pleads as he grabs my arms and forces me to look at him.
“Really, Chase, because it’s starting to feel like a sick sense of déjà vu all over again!” I huff, shaking off his arms with as much force as I can. He lets go of me and rakes a hand through his hair.
“Layla, I meant to tell you. It slipped my mind these last couple of days, as I was trying to make sure my full attention was solely focused on you.”
“So, it slipped your mind when you were having a conference call with your brother the other night? Hard to imagine that the subject of Cal’s visit wouldn’t have been a topic of conversation,” I say, my voice laced with angry sarcasm.
“Layla, Cal found out through a private investigator about my family’s struggles. When I came to him last week with my two weeks’ notice, he made the offer to be an investor if I provided him with information on how I plan to re-build the company. I never sought Cal out about this, nor did I ever in a million years consider him to be interested.”
“Humor me for a second here. Was the plan to make me fall in love with you until Cal signed on the dotted line and then completely ignore and forget about me once you had his money back in Canada?” I ask in disgust, not believing he might be innocent in all of this.
“Goddamnit, Layla, what do I have to do to show you I’m one hundred percent being honest with you? It never even entered my mind that you would react this way. I would’ve told you the minute after he offered it if I thought you would assume that I was using you to get to Cal!” He throws his hands up in the air in frustration, his eyes begging me to believe him. “When are you going to stop assuming the worse of me and start trusting me?”
“With your past track record, I don’t know if I can ever trust you,” I spit out the verbal dagger, hoping I hit my mark. And with the hurt that immediately fills his eyes, it looks like I hit the bullseye.
We stare at each other in silence and when the bell of the elevator’s arrival sounds, he’s the first one to break eye contact, making his way to the open doors.
“Well, I guess we have no foundation to build on. I apologize for wasting yours and my time.” He walks into the elevator, pushes the ground floor button, and looks at me with icy coldness as the doors close.
22
Layla
My demons won out as soon as I left Jenna’s apartment. I stopped at the liquor store before going home, bought a bottle of vodka, and went back to my apartment to continue making bad decisions. I must have written Chase five different text messages, each one containing a different message. And I deleted each one before hitting the send button. I finally fell asleep after drinking half of the bottle straight, only to be woken up five hours later to throw up, my body revolting against the liquor.
I continue to torture myself by meeting Jenna for a morning walk. She’s going to want to talk about Chase, especially since I refused to do so when I came back into her apartment to retrieve my keys and she saw how upset I was. She begged me to spend the night and sleep on the couch, but I needed to get out of there to be alone. Maybe talking to Jenna about Chase will be therapeutic. Maybe she will affirm that I need to stay far away from him.
I see her waiting for me at our meeting place on the Lakefront Trail when I stop short to see that she’s not alone this morning. Chase is with her. They are not talking as he’s standing a couple feet away from her, looking around, but the mere site of him raises my blood pressure in both a good and bad way.
“Fuck!” I yell out in frustration, not only from the hot coffee that just splashed all over my shirt and burned me, but also that I forgot he started his new job as temporary bodyguard for her. This means he’ll be with her every time I see her out. How am I supposed to talk about him when he’s right there?
“Are you okay?” she asks running up to me, concern written all over her face.
“Yes, I