Since returning from Ibiza, I’ve only had a couple of texts from my cousin in response to mine, and I’m done with it.
That’s why I’m showing up in person at the small office in a strip mall that houses the charity where she works.
“You can’t stay. I have a meeting in ten minutes.” She glances around the room as if she’s looking for a door to eject me from.
“We’ve both been there for one another over the years. On some serious shit,” I emphasize. “So don’t go hating on me all of a sudden.”
Her expression clouds, and I know she’s thinking of our shared past.
“Come on, Callie. You don’t actually think I was having some affair with a man I thought was bad news?”
She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and sighs. “I think you might’ve gotten caught up in what he was selling. You did lie to me about who you were with. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
It’s true that I lied. But Harrison showed up yesterday and rocked me—not with the check, but with his words.
He’s not in LA for me, but fuck… it felt like it.
“I got carried away,” I admit.
Callie cocks her head, lowers her voice so no one outside can hear. “On some level, I get it. He’s pretty extra, Rae. An actual billionaire? He’s nothing like the guys we went to high school with.”
“Because they were such princes,” I remind her.
Her shoulders slump. “Fair enough. They were all assholes back then. The guys and the girls.”
My chest tightens at the unwanted memories that rise up. The rejection from the people who claimed to have my back. The isolation of feeling as if no one else I knew was going through the same thing.
It wasn’t Harrison’s money or status that seduced me. It was the way he wanted me, the way he made me feel more than myself. In Ibiza, at Debajo, I started to believe I was part of something again.
The shock of Mischa’s appearance and the article the next morning about me and Harrison reminded me I’d slipped into that dependence without noticing.
A woman sticks her head in the doorway with an apologetic look. “Callie, you need to be out of here in half an hour. Even if you’d work all the hours for free, Ramona needs the office.”
“Who’s Ramona?” I demand as the woman leaves again.
“The money you sent helped—it helped a lot, and we’ll pay you back. In the meantime, we gave up a couple of offices to another organization to save money.”
I look out into the hall to see women filling a waiting room, some reading, some staring at the floor. Another is pacing the floor, her dark hair swinging in a long ponytail that reaches her belt.
“I can get you more money,” I tell Callie.
She folds her arms. “No. You’ve already given us more than enough.”
I think of the check from Harrison.
What affected me more than the gesture was his words. The fact that he thinks I’m still into him.
It’s crap, of course.
But with his blue eyes staring into me, it was hard not to feel something...
Still, even if he’s here, I can’t just forget everything that went down. Callie’s right that I got caught up in his world. We’re back on my turf, and it won’t happen again.
“I RSVPed for Kian’s wedding.”
My cousin’s words jar me out of my head.
“He invited me too. I’m thinking of going.”