My hands are heavy and numb as I grab my dress from the side of the bed and drag it back on. I jerk the zipper up, not caring that it catches midway. I don’t check my appearance in the mirror attached to the dresser, because I know what I’ll see. A red-faced, humiliated woman. I find my bag and leave Lucas’s bedroom, gripping the bannister tightly as I walk down the stairs, the sound of running water following me. I don’t turn around until I’m at the bottom, and by then I’m breathing heavily.
“Screw you too, Lucas,” I whisper in a broken voice before I let myself out.
I don’t call a cab until I’m a block away from his mansion. By then, I’m nothing but runny mascara and the taxi operator has to ask me for my information three times.
Chapter Eleven
Lucas
In my whole life, I’ve had three regrets.
The first is the shit that Sam will hold over my head until one of us is gone—or until it no longer benefits her to screw me over with it.
Number two would be Samantha herself.
And number three is the fact that when I come out of the bathroom—still seething, but at Samantha and myself—Sienna is gone.
I’ll be there in an hour, shithead, Sam’s last message had said, and I’d lost it.
Letting the towel fall from my waist to the floor, I sit down on the bottom of my bed and squeeze the bridge of my nose. When my phone rings a minute later, I know exactly who it is. I start to throw it at the wall, but I grab the next best thing—a pair of handcuffs—and hurl them instead. Then I answer, finally giving Sam exactly what she wants.
“You’re in Los Angeles?” I demand.
“Took you long enough to answer,” my ex slurs. “I was about a day from coming to you.”
My vision suddenly goes red. “You’re still in Atlanta?”
“Wait? Did you really believe that shit about me being there? Why the hell would I come to you?”
She’s not here. Sam’s not f**king here and I’d just sent Sienna away for nothing. I squeeze the phone, listening to the sound of the plastic cracking beneath my grip. “You’re f**king crazy,” I snarl. Sam only laughs because she knows it’s true. Not like she gives a shit about what I think anyway.
“I need a favor,” she says.
When Sam’s done telling me exactly what she expects from me this time, she makes a comment that stays in my mind for the rest of the night, and for the weeks afterward, like so many of the things she’s said to me over the years.
“You can’t control everything, Lucas.”
“Someday,” I respond coldly, and she laughs.
***
I go to wardrobe the next morning, unsure of what I need to say to Sienna but knowing that I need to say something.
I’m a dick.
I messed up.
I don’t do relationships, but, f**k, I want you.
When I let myself into the wardrobe room, which is no bigger than a closet, though, the only person I find is Sienna’s loudmouth boss. “Is the other wardrobe girl here?” I ask, stepping inside. She looks up to give me a sugary smile.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wolfe, but I had to let her go.”
My face pulls into a frown, and I wait for her to explain. When she doesn’t say shit, my impatience gets the best of me. “What do you mean you had to let her go?”
The woman—Amber is what I think Sienna had called her before—shoves a bunch of sketches into a pink folder. “She wasn’t a fit for this assignment.”
“That sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”
Amber sighs, facing me full on this time. “Ms. Jensen spent the majority of the few days she worked for me . . . unavailable.” She gives me a pointed look, and I suck a sharp breath through my teeth.
Not only had I run Sienna off last night, I’d f**ked up her job too.
“Well hire her back,” I order.
“She’s already disconnected her number.”
An hour later—after I’ve called Sienna’s phone to find that Amber was right, it has been disconnected—Kylie comes into my dressing room, playing the part of concerned little sister. She sits on the coffee table, biting her bottom lip.
“Spit it out,” I growl.
“You know where she lives,” Kylie says, as she tucks her hair behind her ear.
“I’m not going to grovel.”
Kylie gives me a disgusted snort. “God, Luke, I want to kick you in the balls sometimes. I don’t know what happened”—she holds up a hand, squeezing her eyes together—“and I don’t want to know, but I’ve got a feeling you were a shithead. Saying sorry for being that . . . Well, it’s not groveling. If you care what she thinks about you, make things right.”
“And if I don’t care?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Then be yourself.”
That night, I stand outside of Sienna’s apartment ringing the doorbell like an idiot until her tiny roommate answers. Leaning her weight against the doorframe, she glares up at me. “Yes?”
“I need to see Sienna.” The words sound awkward coming from me.
“She left.”
“To do what?” I ask in a clipped voice.
The woman pushes away from the door, backing up into the foyer as she rolls her eyes. “She moved.” As she starts to shut the door in my face, I shove my foot inside. “Just so you know I’m not above calling the cops. Not even on Lucas Wolfe.”
“Nobody picks up and moves their life in 24 hours,” I say. When the woman cocks her eyebrow, I add, “Is she f**king in there?”