“Oh God … tell me you used protection.”
“You’re the only woman I’ve ever been with without a condom. I promise you.”
I suddenly hated him.
“Your promises mean nothing Heath. Not after this.”
I threw my bag strap over my shoulder, ready to walk out, but Heath stopped me. He looked distraught, his eyes full of tears.
“I am begging you Harlow … don’t leave me.” His voice trembled with emotion. “I always knew you were too good for me. And when I saw you with Colton … I thought you had decided to get back with him. I swear to God. Since you’ve been in my life I’ve never wanted another woman. You’re all I want. All I need. And if you stay … baby if you stay, I promise you I will never touch another woman for the rest of our lives together. Just give me another chance and I swear you won’t regret it.” He grabbed my hand. “Just stay.”
His words did little to penetrate the wall of hurt around me. It had gone up the moment I realized he had cheated on me.
I looked at him as if seeing him for the first time and reefed my hand away. I had to get away. I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him a moment longer. There was no way in hell I was going to let him see the meltdown I could feel building beneath my calm façade. He had broken my heart and I needed to be as far away from him as possible when I fell apart.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped coldly, my jaw tense, my body tingling with heartache. “You don’t get to touch me anymore.”
“Don’t say that,” he begged and then seeing me head for the door, tried stopping me. “Don’t leave … not like this … I can explain …”
My face was thin ice and about to crack.
“Okay, explain. Did you have sex with that girl yesterday?”
“Harlow, I thought—”
“Did you have sex with that girl yesterday?” I yelled the question at him.
“Yes.”
Hearing him admit to it was like a cannon ball to the stomach and for a moment I faltered because it knocked the wind out of me.
But then I straightened and adjusted the bag strap over my shoulder. My face was stiff with heartache but I held it together.
“There. You’ve explained it to me. Plain and simple.”
I shouldered past him and yanked open the door but paused in the doorway to look at him. Anger, hurt and humiliation hijacked my tongue.
“I knew you were trouble when I met you. But like a fool I trusted you. I should have listened to my instincts because now I am the one paying for it.” I glared at him, ready to deliver the final blow. “I wish I had never met you.”
I knew my words were cruel and I knew they broke him because his face crumpled as I said them. He slumped down onto the bed and buried his face in his hands.
But I didn’t care. I was too hurt to care. So I turned and left, not bothering to look back.
Chapter Sixteen HEATH
My self-loathing was palpable.
I lay motionless on the bed, staring into the dull light breaking through the curtains. I was numb with grief. I didn’t know how long it had been since Harlow had left me but going by the constant ringing of my cell I gathered it had been a while. I didn’t bother answering it.
At first I had hoped it was Harlow ringing me to tell me she had calmed down and was willing to talk things through. But it wasn’t. And the fact I’d even thought that told me what a delusional fuck I was. Harlow would never talk to me again. I didn’t deserve her talking to me again. In fact I had never deserved anything from her. She was right. I should have left her alone right from the very beginning, because she was so much better off without me fucking up her life.
The ache of her absence was overwhelming. Everything hurt and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope without her in my life.
It was crazy everything could turn upside down within a blink of an eye.
Only forty-eight hours ago my life had been a dream. I was a king, living the dream. I was in a band that was growing in popularity, surrounded by good friends and with the most amazing girl for a girlfriend.
Now I was a cheating loser, alone in an unfamiliar hotel room in Vegas with a bottle of bourbon for comfort, and a big fucking hole in my heart.
I’d done a good job confirming what I’d known all along. That I was an asshole who didn’t deserve her. She was too good for me. And I had just done a brilliant job in proving it.
A knock at the door bought me back to my gloomy reality. My first instinct was to ignore it and disappear even further into the bottle of bourbon. But the idea that it might be Harlow threw me off the bed.
But of course it wasn’t Harlow.
Because she hates you now. Remember asshole?
It was Piper and Jesse.
I hesitated, wanting to be left alone to drink myself stupid and indulge in my very own pity party for one.
“We know you’re in there Heath,” Piper called out.
I opened the door and let them in. “Have you heard from her?”
“She’s at the airport waiting for a flight back to John Wayne. Her flight leaves in an hour.” Piper dumped her bag on the table, walked over to me and slammed me in the chest with both palms. “You’re an idiot! You fucked a random girl? In an airplane toilet?”
“Piper—” Jesse started, but was cut off by a warning look from his feisty girlfriend.
She shook her head and thrust her hands on her hips.
Ashamed, I looked down at my bare feet, ready to cry, ready to punch the fuck out of the walls. This misery was like nothing I’d ever known and even though I knew I deserved it, I was desperate for it to stop.
“I fucked up Piper. I fucked up real bad.” I had to raise my eyes to the ceiling to stop the tears and exhaled deeply. “Tell me what to do and I will do it. Tell me how to get her back. Should I go after her?”
Piper was projecting four foot nothing of pure disgust. She glared at me but then she shook her head and sighed.
“Give her a chance to cool down. If you go after her now you’re just going to upset her more.” She looked at the almost empty bottle of Jack on the bed. “That’s not going to help.”
“It’ll help get me through tonight.”
“Piper’s right, Heath. If you want to fix your fuck up, annihilating a fifth of bourbon isn’t going to help. You need a clear head to work out your game plan, man,” said Jesse.
“Yeah? And what’s that? She’s never going to forgive me.”
“Probably not. But it doesn’t mean you can’t try,” Piper said. She was looking at her cell phone and for a moment I thought she might be reading a message from Harlow. But then she looked up. “There is a fight out of Vegas tomorrow morning at six. I suggest you be on it.”
* * * * *
HARLOW
I landed back in California just after seven and took a cab to the apartment. I hadn’t cried but my face was stiff with unshed tears and I felt like someone had punched a gigantic hole through my chest.
When I let myself into our apartment I was relieved to find it empty. Bridget would be doing her shift at The Palace so I’d have the place to myself for another few hours.
At least I could fall apart in privacy.
I dumped my bags on the floor by the front door and headed straight for the wine rack and pulled out a random bottle of red. Not even bothering with a glass, I popped the cork and drank straight from the bottle. The plan wasn’t to get drunk; but if that happened … fuck it. I needed to slow down the tornado of thoughts working its way across my brain.
I took the bottle with me and settled into the wicker egg chair overlooking the beach. It was still light outside but an indigo dusk was settling across the sky. As I took another swig of wine the phone in my jeans pocket vibrated against my hip. Heath’s name lit up the screen. But just like the other ten calls from him, I hit decline and shoved it back in my pocket.
My chest felt hollow. But I was too dazed to cry. The wine would help calm me but I knew it wouldn’t erase the awful mental images I had of Heath and that girl with the bright blue eyes. I didn’t think anything could erase them. Not wine. Not even time.