killian’s words.
Because I don’t understand why he won’t just end things with her if what he says to me is true. Why do the Blue Bloods care who he marries?
When the movie ends and I go back upstairs, I can finally get my phone again. I wish I hadn’t left it while we watched the movie because I was dying to see if Killian would text me after he left, and now I see he did.
“Miss you already.”
I hug my phone to my chest, but then Addison comes in right behind me, and I have to pretend everything is normal.
I refrain from texting him back, but it’s hard because I want to.
God, I want to.
I want to go to his apartment.
Crawl in his bed.
I want him to fuck me and make me forget the bad dream my reality has turned into.
I want him to decimate me and keep all the pieces for himself. He can put me back together however he wants to.
I don’t care if the end result looks monstrous, as long as I can be with him.
Blowing out a breath, I lie back on the bed in Addison’s dress and think maybe I don’t need to go to his apartment for him to fuck me, because I am clearly super fucked already with the thoughts racing through my head.
“You okay?” Addison asks.
No.
“Yeah.”
Definitely not okay, but I feel… hopeful in a way I haven’t since…
Actually, since I saw him at school.
Seeing him shouldn’t heal me when he’s the one that keeps hurting me. What is wrong with me?
You’re hopelessly in love. That’s what’s wrong with you.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Addison glances back over at me as she folds the laundry she left on her bed earlier, saying it was Bedtime Addison’s problem. “Sure.”
“It’s about Sloane.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know anything about her dad?”
She sort of chuckles funnily, then she says, “Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t know at least something about Roger Whitley? His politics are trash and he’s a huge sexist. Definitely wouldn’t marry the guy, but he’s about to embark on his fourth wife, some Italian model. Catalina something? So I guess some women feel differently.”
I push myself up and stare at Addison, my heart in my stomach. “Roger Whitley? Sloane’s father is Roger Whitley?”
“Yes.”
“The billionaire Roger Whitley?”
She nods more apologetically this time.
What?
There’s a whole fucking show about that man’s family. Fictionalized, of course, but…
“Oh my god.”
“Sorry, I thought you knew that.”
I knew they had the same last name, but somehow it never even occurred to me to connect the dots. Because it’s crazy. Roger Whitley is a celebrity, and you don’t imagine people you know being related to famous people.
I also feel weird about the fact that I watched the show, and previously loved it, although it is sinking quickly now that I know…
Well, his daughter is about to marry the love of my life.
I feel bad remembering a season of a show to recall the details of an actual person’s life, but I’m remembering the season four finale—really grossly titled Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow—in which Roger’s only son died at twenty-two, leaving Sloane the sole heir to the Whitley estate when she was a senior in high school.
And then I remember Killian telling me about Blue Blood marriages, using the example that sometimes a really traditional Blue Blood might only have daughters, or he might have a son who dies. In that case, the older Blue Blood may be interested in marrying his daughter off to a younger Blue Blood to ensure his legacy, and… it’s like inheriting a kingdom.
And just like that, reality dashes my hopes again.
Because I may not know all the details, but I can piece together enough to realize…
Sloane’s dad is a Blue Blood, and he’s picked Killian to inherit his throne.
___
There isn’t a lot left to reconcile when you realize your almost-boyfriend’s choices are between you, a penniless nobody, and essentially an American princess.
Inheriting the wealth alone of a man like Roger Whitley is an opportunity no one would ever pass up, no matter what they have to do to get it, but add in the fact that said almost-boyfriend is also a self-professed opportunist…
I stand no chance.
None.
And that is depressing as hell, but it is also confirmed when, despite telling me how much he only wants me and that he loves me, I find pictures of him and Sloane at a fucking wedding cake tasting when I’m stalking her social media over the weekend.
Let the Hunger Games cannon go on our relationship because there’s no future in it. I don’t care how he feels about me, he won’t pick me over the Sloane package. There’s no fucking way.
And I get that he still has feelings for me. I totally believe that he didn’t like the way Sloane went about capturing him before he was ready to move into the gilded cage, and now maybe he wants to punish her a little.
But he’s not going to use me to do it.
In a way, I feel sorry for her, because while she’s getting the guy we both want, he will not be an easy ride for her, especially if she keeps trying to handle him the way she did going in. He’s wrecked me this much in a couple of weeks, and he’ll have a whole lifetime to destroy her, so… she deserves my condolences.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
I stop listening to sad music and I ask Addison to get in touch with Ryan for me so I can send him to retrieve my clothes from Killian’s apartment—or, I guess, actually Roger Whitley’s apartment that he was letting his future son-in-law use.
I know I can’t stay at the Zeta house because I can’t torture myself with a front-row seat, but I can’t let Killian provide for me, either. His support comes with strings, and as long as he is the one arranging for a roof over my head, he’ll always have a key to the front door.
So when Silvan approaches me—unmasked this time—to tell me Killian told him I needed a place to live and there’s an apartment available in his dad’s building, I tell him no thanks.
I do a little research myself because I know I can’t live alone—he’ll break in—and I can’t live with anyone he can intimidate—he’ll scare them off—which doesn’t leave me with a lot of great options.
But it turns out the Dean of Calhoun University has a daughter named Sally Stern who really likes cats and French roast coffee. She also has an apartment with an extra bedroom that she’s looking to rent out, and since I recall something Killian said to me about Kyle’s copycat society potentially drawing heat from the Dean, I know that means Blue Bloods are not immune to expulsion.
So he can’t break into the Dean’s daughter’s apartment.
Which is now also my apartment.
That will give me the space I need from him.
I haven’t found a new job yet, but with the money Killian gave me, I have enough of a cushion that I can wait until the semester is over to look. I don’t mind spending his money because I deserve compensation for the emotional damage he inflicted on me, and he’s marrying into the Whitley family, so he can afford it.
It’s the only trickle down I’m ever gonna see from a billionaire in my lifetime, so I’m keeping it.
I use some of my money to buy Addison the perfect “thank you for hosting me when my heart was broken” gift. I don’t want to get her something ordinary because Addison is not ordinary, so I decide to splurge on a custom water bottle that says, “He’s not Kenough.”
When I give it to her, it makes her so happy, you’d think it was $10,000. She squeezes me tight, says, “You have no idea how much I love this,” then snaps a picture of it on her desk and immediately sends it to her family group chat.
I have to make some sacrifices to avoid Killian.
I have to give up my Tuesday seminars.
I figure come spring semester, he’ll have moved on and I can start going to them again, but right now, my determination to be strong and stay out of his way is too fragile. I can’t let him force his presence on me; I might break immediately, and I don’t want to let him think I’m going to play this game with him.
I don’t want to be anyone’s mistress, not even his.
I don’t give up the gym on Wednesday, though, and that proves my fatal mistake.
It’s a warmer day than usual, so I leave the gym with my hair in a ponytail, my yoga pants on, wearing just a sweater I bought myself from the school merch shop. The air is crisp, and the breeze feels nice against my flushed skin. I’m drinking out of the water bottle Addison ordered me after I ordered hers, which reads, “Addison’s favorite Barbie.”
And then there he is, standing at the bottom of the steps out of the building.
He’s wearing a gray hoodie and sweatpants, so it’s possible he’s just here to work out too, but I doubt it. He knows what time I come to the gym, and he had to know he’d run into me.
“You’re a hard woman to pin down these days,” he states.
Once my heart returns to my chest, I take the steps casually, as if unaffected by him. “That’s by design,” I say, flashing him a sweet smile as I brush past him.
He sighs, and I know it’s partially for show, but I think it’s a little real, too. “You’re killing me.”
He’s killing me, too. I don’t know why I did that. His scent caught the air and now my stomach hurts, but I don’t let it show.
We broke up, and we are never ever getting back together.
Killian texts me every single day, even though I’ve never once texted him back. I keep waiting—with no small measure of dread—for the day the texts stop coming, but I guess he’s still waiting for me to cave because it hasn’t happened yet.
Killian falls into step beside me, and my heart jumps a little, being so close to him. “Please don’t follow me,” I say.
“Why?”
“Aren’t you here to work out?” I say, lifting my eyebrows and nodding back toward the building.
“You think I need to? Here, give my bicep a squeeze and see how it feels.”
I slide him a look as he holds his arm up, his eyes twinkling.
God, I wish I hated him.
Life would be so much easier if I hated him.
I can see why Sloane picked him, though. If I had all the money in the world and the ability to buy myself any husband I wanted, I’d pick him, too.
Charming bastard.
Too much time has passed, though, and I know that despite his resentment over her methods, he has surely given in to being her boyfriend now. Despite her remark about having kissed him at lunch that day, it didn’t feel that way until I saw him touch her during Double Ryan night, and even that he explained away as essentially using her to get to me.
But I’ve also accepted the fact that he could have simply been lying to me.
I only know what I see of them on her social media—he never posts her, but he was never a big poster to begin with—but they look like a real couple as far as I can tell.
And I know that means he’s probably slept with her, and that means that no matter how charming I still find him, no matter how his scent affects me or his smirk tugs at my heart, I am done with him.
I want a man who’s all mine, or I don’t want him at all.
I don’t share, either.
I haven’t tried dating, but I won’t until I’m sure he’s over me. Until then, I do not expect it to go well, and to be honest, I’m not eager to get into another romantic relationship. The one with him will have left scars, and I figure I should probably take a little time to let the wounds heal before I start over with someone new.
When I can think about Paris without crying myself to sleep, then I’ll go on a date with someone else.
“You heading to lunch?” he asks, since he knows my schedule by heart.
“Yep.”
“You want company?”
I smile faintly because he already knows my answer. “Nope.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I never get to find out what it is because Sloane comes walking up the sidewalk, her face a little flushed from the cold I guess, and her eyes a touch brighter than usual.
“Hey, you,” she says, walking over to him.
The sparkle in his eyes dims and he looks over at her. “Hey.”
“Well, it was nice catching up.” I flash them both polite but very fake smiles, then I take a hard left across the lawn and head for the parking lot.
I’m in the mood for off-campus food today, and since I can afford food with my Killian money, I think I will.
I make it all the way to my car, and then I feel a presence behind me.
Sighing, I turn around. “Killian, you can’t—”
But I stop because the dark-haired menace standing behind me isn’t Killian.
It’s Aiden.
“Oh. Hi,” I say a touch awkwardly since he’s caught me off guard.
To be honest, my instincts about him still haven’t recalibrated, either. I’m always a little uneasy when I see him. It’s like muscle memory, the whisper of being trapped beneath him on that table in the basement that has since crumbled to ash.
I clear my throat. Since he still hasn’t said anything, I rush to explain myself. “Um, I just ran into Killian, and he was also wearing a gray hoodie, so…”
“Got it.”
“Yeah,” I say awkwardly. “So… are you just skulking around the parking lot, or…?”
He smirks. “No. I was looking for you.”
“Me?” My eyebrows rise. “Why?”
“Because I have something for you.”
I resist the urge to repeat both of my previous questions and watch him reach into his hoodie pocket and draw out a black envelope with a royal blue wax seal.
“What is this?” I ask, glancing up at him.
“An invitation to the Blue Blood Ball.”
I frown. “What is that?”
“You know the Met Gala?”
I nod.
“Kinda like that, but darker. The Blue Bloods throw one at the end of every fall semester. It’s invite only, but I managed to snag one, and the invitation admits two, so… I need a date.”
My eyes widen. “And you think I might know someone?”
He smirks, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “No. I want you.”
My heart stalls. He says the words deliberately to make that happen, but it makes me uneasy that it works despite knowing that.
Before I met Killian, that night at the Rho Kappa Halloween party, I did feel a very unwanted tug of interest when I was under Aiden on that table. Once I met Killian, that went away, of course, but…
Well, maybe Stacie was a little right.
Maybe I am attracted to crazy, dangerous men.
I’m definitely not going out with this one, though.
“Yeah, I’m sure Killian would love that.”
“No reason he has to know,” Aiden says.
“I think he might notice us coming to his party together.”
His dark eyebrows rise. “Did I forget to tell you the best part? Open the invitation.”
I frown at him warily, but I break the fancy wax seal and pull out a thick piece of creamy vellum. The invitation is written in fancy calligraphy, and I can’t deny a jolt of excitement when I read the first line.
You’re invited to a masquerade…
I look up at Aiden.
He smirks. “I seem to recall you liking The Phantom of the Opera.”
“I do,” I say regretfully, wishing I hated that, too.
Oh man, I would love to go to a masquerade. In a way, it even feels like the perfect finale to close the Killian chapter of my life.
“We’ll all be wearing masks,” Aiden tells me. “If we move carefully, I think we can easily evade Killian’s notice and still enjoy ourselves. We’ll just be two anonymous masked faces in a sea of them.”
Shoot.
I pout a little because I do want to go, just not with him.
I would have loved to go to this with Killian. Absolutely loved it.
My memory tugs me back to Paris, strolling on his arm up the opera house stairs.
God, that was romantic.
And sweet.
And a different time.
My bittersweet feeling fades a little as I consider all the plans he’s busy making with someone else.
But I don’t cry this time, and that… well, that’s when I said I’d go on a date with someone, and what are the odds I’d be standing right in front of someone who asked me on one when it happened?
I look up at Aiden.
This is a bad idea.
But that means I’ve already stepped off the cliff.
“You know what? Yeah. What the hell? I’ll go to the masquerade with you.”
His wolfish grin is just a little too victorious and it gives me a moment of panic, but he must see it, because he quickly dials it back.
“You promise you’re not going to do anything crazy, right?” I ask him.
“I mean, I can, but… will my promise mean anything to you?”
I sigh. “No, I guess not.”
He smirks. “Like I said before. You’re just gonna have to trust me and see how it pans out.”