The Rake (Boston Belles #4)(67)

“It is your apartment.”

He’d told her I was a stripper. Otherwise she wouldn’t have said it. He probably bragged about my being a burlesque club owner. Many men found my occupation sordid and attractive. Not a marry-her-one-day attractive. More like, look-at-the-freak-show-I’m-fucking attractive.

I felt the edge of the mattress dipping behind me. His impressive frame filled the bed, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“I would like to stress to you, again, that Louisa and I are not currently together nor are we engaged. I never would have bedded you had I been with someone else.”

I snorted out a laugh, refusing to face him. “Please. You admitted to me yourself that you were fucking around after I conceived.”

“Fucking around is not the same as having a partner.”

“Well, go tell all your other hookups that you finally found a keeper.”

“I don’t have any other hookups,” he said irritably, like I was the one who was being unreasonable. Was I? “The day your tires got slashed was the day I stopped taking other women’s calls. What do you take me for?”

“Oh, you really don’t want me to answer that question.”

Silence descended over the room. I could hear the birds chirping and cars honking outside. Middle of the day, ordinary noises sounded so depressing when your entire world was crumbling.

“Go marry her, Devon.”

After all, it was going to be the perfect proof that he was like all the other men in my life. Disloyal and unreliable.

“Do you want me to?” He reframed it as a question. A tricky one at that.

Did he want my blessing? To feel good about himself?

The man was going to destroy me. But I’d learned long ago that destruction had its flip side.

It set the ground for rebuilding.

“Yes,” I heard myself say. “Nothing would make me happier than seeing your ass married to someone else. Maybe that way you’ll finally stop chasing after me. It’s getting a little desperate, you know. A man of your age.”

“You’re not as young as you think you are,” he said pitifully.

“You’re considering it,” I said accusingly.

Fuck, I didn’t know what I was thinking. What I was saying.

Why was I pushing him like that?

“Yes,” he said quietly.

I broke into a thousand pieces inside.

This is what you get by opening up, even an inch.

“Well …” I smiled, hoping he couldn’t see the tears that began streaming down my face, “…don’t let me stand in your way.”

I felt the edge of the bed rise as he stood up and walked to the door.

“Roger that, Sweven.”




For the next two weeks, I was irritated and combative.

I put my anger into everything I did. I banged on the keyboard in my office while working the spreadsheets. Yelled at Ross for the dumbest reasons when he dared talk to me about anything that wasn’t work.

When my mother came over for a visit from the suburbs bearing little yellow baby clothes, I roared at her that shopping for the baby before she was born was bad luck.

And I was pretty sure I jogged everywhere instead of walked, just because of the adrenaline running through my veins.

I hadn’t seen Louisa since that day, but I could only guess Devon was seeing her.

He stopped coming home every day at six o’clock sharp as he used to.

In fact, I hardly ever saw him at all. When we did cross paths, usually early in the morning, when I woke up on the hunt for a snack and he came back from his fencing matches, he nodded at me curtly but didn’t stick around for the daily verbal abuse I treated him to.

More than anything, I felt a sharp, awful loss. I mourned all the times I treated him terribly, knowing I brought it on myself. From day one, I’d been impossible. And now, when I wanted to be possible for him, it was too late.

I was sure Louisa was still in Boston, loitering with the sole purpose of making him hers.

He was out of the apartment all hours of the day and night, probably getting to know her, reconnecting, and planning their new life together.

One morning, in the kitchen, I couldn’t take it anymore.

When he made himself a protein shake and I poured myself a tall glass of matcha juice, I turned to him and asked, “How’s Louisa doing, anyway?”

“Quite well,” he said stonily.

This was the part where I would normally insert a barb, an insult of sorts, but I was so exhausted, so depressed, so angry at myself, I asked, “Are you guys …?”

He curved one eyebrow up, waiting for the rest.

Long gone were the days when he made things easier for me.

“Are you together?” I spat the rest of the question out.

“Uncertain. Ask again in a couple weeks.”

I wanted to throw up, and I didn’t even have morning sickness anymore.

“Devon, I’m sorry.”

Sorry for the way I had treated him.

Sorry for not going to the police even though I knew it was the smart thing to do.

Sorry I was so screwed up I couldn’t keep a good thing when it was handed to me.

“Why, darling, we did both agree fucking the same person for a period exceeding five months is outrageously boring.” He reached over to caress my face with his sardonic smirk. “Time’s up.”