Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding #2.5)(57)

“And, isn’t that strange? I mean, all things considered,”

Chyna snapped, knowing it was a better defense than denying the charges.

“It is,” Cassandra admitted.

“Right,” she said, popping the t at the end of the word, as she rose from her chair. “I would think about what I said.

You’re the one letting him win.”

Cassandra slowly stood, too. She extended her hand toward Chyna who reluctantly shook it. Chyna was surprised she was even receiving this much hospitality. It wasn’t quite the warm welcome she had received at the Glam Ball.

“I’m sorry about Marco,” Cassandra finally said.

“Don’t be,” Chyna said viciously, trying to pull her hand back.

“I think he was madly in love with you,” she whispered, staring intently into Chyna’s green eyes.

Chyna’s mouth popped open in surprise. She was not expecting that.

“Then, you don’t know the first thing about love.”

Cassandra sighed and shook her head, releasing her hand. “I wish you did.”

She wrenched her hand back from Cassandra. How dare she! What a nosy little bitch! She had no right to presume anything about her or Marco. She certainly had no right to dash her dreams and then shove the stupid L-word down her throat.

How would she even know if Marco loved her? He was a player, and she wanted to be played. When she didn’t want to be played any longer, she left.

There was no added complication and no secret devotion between them. They were just two people who wanted to be f**ked as they tried to get ahead.

Chyna grabbed her purse off the ground, took one last fleeting glance at Cassandra Corsa, and then left the restaurant with her last shred of dignity.

She was barely keeping it together.

By the time she made it out of Barneys, Chyna thought she was going to combust.

Her hands were balled into fists and shaking. Her jaw was set, and she thought she might scream any second. Short angry bursts escaped her mouth, and people passing by glanced at her nervously. She let out a string of expletives, cursing everything under the sun for her existence today. More people stared, but she didn’t care. She was seeing red.

She took a seat on an empty bench and pulled out her phone. Alexa would make it better. She would understand…except Chyna hadn’t told her everything that had happened. They had breezed over the details when she had landed at her door.

Of course, she knew about the cover spread, but that was what she had been in Milan for in the first place. Not that she was trying to hide it from Alexa. She had told her about Marco, but Alexa had assumed, as most people would, that it was a just a fling. Nothing more. She just hadn’t gone into the details.

Plus, Alexa was leaving for Atlanta today. Another harebrained idea to deal with her men. Why couldn’t either of them manage relationships?

Chyna figured that at least she had one person left whom she could always vent to. Pressing Frederick’s number, she waited for him to answer.

“Sugar, it’s been a while since I’ve heard your sweet voice,” Frederick crooned into the phone.

“Hey,” she said, her voice lacking her normal pep. “Can you talk?”

“I’m at work but sure,” he said, kind of taken aback by her somber tone.

She usually took her lows to Alexa, but she couldn’t right now. Maybe she just wanted him to call her a bitch and be done with it.

“I can’t sugarcoat it,” she said, swallowing. She had cried once before, and the crumbling of her dreams should have warranted the same emotional breakdown. But she would not cry over this. At least this time, she found her anger. “I really f**ked up.”

“What else is new? Tell me?” he said.

She could hear him adjusting the phone, likely holding it up against his shoulder while he reupholstered a couch or sewed a pillow or wherever his interior decorating skills took him.

“Where to start?” she grumbled. “I f**ked Marco Moretti.”

“Shut up!” he cried.

“He likes it kinky.”

“Shut up!”

“I let him chain me to the bed naked, photograph me, and make a sex tape.”

“Shut the f**k up, you dirty little slut!

Can I have your life, please?!”

“Please take it,” she told him, trying hard to keep breathing properly.

“What could possibly make you want to give that shit up?” he demanded.

“That’s the thing…I did give it up. I stole a million-dollar dress, the pictures, the sex tape, left him, and came back to New York,” she whispered the whole explanation. It sounded less and less believable every time. How had she actually gone through with that?

“You…what?”

he asked, nearly dropping the phone.

“He’s ruined it all. He’s blacklisted me across the entire design market. I’ve been termed unhirable. I had a job offer for modeling in the fall, and they retracted it! They actually retracted the f**king offer!” she cried, unable to believe what she was saying. How could he be so cruel?

“I hate to say this,” Frederick said, suddenly serious, “but…he didn’t ruin it all. You did, baby girl.”

“What?” she asked, standing straight up off of the park bench in astonishment.