Fucking hell, how did I fall in love with something that wasn’t real?
“You look like shit,” Todd says as he walks into the office and sets a cup of coffee under my nose.
“Fuck you,” I reply and sniff the coffee, then decide fuck it and take a drink, then scowl. “This is black.”
“You’re the one that turned into a pussy and decided to drink coffee rather than tea, mate. I have no idea how you take it.”
“Fuck you again,” I reply and set the cup aside. “Let’s get to work.”
“Okay. But first, what’s going on? I thought you were bringing Charly.”
“Don’t want to discuss it. Let’s work.”
“Great.” He nods and sighs in frustration. “Speaking of work, we had all of the slots filled for the retreat this fall, but we had one back out last night. Savannah Boudreaux sent me an email and said that she wouldn’t be attending because she refuses to give her time or money to a hypocrite.”
I sigh and push my hands through my hair, frustrated.
“Fine. Grab someone from the waiting list.”
“So, you’re not going to tell me what happened.”
I stand and stomp across the office, staring out the window. Todd’s the only one who has known everything as it happened in my life. He’s my closest mate, and I trust him implicitly.
But talking about it cuts deep.
“Yesterday was a bloody disaster.” I pull my phone out of my pocket, bring up Alex’s email, and hand it to Todd, then turn back to the window.
He reads silently behind me for a moment. “What the fuck?”
“Keep reading.”
“‘You know that I never would have been able to have an affair with Amy if you’d been keeping her happy. You were too obsessed with work.’ Fuck him. I always hated Alex.”
“I know.”
“‘But speaking of the company, you wouldn’t be where you are now without my contribution in the beginning. My lawyer agrees that I’m owed compensation.’”
I turn around to see Todd stare at me in horror. “Is he on motherfucking medication? He thinks he’s going to get money?”
“He won’t,” I reply, much more calmly than I feel. My blood is still boiling over that email. “I forwarded it to my lawyer, and they’re on it. He doesn’t have a case. He’s just broke and grasping at straws.”
“He’s an arsehole,” Todd says and finishes reading the email, then passes it back to me. “Not a great way to start any day.”
“No.” I shake my head and sit at our conference table. I can’t get comfortable, no matter what I do. I spent all night pacing my flat.
“So now you should tell me why Savannah sent that email and Charly isn’t here.”
“Charly is no longer a part of my life,” I reply shortly. “That’s all there is to it.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Todd says. “What happened?”
“The same thing that always happens. I went to surprise her at work and walked in on her with another man.”
I glance up and Todd is scowling, shaking his head. “I don’t buy it.”
“Saw it with my own bloody eyes.”
“Charly Boudreaux was fucking another man. You saw it.”
I shake my head and decide bugger it and take a sip of the horrible coffee. “They hadn’t gotten that far yet, and I wasn’t about to stick around and watch.”
“So you didn’t actually see it.” Todd sits across from me and fiddles with his wedding ring.
“I saw enough.”
“Sounds like you were having a shit day and saw what you wanted to see.”
“Fuck you,” I reply and throw the coffee against the wall. “I made the mistake of trusting her. Of trusting me with her. And it didn’t work. I may give good advice, but my own love life has been one big fuck up.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” he says, unfazed by the coffee dripping down the wall. “But Charly isn’t Amy, Simon.”
“Seems they’re not that different.”
“But you’re different. You didn’t love Amy, mate. You cared for her, sure, but you were with her out of some misguided sense of responsibility. You thought you could save her, but she didn’t want to be saved. Amy is a bitch, plain and simple, and you can’t fix bitch.
“Are you saying Charly is a bitch too?” Todd asks and I clench my fists, ready to come out swinging. “Guess that pissed you off.”
“You don’t know shit. You aren’t walking around in my shoes.”
“Because you have horrible taste in shoes,” he replies. “But this time around, you didn’t have horrible taste in women. You don’t know for sure what you saw yesterday because I bet you didn’t stick around to ask many questions.”