I can only stare at him, my mouth slightly ajar. Is that what he really thought?
Fine. Apparently we’re having this conversation here and now. I broke up with him two weeks ago and he’s been calling and texting every day since. At least I assume he continued to. I blocked his number on day four because I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
I sigh and look at him now. “Didn’t you think it was strange how I always wore my makeup all the time when we were together? Or odd that I never wanted you to sleep over?”
Chet frowns. “I guess. But girls get weird about how they look or whatever. And you have insomnia and can’t sleep with someone else in your bed. I respected that. And I lov—”
“No, Chet, you don’t.” I shake my head. “I was never myself when I was with you, don’t you get it? You don’t even know the real me.”
No one does. Because I don’t let them in. I’m so careful with the Miranda in the Mirror. Maybe Chet fell in love with her. But she’s a fantasy.
“I was tired of pretending,” I say, coming around the desk. For a while, when I first started dating Chet six months ago, I thought that maybe, if I tried hard enough, just maybe, I could be her. That pretty, normal woman. Maybe if I worked hard enough, I could get it to stick. If I had the right man, the right job, the right clothes…
But then we’d have sex, and no matter how Chet tried, he couldn’t make me cum. He was too much of a gentleman in bed. Or, more likely, too much of a wimp. I asked him to spank me a couple of times and he half-heartedly smacked my bottom. Eventually I gave up and just pretended to cum every time because it was easier and made Chet happy.
I ended it after I woke up in a cold sweat after another nightmare. I was back in Bryce’s apartment and he was humiliating me and hurting me. I woke up sobbing. And then I touched myself and came almost immediately after a months-long dry spell.
I broke up with Chet the next day and went to see that woman Lenore the day after that.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t fair to you and I’m sorry.”
Chet stands and walks to the door, not looking at me. He’s hurt and obviously trying to hide it. “Rod wanted me to ask you if you made any headway with Lennox last night.”
“What?” I ask, too sharply. What do they know about what happened with me and Dylan last night?
Chet looks my way, frowning at my overreaction.
“He asked you to talk to him at the conference, right? To see if he’d give up any information on if they were considering ProDynamics’ bid? On our processors?”
“Oh, right.” My heartbeat slows a bit. “No. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.” It was true. We hadn’t done much talking. Our encounter had been more of a… physical nature.
“Dammit, you know we need that contract, Miranda. Why didn’t you try harder? God knows you don’t have a problem using your… attributes,” he looks right at my chest, “when you really want something.”
And here’s the other reason why I broke up with Chet. Because sometimes he can be a misogynistic asshole, which, if I’m honest, was part of my attraction to him. Cause I’m fucked up like that. He just couldn’t keep it up in bed, which is the only place I really need or want it.
“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, Chet. I’m taking an early lunch.” I brush past him.
“Hi there, is Dylan Lennox in?”
“You have an appointment?” A shrewd woman in her mid-fifties looks over her spectacles at me in the lobby of Lennox Brothers Corp.
“Just tell him Miranda Rose has stopped in to see him.”
Her eyes narrow in scrutiny. “Mr. Lennox is a busy man.”
I get what she’s not saying. He doesn’t have time to pause his important work for every hussy that stops in wanting to chat with one of the industry’s most eligible bachelors.
I smile, humoring her. “I think he might want to see me.”
Of course, he could very well order his assistant here to send me away without ever uttering a word to me in person.
Somehow I have a feeling he’s classier than that. Then again, that might just be the man I’ve built him up to be in my mind as I’ve obsessed over him the past six months. But isn’t that why I’m here? To try to separate fact from fiction and let go of this fascination once and for all?
Still frowning at me, the assistant ushers me to sit in one of the lobby chairs while she picks up her phone and murmurs into it.