City of Sin - Chapter 19
Bee
My phone was buzzing in my pocket. Marie was calling me.
I let it go to voicemail. I was so mad at her.
If I talked to her now, I'd just say something I regretted.
There was already one missed call from Kendra.
My rescue call. I should have taken it. I felt so dirty.
Of all the guys in New York, why had Marie set me up with Mason Caldwell?
The taxi pulled to a stop outside my apartment building. I paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. I ran into my building, up the stairs, and into my apartment.
I began to pull my clothes out of my closet and throw them into a box. Fuck New York. Fuck Mr. Ellington. Fuck Patrick. And fuck Mason Caldwell. Enough was enough. I had given it my best shot. Now I just needed to get out of New York. There was nothing left for me here.
When I got to the back of my closet I stopped.
My wedding dress was hanging there. I pulled it out and placed it on top of the box.
Patrick and I were supposed to get married in the fall.
The bridal store had called a few weeks after Patrick and I had split up.
The alterations were already done, and they wouldn't take it back.
I should have been married right now. To the boy that I fell in love with freshman year.
Instead, I was alone in a dingy apartment and I had just sucked Mason Caldwell's dirty cock. I sat down in front of the box and started to cry. How could this have happened? Where had I gone wrong?
***
I slowly opened my eyes. Someone was knocking on my door. I had fallen asleep on the floor. Ow. My whole body ached. It looked like I had blown my nose on the train of my wedding dress. Great. I yawned and got up.
Whoever was outside my door knocked again. I looked out the peephole. It was Kendra. She looked really upset. Shit. I never called her back. She probably thought I had been abducted. I opened up the door.
"Oh my God, you're alive." She threw her arms around me.
"Hi, Kendra."
"You're alive." Now she sounded mad. She let go of me and pushed my shoulder. "Do you know how worried I was? I've only called you a million times! I thought you were dead in a ditch." She stared at me.
I was still wearing her dress. I looked down. It was wrinkled and slightly stretched out.
She looked past me at the box of clothes on the floor. "We'll talk about my dress later. What are you doing?" She gestured toward the box.
"I'm moving, Kendra. I'm done."
"The date was that bad?"
I sat down on the edge of my bed. I felt my face blush. "I actually had a really good time. Until I figured out who he was."
"What do you mean?" She sat down next to me.
"It was something that Patrick said to me."
"What? I thought you were done thinking about Patrick? Please don't revert back just because of one bad date."
"I'm not. I..." I let my voice trail off. "There's more to the story of Patrick cheating on me. I didn't tell you everything."
"Okay?"
I swallowed hard. This was so embarrassing.
I hadn't told anyone that Patrick had cheated on me with more than one woman.
I still wasn't even sure how many other women he had slept with while we were together.
And I really didn't want to know. "When I confronted Patrick, he told me that he was just doing what was expected of him.
That women were like an employee perk or something. "
"That's a pretty lame excuse. Men are disgusting."
"He used to go to these, like, underground clubs or something?
I don't know. I don't really want to talk about that part.
But he said that it was the boss' son that had taken him to all those sleazy places.
Almost like an introduction to the city or something ridiculous like that.
Patrick said that his boss' son could get you anything you wanted.
" I scrunched up my face. "Like any weird sexual fantasy you had, he could find the person to help make it happen. "
"I don't understand why this has anything to do with Mason."
"The founder of MAC International is Max Caldwell. I think Mason is his son."
"Wait, seriously?" Kendra laughed. "That's a pretty far leap."
"Mason seemed...I don't know. It was him. You should have heard the way he talked. He said his hobby was fucking women. He was a tool. And it's his fault that Patrick cheated on me."
"Bee, that's ridiculous. I bet he isn't even Max Caldwell's son. Caldwell is a common name. And so is Mason." She pulled out her phone and opened up Google. A few seconds later she frowned. "Okay, well maybe he does have a son named Mason. Is this him?" She put her phone in my face.
"Yeah, that's him."
"Wow, he's so sexy. Damn. Why doesn't Marie ever set me up with anyone?"
"Kendra, he's a dick."
"Well Max Caldwell has another son. Matthew.
Maybe he's the one that helped entertain Max's new hires?
" She showed me a picture of Matthew. He didn't look much like his brother.
He was handsome, but in a more sophisticated way.
I couldn't really explain it, but he looked tight-laced.
He didn't look like he frequented underground clubs and had connections with all sorts of weird loose women.
"No. It's Mason. It's definitely Mason. He talked like he had sex all the time. And he was...experienced."
"Shit, did you have sex with him?"
"No. Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"It doesn't matter. He's a man whore. And I'm moving."
"Come on. Let's go talk to Marie. I'm sure she can clear this up for you. Besides, if he is Max Caldwell's son, then he's loaded. And you shouldn't write him off so easily. You could use a few nice things."
"Kendra! Don't be gross. I don't want his money. I don't want anything to do with a guy like that. He's worse than Patrick."
She looked around my apartment. "Why is it again that you won't move in with me? We could split the rent and my apartment is a lot nicer than this."
She had asked me a few times to move in with her.
It was another step that I wasn't quite ready to make.
My last good memories of Patrick were in this apartment.
It was like changing my relationship status on Facebook.
It just seemed so final. I didn't want to have a conversation about moving right now.
Besides, if I was moving anywhere, it was back to Wilmington.
"I'm not ready."
"But you're ready to move back to Wilmington? Come on, let's go. And change out of my dress." She picked up a pair of jeans and tossed them at me.