Page 52 of All Mixed Up

And dreaded.

The dream I could never give in to.

What the hell did I do now?

The answer to that was as blatant as writing on the wall. And the dread in my heart. And the cycling clothes in the corner, waiting for me to scoop them up.

Because my walk of shame was going to be that in a thousand ways.

The shame of what I had to do to him. The lesson that every other relationship had taught me before this…that this was the inevitability of my life, a truth that Pax and others like him had simply seen before me. I only saw it this time because Lucien and my’s soundtrack was cranked to a faster tempo.

But this time would be no different. And I had to face that shame too.

The shame of knowing I’d never be brave enough to face it, or change it.

And that I was about to break the heart of the one man worth doing it for.

10 Days and Counting

“You look like hell.”

I glared across my dressing room at the man who’d already pilfered half my basket of fries—and showed no signs of stopping there. “Thanks. Way to motivate your key talent, boss.”

Milo regarded me while chewing slowly. The air thickened, turning abnormally quiet except for the distant thud of the newest Pitbull remix. Though Avanti had opened thirty minutes prior, it was a Wednesday night with pouring rain outside. We likely wouldn’t be sold out, even when midnight rolled around.

It wasn’t optimal on the drowning-in-work scale of getting over Lucien, but it would have to do.

And it beat the alternative.

Being alone. And now, thanks to the magic of having known Monsieur Paget, being acutely aware of it.

“Oh, I’m not here as the rah-rah squad,” Milo finally answered. “Though I thought Arista took care of the atta-girls at lunch today?”

I trickled out a laugh. “Ahhhh. Now we’re getting down to it.” I rose and walked over, joining him on the couch. If anything, I was determined to get my fair share of the frites, though Claude in the kitchen would always readily whip me up a batch. Damn, I was going to miss that guy.

I was going to miss everyone.

Claude, Liev, even all the bartenders and waitresses and doormen and tech staff…they’d all come to mean more than I ever imagined possible.

Who was I kidding?

All of Paris had.

Trés fantastique. I’d found the one city in the world where I could really imagine starting over from Pax, and now it contained the two men in the world I needed to most avoid.

Slippery slope, girlfriend.

Waaayyy too slippery.

Back to a safer subject. Fries. And to this strange, pseudo-house call from my boss, whom I suspected as the subject of a tip-off from his well-meaning wife. Though my heartache had swelled into a good-sized thunderhead by now, I couldn’t imagine Leese or Greer busting past the dome of silence to which they’d been sworn. That left Arista, who had a heart of gold but a very clear alliance to her gorgeous husband.

Who was, by his own admission, not here to roll out the feel-good wagon.

So what the hell was up?

Unless Milo had started suspecting shit on his own, and was playing a mean game of reverse psychology.

Sneaky tactics, even for him—but not a plan I’d put past him either. But just like his bestie Lucien Paget, the man didn’t surrender a clue past his sublime fry-eating facade.