Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
After the fastest shower of my life, I drove Porter to his truck. The second he got out of my vehicle, I called Emily on speaker.
“Beth! Are you okay?”
Weird. Last night felt like a hundred years ago.
“Emily, I’m so sorry about last night.”
“Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The charges got dropped.”
“Yeah, Porter texted us last night and told us that.”
It burned me that he had thought to do that and I hadn’t.
“I promised to text you!”
“Don’t even worry about that. You’re okay, and that’s what matters.”
“It gets worse.”
“What!”
I confessed everything. From pretending with Porter in front of Yates to Mom’s surprise dinner invitation. When I finished, there was nothing but silence on the end of the line. “Say something,” I begged.
She didn’t hold back her laughter. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Well, you and Jackson have been nothing but kind to me, and you sent me your friend to help me, and if he attends dinner with my parents, he won’t come out of that as the same person he was going in. I’m about to break your friend.”
She was full-blown laughing now. “Beth.”
“I shouldn’t let him do it. It’s too cruel, even for me. And I’ve done some cruel things in my life.”
“You haven’t.”
“Have so.”
“Like what?”
“Remember when Cindy Morrison’s locker had a garter snake in it? And she fainted?”
“Yes.”
“That was me.”
“Beth!”
“She was such a bitch to you. And I might or might not have catfished her with a certain quarterback.”
“That was you?”
“I told you I was cruel.”
Emily laughed until she snorted. “She blamed me.”
“I know. I felt awful about that.”
“I didn’t. It was worth it.”
“I don’t want to break Porter. He’s your friend, and he seems like a decent guy. No one deserves to go up against my mother.”
“Porter can handle himself.”
“Remember when I started dating Yates? Mom hated him for the first year, and he was the golden boy.”
“What’s the favor you have to do for Porter?”
I paused. “I don’t know. He’s very secretive about it. What’s his story anyway?”
Silence.
Which meant only one thing. There was something big there. “Emily, tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Her voice was prim.
“You’re holding out on me? ”
“It’s not my story to tell, otherwise you know I’d tell you.”
“But you’re admitting there’s a story.”
Emily floundered like only she could. “I really like Porter. He’s a very good person.”
“What else?”
“I’m glad he’s helping you.”
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“Yeah.”
“If tonight is a massacre, his blood is going to be on your hands too. Last chance for me to bail out of this dinner.”
“I think it’ll be good.”
I snorted. “For who?”
“For your mom.”
Huh. I hadn’t expected her to say that.
“Stop freaking.”
I perused Porter. He was wearing a black suit and, this time, a white shirt that actually fit around his neck. He looked really handsome.
“I’m not,” I lied, as my racing heart flutter in my chest.
“You haven’t stopped jiggling your foot since we started driving.”
I worked to calm my leg. Tonight was going to be a nightmare. I was used to Mom. Few people knew how to manage her. I needed to be the strong one tonight. “I’m totally fine.”
“Do your cue card thing.”
“My what?”
“Give me some intel.”
My mind swirled. Where to start? Mom was the biggest control freak I knew. She made it her life mission to make everyone in her world do her bidding. “About my mom?”
“Tell me about Yates. ”
My tone soured, “We dated for three years. He’s part of my parents’ world. Dad recently hired him as his campaign manager.”
“What campaign?”
“Mayor of New York.”
“You ended the relationship?”
A memory flashed through my mind of letting myself into our apartment. I’d moved into Yates’ penthouse condo a year after we’d started dating. One afternoon, I had left work early due to a migraine.
When I entered the penthouse, the place was silent. I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen, took my meds, and headed to our bedroom.
When I pushed open the door, Yates was vigorously fucking someone. My glass of water slipped out of my hand. I remember watching the glass bounce. Water splashed everywhere, but the glass didn’t shatter. It bounced and then rolled away from my feet.
It’s weird what you remember when life thrusts you into a life-changing moment.
And then Yates pulled out of the woman and stood with his hands held up in front of him, his hard, traitorous dick bobbing stupidly in the air. “I can explain.”
Couldn’t they always?
The shock had muted me. I didn’t say a word when Traci, my boss, the woman who’d made my life a living hell for two entire years, sat up.
That was who he'd chosen to fuck.
Out of everyone he could have cheated on me with, he picked a woman that had routinely and systematically bullied me. He knew how she tortured me, stole my ideas and took credit for my projects. He held me when I cried over the way she treated me, yet he chose her to fuck.
That, even more than the cheating, had been the ultimate betrayal for me.
I had disappeared to a hotel for three days, devastated and broken, while everyone I knew tried to get in touch. The only person I called was Emily. It took me another two weeks to find an apartment and get a job working at a temp agency.
Only then did I return to his apartment.
To end it and pack my stuff.
“I ended the relationship,” I said to Porter, my voice cold.
“Why?”
“Because I deserved better.”
“Remember that,” he said, as he pulled his truck into the parking lot of Bayswater.
And for the first time in a long time, I remembered what healing felt like, and damn, if Porter didn’t have a hand in that.