IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(45)

By putting expectations on my sexy stranger after a couple of texts, I was grasping at straws.

Screw him. Screw all of this, even Wells with whatever the fuck kind of games he’d been playing with me today. I was done. With all of it. Done waiting for other people to solve my problems. To come to my rescue.

Despite my fears about my mother’s health, I powered down my phone completely as I made my way to the hotel. I’d checked in with her before arriving back at the office after dinner, and she’d been tired but stable. She and her caretakers knew what hotel I was staying in, so they’d be able to reach me there if they needed to. Meanwhile, I needed to keep the temptation of Trace’s texts far away from me for the night.

I needed to remember he wasn’t mine.





16





Wells





I sat there staring at my phone—at the last text I’d sent. I couldn’t bear to have Conor out there thinking Trace didn’t care about him. I quickly typed out another message.

Wells: Wait, hold on. Let me explain.





I waited for him to respond. Obviously we couldn’t meet, that much was clear. But I could have found a better way of telling him. This was all going wrong. This wasn’t my plan—not that I’d had a plan… yet.

I’d been stupid. I’d pushed things too far, sitting across the conference room table from him while playing at being both Wells and Trace simultaneously. Essentially, I’d been lying to his face, and if there was one thing my day in the city with Conor had made crystal clear, it was that he would never forgive me for not confessing to being his anonymous sext partner. He’d been very forthcoming with his feelings about dishonesty and had admitted to initially having concerns about my own integrity.

Not only would admitting to him I was Trace make him feel betrayed personally, it would also support his assumption that Wells Grange was a liar, an unethical user. Based on how he felt about me coming into this whole negotiation situation, there was no way he’d give me the benefit of the doubt.

And it wasn’t like I deserved it anyway. Because I had lied to him. I had led him on.

I’d even let the personal information I’d learned as Trace affect the negotiations. Albeit in Conor’s favor, but still. I’d blurred the lines between the two. Used what I’d learned in one relationship to impact the other.

Because of that, Trace and Conor could never meet. He could never learn the truth. Which is why I’d had to break off the “anonymous” text conversation. It was the only way to protect him from inadvertently revealing anything else personal to me when I knew that had to be the last thing he wanted.

After his reluctance to tell me in person about his mother, I realized I could no longer play both roles with him. I couldn’t continue to hear his innermost confessions about his fears for his mother as Trace and be denied the same intimacy as Wells. It was like only getting half of him, when I wanted so much more.

There was no easy solution. I could possibly continue working on getting to know him better in person, but even that felt like a lie now. The texts we’d shared sat heavily between us like a fat, cumbersome elephant that was impossible to deal with but too sweet to ignore.

I left the office with a lead weight in my gut and a hole in my chest the size of the Holland Tunnel.

I kept my phone gripped in my hand, waiting for it to buzz that he’d responded, but it stayed silent. When I got into the car, I flicked open the messages app. Still nothing. I bounced my knee up and down, nervous energy curling inside me. It wasn’t like him to ignore my—Trace’s—texts. It had me worried.

I couldn’t help but text him again.

Wells: You okay?





As soon as I hit Send, I regretted it. Was it arrogant of me to assume that the reason he wasn’t responding was because of me? What if he was just busy? Out somewhere, maybe.

The thought had me clenching my jaw. Out where? With whom? Familiar possessiveness churned in my chest. What if something happened to him? What if someone took advantage of him? He was in unfamiliar territory in this city, and he was too trusting by far.

I leaned forward in the car. “Hank, do you mind swinging by the Four Seasons on the way home?”

He nodded with a murmured, “Yes, sir.” He was kind enough not to point out that we’d already passed the hotel, which meant he’d have to do a U-turn to get there. Not at all on the way home.

I sat back. Absently, I ran my hand across the supple leather of the seat, my eyes drifting to where Conor had sat earlier today. There’d been a moment when his hand had pressed against the expanse of leather separating us. I’d let my own hand fall next to his until there was little more than a breath of air between our fingers. I’d wanted to reach out with my pinky and run it down the side of his palm, across the delicate bones of his wrist.

I groaned, squeezing my eyes closed against the memory. What the fuck was wrong with me?

I was saved from answering the question by Hank. “Here we are, sir,” he said, pulling the car to the curb near the entrance to the hotel. He started to get out so he could come around and open my door, but I waved him off.

“I’ll only be a moment,” I told him as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. The night had deepened, turned colder. I hunched my shoulders, pulling my coat tighter around me as I strode toward the revolving door. Just before I reached it, I hesitated.