The thought is ridiculous, and it sets me off again.
“I never thought I’d see someone more pathetically and hopelessly in love than I am. And you want to know the worst part, Tay? I don’t even think they care. We’re all broken, and they’re planning their goddamned wedding!”
Ah, and there it is, the anger I’d been searching for.
“Uh, not as of last night,” he says, and I stop laughing to look at him questioningly. “Lena was there, Han, she heard and saw everything. The whole room heard and saw everything. Haven’t you read the papers?”
“Papers?”
He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me pityingly.
“They announced their split up last night. The wedding is officially off. I suppose I have you to thank for that,” he says ruefully. “And you’re wrong about Lena. She’s been trying to get out of the engagement for a while now, but her parents wouldn’t let her.”
Huh. So Selena and Taylor were getting their happy ending. I’m a little miffed about that. It seems I’m the only pathetic loser at the table, and a pity party for one is so not my style. I guess I can always clean the toilet again.
“You and her…”
“We were together last year before any of this happened. I made a mistake, a big mistake, and she walked out on me. By the time I came to my senses, she wouldn’t even answer my calls, and then they announced the engagement.”
“Now?”
I ask because I want to torture myself with somebody else’s happy ending, and maybe because knowing that something good has come from this mess makes me feel better.
“She came over last night and we got to talking. She felt so guilty about what happened with you and Lucas she kept calling you.”
Huh again. It’s weird to feel flattered that the woman who should despise me most wanted to offer me comfort. Weirder to know disappointment that the man who’d caused it all had foregone his nightly call and I’d cried myself to sleep because of it.
“I’m so glad for you, Tay. You know I love you.”
“Well, this is interesting. The mistress becoming the cuckold.”
That voice, Jesus, when am I not going to get a thrill from hearing that voice? I wonder, turning to see Gregory glaring down at us from the sidewalk.
“Lucas. Don’t—”
“Has he told you that he and Lena are together, that she broke off our engagement to run into his waiting arms the minute we were over? Are you willing to be the other woman again?” he snarls, and I see the way he’s looking at our still linked hands.
“Gregory, stop,” I hiss, feeling eyes on us.
This is all I need, another scene to go with the one I made last night, though to be fair maybe he’s due a scene. I’d run away, after all, while he’d had to stand there and face Selena and a roomful of people.
“Why? I’ve been made a laughingstock in the presence of not only peers, but the elite of New York. I’ve had reporters calling since the news broke, and I’ve had my family and Lena’s on my ass all morning. I think I deserve a chance to have my say.”
Yes, probably he does, but I don’t want to do this here, where everyone can listen and have the chance to villainize me more than I already have been. When I head home I’m so getting a paper. And then maybe moving to Alaska.
“You’re right. But can we maybe go somewhere less public?”
I’m pleading with a man who no doubt hates me, but I don’t care. I’m just happy to see him and not be alone in my misery.
“Hannah, you should go home,” Taylor says, looking between us with an anger I haven’t seen him display. “This asshole is only going to want his pound of flesh.”
“Flesh that belongs to me,” Gregory growls, daring me to deny it.
I can’t, even though I want to. I have and probably always will belong to Gregory Lucas, and all it’s taken for me to finally admit it to myself is the idea that he’s no longer taken, that maybe, somehow, I can have him. If only for a while.
“Jesus—”
“Go home, Barret. You are no longer needed. Or wanted.”
“I’m not leaving Ha—”
“If you value your place in Lena’s life, and as a soon to be member of the family, you will take the out I’m giving you and be satisfied. Old man Jeffries isn’t too happy with you or Lena at the moment. One word from me and your future isn’t worth shit.”
My heart skips a beat, and I fight a smirk. There it is, that famous Gregory charm. He uses blackmail like a marksman. He always hits his target.
“Taylor, go,” I say quietly, reading the indecision on his face.