“I hate to say it, but it kind of sounds like you’re the mistress,” she finally adds.
I slink back down to my bed, the weight of Makenna confirming my fears hitting me. “Oh god,” I murmur.
“I mean, I don’t know. But if Dr. Phil is to be believed, if he isn’t getting it from you, he’s getting it from someone else, right?”
“You know he’s not a real doctor, right?” I’m grasping at straws, I don’t want to have these thoughts. But I can’t ignore them anymore, or ignore the apparent lack of Cole’s interest in bringing his dick to the nightly orgasm parties.
Or that he leaves right after every time.
Or that I am a girl with plain brown hair and plain brown eyes who wears flannel pajamas.
Naive girl.
“I’m not going to be some skanky mistress, if that’s what this is,” my fists ball up as I clench the cell phone in my hand.
Hanging up with Makenna, my blood pressure continues to rise as I pace. All these years, all the women I’ve seen him in pictures with and on television come back to haunt me.
I let myself get sucked back into his undertow, and I’ve been avoiding the hard talks with him. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I was happy for the first time in years, and I thought that I could move past it, chalk it up to being young and foolish maybe, but not as his side piece.
Or worse, someone he feels guilty about hurting, so these are sympathy orgasms every night, and he returns home to the hot Russian tennis bitch afterward.
I throw on clothes and pull my hair into a high ponytail. I make myself a little presentable because if she’s going to be there when I show up, I’d prefer not to look like a total loser.
An idiot in pancake pajamas.
“Klara?” I call when she walks past the bathroom.
“Ja?”
“Random question. What’s it mean when a guy will fool around but won’t actually have sex with you?”
She squints her eyes at me in the bathroom mirror as I coat my lashes in mascara, “Like he’s just toying with you?”
I nod. Is that what Cole is doing?
“I guess he’s just not that into you?”
My gut sinks.
I couldn’t compete with his world six years ago, I guess that hasn’t changed. But I have, and I’m not putting up with it anymore.
The entire way to London, I am stewing and growing more irritated, angrier. I don’t know if he’s home or who might be there when I get there. I’ve never been to his condo, but I want answers today.
Right now.
My plans to storm to his door and beat on it are thwarted by a doorman who won’t let me into the elevator until he calls Cole. I feel slightly cheated out of the plan I had cooked up in my head on the drive here, but I’m quickly allowed to proceed up.
Of course, you have a doorman, this is your world now.
My heart is racing as the elevator moves to the top floor. If there’s another woman here, it’s going to be awful. I try to get ahold of myself.
The elevator dings and the doors open. I’m expecting to have to walk down a hallway, but the elevator doors open to a private lobby for Cole’s condo. I barely have time to notice the sleek wood floors and clean, modern design because Cole is standing there waiting for me.
He’s barefoot, shirtless, and in a pair of thin gray jogging pants with his hands stretched straight up onto the door molding above him. For a flash in time, I am stupefied from the sight before me. I will myself not to stare at the prominent V along his hips.
“Good morning, gorgeous girl,” he flexes before me, all stretched out and looking like a Greek statue with a sexy smirk on his face.
“Don’t you ‘gorgeous girl’ me,” I bite, step off the elevator, and move past him.