35. Cole
COLE
I’d spent the last three days with my new best friends: multiple bottles of bourbon.
I still couldn’t believe Jenny had left me. In spite of the bourbon, the painful scene when I discovered she’d gone kept replaying in my head.
We’d just come back from vacation. Jenny had agreed to move in with me. I worked from home that day, thinking everything was fine. But when I emerged from my office at lunchtime, she was gone.
“Babe?” I poked my head into the bedroom, but it was empty.
“Babe, you in the shower?” But instead of my girlfriend’s adorable tone-deaf signing-in-the-shower routine, there was only an eerie silence.
“Jenny?” I returned to the kitchen and saw a piece of paper on the island, secured by the fruit bowl. My stomach dropped as I snatched the note and read it.
I stood and stared at Jenny’s curly handwriting for five minutes. What the hell was she talking about?
She was… leaving?
She was leaving me ?
I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in your world.
You’re a good guy.
I know you’ll make a nice girl real happy one day.
The fuck ? It was as if the words didn’t make sense. They swam before my eyes, perhaps trying to arrange themselves in an order I understood.
But as the silence stretched out, it started to hit me. Jenny was gone. “Fuck!” I grabbed the bowl and hurled it across the kitchen. It collided with the wall and shattered.” Fuck! ”
I was angry but worse than that, I was crushed . I’d told Jenny I loved her—the first time I’d ever said that to anyone. She said she loved me, too.
But then she’d run out on me and left me a fucking note ?
I paced the kitchen, running my hands through my hair. Had I missed something? Did I say the wrong thing? Had she been pretending the whole time?
I felt sick, as if I might be coming down with the flu. My head throbbed.
This cannot be happening.
This cannot be happening to me .
I thought about our recent vacation to the Caribbean. We’d made love every day, enjoyed the beautiful water, drank fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them, and befriended an iguana. Well, Jenny made friends with the iguana. I’d been strangely jealous of the way she’d cooed over the scaly creature and fed it bites of mango…
Focus, Cole! Thinking about Jenny in her bikini, being kind to even the ugliest of animals, was getting me choked up. She couldn’t be serious about what she’d said. She couldn’t possibly mean it. Jenny wouldn’t leave me like this. She just told me she loved me! The memory of us on the beach together, when we’d shared our feelings, swept over me.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.” Jenny’s eyes filled with tears.
The emotions rocked through me. Jenny meant it. It was real. She loved me—I knew she did. So why did she leave? I reread the note.
I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in your world.
I could understand this statement, even though I disagreed with it. Jenny might have whiplash. She’d gone from working as an escort and living in a shitty apartment in Roxbury (her words, not mine) to suddenly being billionaire-adjacent. She’d moved into the penthouse suite of Fifty Liberty, the most coveted building in Boston. I’d dragged her into a different existence.
But just because Jenny wasn’t from my world didn’t mean that she didn’t belong. She was a kind soul, gentle and loving. She was also my best friend.
Best friends don’t run out on you like that.
I sighed, then did something I knew I’d regret later: I called her.
She let it go straight to voicemail.
That’s when I headed for the bourbon.
Someone was banging on my door.
“Fuck off and die,” I called from the couch. Apparently, I’d fallen asleep there.
“You fuck off and die,” James yelled from outside, “right after you open the goddamned door.”
I staggered up and opened it. My best friend, James Preston, stood in the doorway. He looked lightly tanned, alert, and wore a custom suit. He scowled at me.
I was too hungover to scowl back. I blearily made my way to the coffee maker. “What’re you doing here?” I gripped the counter as my dark roast poured.
“Audrey mentioned something was up with you and Jenny. So when I texted you five times, and you didn’t answer, I had to come over and check.” James nodded toward the smashed bowl on the ground. “Housekeeping hasn’t been in yet, I take it?”
I shrugged.
James motioned to my coffee. “Can I have one, please? Or is that too much to ask?”
“It’s too much to ask, but sure.” As making coffee involved nothing more than hitting a button, I executed the task and slid the mug over to him.
“You look like shit,” James said. “And you smell.”
I scrubbed a hand across my face. “A few bottles of bourbon will do that to you.”
He winced. “I take it Jenny’s not here?”
“No.”
James frowned. “Is she coming back?”
“I don’t think so.” I shrugged.
We both drank some coffee after that.
“What did Audrey say?” I couldn’t stop asking, even though I felt like a middle-schooler.
“Not much,” James said. “She talked to Jenny, and Jenny is safe. Audrey didn’t share any other details with me.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” I swallowed some coffee over the lump in my throat.
James fidgeted with his mug, seeming distracted. “Listen, I came over to check on you, but I also need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay…?” I waited. James never wanted to talk. This had to be important—suddenly, there was a heaviness in the air. Something was up.
“Audrey and I have decided that we want to get married sooner rather than later,” James said. He looked uncomfortable. “Sorry about the timing.”
“It’s okay—congratulations, man,” I said. I felt so shitty about Jenny, but I was genuinely happy for my best friend. “Don’t be sorry. When are you thinking?”
“In a few weeks,” he said. “We’re going to hold the ceremony at the Gardener Museum.”
“Nice.” Personally, I was fucking miserable, but even that couldn’t stop me from being happy for James and Audrey. I’d seen them together: I knew they were the real thing.
James shifted on his barstool. “Cole… will you be my best man?”
I blinked at him. He blinked at me. My eyes might have started to sting a little but fuck that. “I’d be honored.”
“Thanks.” He grinned at me. “I’m happy to hear it.”
My stomach swooped with a mixture of hope and dread. “Who’s going to be the maid of honor?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“Audrey wants to ask Jenny. That’s part of why I’m here—I wanted to run that by you. Like I said, I know the timing sucks.” He blew out a deep breath. “But sheisher best friend.”
“I know.” Knowing I’d see Jenny again made me feel a little better, even though it hurt. “I’m fine with it—it’s your wedding. I won’t mess it up with any drama.”
James watched me for a beat. “I hope you two can work things out.”
“We’ll see,” I said noncommittally. “Maybe it’s for the best, anyway. My father said he’d disinherit me if I kept dating a hooker.”
James arched an eyebrow. “Seriously? Your dad said that?”
I nodded. “He hired a private investigator to look into her. When he found out she worked for the agency, he threatened to leave his fortune to the hockey coach I just fired. And my bitchy neighbors.”
“That’s ridiculous,” James said.
I snorted, which made my head hurt. “It’s something, all right.”
“What are you going to do?” James asked.
I shrugged. “It might not matter if Jenny’s gone for good.”
The thing was, I waspissedat Jenny. My pride was wounded. Still—and maybe it was because my ego was huge—I couldn’t quite believe she’d left me because of me . Maybe if we had another chance, I could make her see that she was wrong. Maybe I could convince her that she belonged in my world.
“If there’s anything I can do, just let me know,” James said, interrupting my thoughts.
My brain might be hungover and fogged, but the venture capitalist in me was scheming. There had to be a way to get what I wanted. There was always a way.
And what I wanted was to get Jenny back.
“Actually, youcanhelp me out,” I said quickly. “If it’s not asking too much.”
James arched an eyebrow. “Usually, it’s asking too much. But go ahead. What are you thinking? You look like you’re about to negotiate a big deal.”
“How about you organize some wedding events sooner rather than later? You know, Todd-and-Evie style?” I asked. Todd and Evie hosted multiple dinners and cocktail parties leading up to their wedding. It had lent the occasion serious social capital while allowing their families and friends to extend the celebration.
The more events we had, the more time I’d have to be around Jenny. It would be more time to convince her she’d been wrong to leave.
“You aren’t above using my engagement to your advantage, are you?” James snorted.
“Not at all.” I laughed. “But seriously, it might help to break the ice between Jenny and me. That way, things aren’t too awkward at the ceremony.”
James blew out a deep breath. “Let me talk to Audrey, okay? Things are tense with my mother’s legal situation right now.”
“All the more reason to stay busy,” I offered. “Bonus points if there’s travel involved. That way, Jenny won’t be able to run away again.”
James stood to go, shaking his head. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
“I do know that.” I grinned.
“What about your father? What are you going to do about him?” James asked.
“I’ll handle him. If you can manage your parents, I can manage my dad. But enough about me.” I patted him on the back. “Congratulations, man. I’m happy for you. Not only do you get to marry Audrey, you get me as a best man.”
James shook his head. “I’m a lucky guy.”
“The luckiest.”
Once he left, I headed for the shower. I was still hungover, but a plan was forming in my mind. As a venture capitalist, I always had to deal with seemingly impossible situations. I always managed to make them work. I always won.
One thing I had going for me? I was one persuasive motherfucker. Jenny had left without giving me a chance to reason with her.
I needed that chance.
She really might not want me anymore—maybe she never did. Perhaps it was all a game. I didn’t want to believe that, but I needed to see for myself before I could let her go. I needed to be sure.
Once I finished in the shower, I sent a quick text to Elena, the Madam of AccommoDating. I told her what I wanted: Jenny to be my hired date for James and Audrey’s wedding. I made an exceptionally generous offer that my escort couldn’t refuse.
I would get her back. And then I would see, once and for all if what we had was real.
If all Jenny had ever wanted was to play me? So be it.
I was first-string, varsity, first-round draft material.
So let the motherfucking games begin.