Playing Hard to Master (Masters Unleashed 2)

“Ugh.” She threw her hands in the air. “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not just that he’s rich. It’s that he lied. For months! That’s acceptable to you? He said he loved me with this hanging over his head. He was okay with that. Doesn’t that say something about him as a person?”

“Did he say sorry?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes. But . . .”

“Sounds like he wasn’t okay with it, then.”

He hadn’t just apologized—he’d groveled and begged for forgiveness. But if she gave in, what did that make her? A doormat. Gullible. She was a sub but certainly not a sucker.

“Let me tell you something about guys,” Jimmy added. “We’re kinda stupid.”

She snorted.

“Seriously. When guys fall in love, it short-circuits their brains. They become drooling Neanderthals and do some really stupid things they regret later. It doesn’t surprise me that a guy could fall for a girl and let a lie get away from him like this. He was probably scared to tell you. Afraid of this exact scenario.”

That was what Ambrose had told her. For a long moment, she couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d thought he’d fallen for her as much as she had for him, but after yesterday, she wasn’t sure anymore. It seemed more like she’d been a conquest. She was just another thing for him to conquer and make his. But could Jimmy be right that this was all one big accident? A messy, jumbled-up clusterfuck, but maybe not the end of the world?

Frustrated, she snapped, “Why are you people defending him? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Her mom gave her a sympathetic smile. “I am, sweetheart. Why do you think I made so much dessert?”

* * *

A few weeks later, her body felt old and used, and not just because she’d picked up more hours at work to keep herself busy. Every morning, she woke up happy, in love with Ambrose. Then she remembered what happened. It was like having her heart ripped away, again and again.

She was exhausted.

Between working her ass off and planning the big sit-in, her eyes were constantly drooping and her feet always ached. But at least she felt something. It was better than the hollowness that came when she was alone in her apartment.

“You okay, Ev?” Chloe asked, pulling her from her pity party.

She must have looked as bad as she felt. But she threw Chloe a shaky smile anyway. “Fine.” She pretended she’d been scanning the crowd. “I can’t believe how many people are here.”

Her best guess was around fifty people had come to the sit-in. Far more than Everly had thought—more than anyone at Community Cares had been prepared for. They were running out of hot chocolate.

City Council was planning to shut down the soup kitchen because so many neighborhood businesses had complained about it. Community Cares had been staging the sit-in for the last two weeks. She’d poured herself into the project, trying to feel passionate about something instead of like a zombie, but it wasn’t working yet.

She’d visited each business and asked them to reconsider their complaints. Surely, a soup kitchen next door wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t like crime had gone up. But they’d said having poor people milling around outside was making their patrons uncomfortable, even though no one was panhandling or anything.

“I guess more people care than we thought,” Chloe said, looking over the crowd.

Everly’s phone vibrated in her pocket. The only reason she checked the caller was to be sure it wasn’t her boss. As usual, it was Ambrose. She rejected the call, ignoring the big lump in her throat, then focused on her task.

Chloe and Max frowned at her sympathetically. Ugh. The pitying looks were getting tiresome. She needed to invest in better makeup if this was going to continue.

“It was him again, huh?” Max asked.

She didn’t bother to answer.

Chloe and Max sighed at each other, then Chloe took a step closer. “You need to talk to him.”

“Shut up.” She avoided eye contact and pretended there was something interesting going on at the hot chocolate stand.

“You haven’t been yourself,” Max said. “We’re worried about you.”

Ignoring them, she tried to smile at other protesters, but they mostly looked afraid of her.

“You might feel better if you just talked to him,” Chloe added. “At least get some closure.”