Page 94 of The Damaged Billionaire's Obsession
“I already have a date, which is why I wanted to check if you were coming by yourself. It was pretty much last minute. As the single women in the group, we have to stick together.”
“Of course. Is your date anyone I know?” I ask, already curious. Stella and I are similar in the sense that we don't do relationships. I'm not expecting it's anything remotely serious, but you never know.
Here I am for instance, head over heels for a guy who is the complete opposite of my usual type.
“Oh, he's just some model I styled. I thought he'd look fantastic on my arm." Stella giggles. "Come to think of it, he’s got a hunky friend with a nice smile who I think is just your type,” she offers.
I raise my eyebrow. “I didn’t realize that I had a type!” I certainly have a type, but I didn't realize Stella knew that.
“More like a pattern. You like them pretty and nice and quiet. Submissive. It goes well with the dominatrix, leather-wearing, crop-snapping persona of yours.”
Gosh, it sucks when your friends notice your habits over time. “Your imagination is wild, Stella.”
“Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but still, no smoke without fire Bonnie. I can't be all that wrong,” she responds.
“Actually, you’re pretty spot on,” I admit, although with Ethan, it’s so different.
Even a lioness is a kitten in front of a dinosaur.
“Awesome, so are we going with these eye candies or not?”
“Sign me up,” I say.
Chapter 28
Ethan
I have the urgeto smash something, although I handle the delicate glass stem with care.
Ryan and I stand around the scale model of Xavier’s new hotel, the Reed. The party, which is on the rooftop terrace of the hotel on Long Beach, is exclusive to Xavier’s friends and family.
The modern outdoor furniture, frameless glass railings, and translucent panels of glass on the floors give off an air of opulence and innovation that the man is famous for.
I can’t see the beauty, though. I’ve lost appreciation for most things in the past week, teetering on the edge of irritability and wanting to snap at everything. My mood has been so black that even Dad and Ingrid have given me a wide berth.
So have the other partners. In Bonnie’s absence, I have been handling a few of her team meetings. I knew I was being an asshole by the time Logan started to cry during the one-on-one debrief. He'd fucked up bad although I didn't expect him to actually cry.
The worst part of it was, it wasn’t my conscience that made me go back to apologize to Logan; it was the thought that Bonnie would kill me if she found out I made her precious intern cry.
That's when I knew I was truly caught. In the middle of a stupidly sappy apology, I knew I'd fallen for her.
I’ve let the woman tie me up in knots, and now I’m slowly and painfully unraveling, and unable to do a damn thing about it.
There’s a reason I don’t do messy or complicated women, and what Bonnie is doing is the exact definition of messy. She gets off on the highs of experiencing conflicting emotions, but I can’t do it, not without ending up in a dark place.
Trouble is, I don't have the strength to walk away from Bonnie any more than I can tear my heart out of me. If she doesn't want me, she'll have to be the one to leave. I've never been in love with a woman before but my friends have. I know it's heaven and hell all wrapped up in one.
That break-up text was like a sword through the heart. For eight days, I’d given her space to grieve and had been missing her like hell. I’d poured my feelings into her, got her to start trusting me, and was waiting for her to return, so we could finally stop playing games.
And then, she dealt me that blow.
What is most irritating is that I know she can’t look into my eyes and say that to me. Because I see beyond her defenses, she’ll try to avoid me. The last time she did something like this, she came up with moving to Vancouver. Fuck knows what she’ll pull this time around.
Which is why I want to break something.
Right now, Ryan and I are working up a good argument about which aspects of the hotel might see the most activities. In pure Xavier fashion, there’s a nightclub inside this hotel as well. We argue that the penthouses might serve as honeymoon suites, seeing as beaches were popular wedding destinations.
Ryan, who builds ships for a living, is in the middle of describing what he might put on a yacht to compete with a hotel on the beachfront like this one, when he suddenly stops.