Easy Kisses (The Boudreaux Series Book 4) (24 page)

“Don’t worry, boss. We got this.” Linda winks and leaves me alone with the delicious smells coming from the bag Simon delivered. I grab my phone and type out a quick text to him.

I’m so sorry that I missed you! I was dealing with some needless drama, but all is well. Excited to see you tonight! And thank you for the food. <3

I hit send, dig into some gumbo and get back to work, hoping to wrap things up early so I can get home, see my man, and finish packing.

***

“I’m going to London, uh huh, uh huh,” I sing, changing the words of the song on the radio as I turn down my street. I’m dancing in my seat, jamming out, on top of the world.

“Now I’m just cheesy,” I mutter as I kill the engine and dance my way toward the door. “And I don’t even care.”

I giggle as I open the front door. Simon’s car is parked at the curb, so he’s home already.

“’Ello, Govnah,” I say in the worst imitation of a British accent ever. “I’m home! Are you ready to—”

My voice dies and I stop cold when I see Simon standing in the living room. His suitcase is sitting next to him. He’s wearing jeans and a polo; his hair is still wet from a shower.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve decided to leave tonight,” he says. His voice is cold, and I’m completely thrown off balance.

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m mostly packed, just give me fifteen minutes to finish up and I’ll be ready to go.”

“No.”

My gaze flies to his. He’s not looking me directly in the eyes.

“I’m going alone,” he says. I don’t know who this stranger is.

“What’s going on, Simon?”

He shakes his head once. “This isn’t going to work out, Charly. I think we both know that.”

“We do?”

He nods and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“And you’re leaving.”

“I was always going to leave,” he replies. “I just changed my mind about you coming with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I did.” His jaw ticks as he clenches it; his blue eyes are ice cold. Every muscle in his body is tight.

He’s pissed.

And by God, so am I.

“You were never going to take me with you.”

He simply shrugs, and I see red.

“So, when I bought a four-thousand dollar airline ticket last week, you didn’t think
that
would have been a good time to tell me that you’d changed your mind?”

“You can afford it,” he replies. “Don’t pretend like it was a hit on your trust fund.”

Direct hit.

My fists clench, but I make myself keep my face passive.

“You’re a dick,” I say.

He shrugs again.

“And you’re a motherfucking hypocrite. You spew all these ideals about communication and knowing your worth and then you play me like this? Was this always a game for you?”

“It doesn’t matter what it was for me,” he replies and grabs the handle of his suitcase. “I stayed to say goodbye.”

“Well, thanks for small favors,” I reply. “I don’t have to take this from you.”

I walk to the front door and open it, holding it open for him.

“Someone taught me to stand up for myself and to not settle for less than what I want. You should meet him sometime. He’s a hell of a man.”

He sighs and walks to me, pausing before he walks out. He reaches up to drag his hand down my face and I jerk back before he can touch me.

“No. You don’t get to manipulate me and then touch me. You don’t have any right to be anywhere near me.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you need to get the hell out of my house. Now.”

“I didn’t manipulate you.”

“Wrong.” I lean in until my nose is inches from him. “You’re no better than your ex-wife. You deserve each other. Thank God I found out now, before I fell in love with you.”

He steps onto the porch and I slam the door shut, standing in the middle of the room, stunned.

Am I in an alternate universe? Am I asleep? Is this some stupid episode of Punk’d?

No, that show went off the air years ago.

I hear Simon’s car start and pull away, and I’m numb with pure anger.

“Serves me right,” I say as I march upstairs to my bedroom and begin unpacking my bags. “I knew from the beginning that he wasn’t forever. I
knew
it. And I let myself fall in love with him anyway.”

I shake my head, disappointed in myself, as I carry my underwear into the closet. “It’s better to find out that he’s a lying, manipulative piece of shit now. Who needs him? I don’t. I don’t need anything from him.”

My phone buzzes with an incoming text. If it’s Simon, I’ll smash my phone against the wall.

What a prick.

But it’s not Simon. It’s Van.

Have a blast in London! Take lots of pictures.

I smirk and reply,
I’m not going. He dumped me and left.

I toss the phone on the bed and set to work unpacking the rest of my things and wiping him away from my life. I need him gone. Now.

If I let the anger pass without using it to fuel my need to wipe any trace of him out of my house, I’m afraid that I’ll crumple and not get back up.

That asshole.

“Don’t let him do this to you, Charly.” I stow my empty suitcase under my bed and strip the sheets off it, shoving them in the washing machine with jerky, angry movements. “He’s got the problem. Not you.”

I’m leaning over the bathtub, giving it a good scrubbing when I hear footsteps behind me.

“What the hell is going on?” Van asks.

“I’m cleaning.”

“I see that.”

Suddenly, Kate calls out from downstairs. “Where are you?”

“Upstairs,” Van yells back.

“You called
Kate
?” I ask and sit back on my heels, glaring at my sister.

“Of course. Callie’s with her.”

Both women come running into my bathroom and frown when they see me kneeling at the tub.

“What’s happening?” Callie asks.

“I’m having a Mardi Gras party in my bathroom,” I reply, my voice clipped. “Why are you all in my house?”

“We’re here for the party,” Kate says. “Gabby won’t be here for a couple of hours. That’s what sucks about living so far out of town.”

“I don’t need any of you to be here,” I reply, angry all over again. “I’m not a child. I can handle this.”

“What, exactly, are you handling?” Van asks. “And would you please stop cleaning the tub? I’m sick of talking to your ass.”

“It
is
a nice ass,” Kate says.

“He’s gone.” I stand and throw my rag in the sink, then tear off my gloves. “Simon went to London.”

“Without you,” Callie adds.

“Without me. He said he changed his mind, and that this wasn’t ever going to work out between us.”

“What the hell?” Callie demands and props her hands on her hips. “That makes absolutely no sense.”

“He’s a man. They rarely make sense,” I reply with a shrug and march out of the bathroom, through my bedroom, and downstairs to the living room. The girls follow me down like baby chicks following their mama.

Baby chicks.

I shake off the memory and wrap the anger around me like a warm blanket.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say finally. “He’s right. I knew he wasn’t the one for me, and I let myself get attached. That’s my fault.”

“You’re pinning this on yourself,” Van says in surprise and I shrug.

“Well, it
is
my fault. I trusted him, and I let him in. I shouldn’t have. It’s on me.”

“I want to deck her,” Kate says to Callie, who nods. “But I’m not a violent person.”

“I can be,” Callie replies. “This is
not
your fault.”

I stop pacing and let my hands fall to my sides, staring at Van. Her eyes are sad, and that just tears me apart.

“I want to stay mad. If I don’t stay mad, I’ll fall apart, and I refuse to shed even one tear over that British pain in the ass.”

“Okay.” Van nods with encouragement. “Being mad is good. But at
him.
Not you.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say at last. “I’m confused. How can he go from being the sweetest, most loving man this morning to a stranger this evening?”

“You didn’t fight?” Callie asks.

“No. We made love this morning. And then he attacked me in the shower. And then I went to work.
Nothing
happened. I haven’t even seen him all day.”

“This is on him,” Kate says, shaking her head. “Something might have happened with him, and it scared him off.”

“Or he’s a piece of shit who was manipulating you,” Callie adds.

“I like that one better.”

I sit on my ass in the middle of my living room and look up at these amazing women who I love more than anything and feel my eyes fill.

And that pisses me off all over again.

But I’m all out of energy.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, sugar,” Van says and sits next to me. She wraps her arms around me and hugs me close, letting me cry a little. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m only going to cry for a minute, and then I’m going to forget him.” I wipe my face and look up at Kate and Callie, who both have tears of their own. “He’s not worth this.”

Except, I thought he was. I thought he was
everything.

And now I know it was nothing.

Chapter Nineteen

~Simon~

“Can I get you anything before we take off, sir?”

What in the bloody fuck just happened?

“Sir? Mr. Danbury?”

I glance up at my name and realize that the flight attendant has been trying to get my attention.

I don’t fucking care.

“What?”

“Can I get you anything before we take off?” She offers me a wide smile and glances down at the ink on my arm, and all I can think is,
get the fuck away from me.

“No.” I wave her off and scowl at my phone when it rings. “Mother.”

“Hello, Simon. I’m glad I caught you. It’s not too late, is it? I can’t keep track of these time differences.”

“It’s fine, Mum. What’s up?”

“Well, I just got off the phone with Amy, and I really think—”

“Listen to me very carefully,” I say, interrupting her mid-sentence, which would have gotten me slapped when I was a boy. “I want you to stop speaking to that woman. Now.”

“Simon Daniel Danbury, you do not speak to your mother that way.”

“Yes, apparently I do. I’m not going to say it again.”

“Sir, we’re about to take off. You’ll have to turn your phone off.”

I wave at the attendant again and sigh.

“Are you on a plane?” Mother asks.

“Yes, I’ll be home tonight.” I take a deep breath and realize that it’s time my mum and I had a long heart-to-heart conversation, no matter how much I hate the idea. “I’m going to come to your place on my way home from the airport. Will you please make sure Dad is there too?”

“Of course, darling. Have a safe flight. I’m so happy that you’re coming home. I’ll see you soon.”

We click off and I check my messages, not expecting to see anything from Charly, certainly not
wanting
to see anything from her, and yet I’m disappointed when there’s nothing. I open the last message from her and read it for the fifth time since she sent it earlier this afternoon. She thanks me for bringing her lunch, sorry that she missed me.

She should be thankful that she missed me. I wish I’d never gone to surprise her. Then again, I wouldn’t have seen her get cozy in the storeroom with her ex, telling him that she’d see him when she returned from London, showing me exactly what I was getting myself into.

Today was a long series of events that led to me seeing the truth: I can’t trust her. I can’t trust
me.

We’re better off without each other.

And thank God I saw it before I took her to London and fell even further in love with her. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing: falling completely in love with her.

First, I got an email this morning from Jack, my former partner and friend, the man I caught in bed with my fucking
wife
. It was full of spite and hate and such rambling drivel that I was on edge, every cell in me screaming for Charly.

So I went to her, needing to see her, to talk to her, to hear her soft voice giving me words of wisdom, putting everything in perspective in that sexy as fuck accent of hers.

And instead I found her in the arms of another man.

That seems to be the story of my fucking life.

Was this all just some elaborate mind fuck for her?

It’s time I get home, back to work, back to my responsibilities, and remember what’s important.

That doesn’t include dishonest women disguised in a sexy package.

***

“Simon,” Mother says, staring at me with tear-soaked eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“A lot of reasons,” I reply and stare at my father as he paces their living room, his hands linked behind his back. When he’s this quiet, it means that he’s angry.

“No reason you might have,” he says with controlled anger, “is ever good enough to not tell us that your ex-wife was emotionally abusive.”

“I know,” I reply. “At the time, I was just focused on trying to help her. And when it was all over, I told you the truth, that I caught her being unfaithful, and I thought that was a valid enough reason to leave. I just didn’t think it was necessary to bring up the rest of it.”

“But I wouldn’t stop speaking with her,” Mother adds and hangs her head in her hands. “You told me to stop, but I wouldn’t listen. I just wanted everything to be okay, and I knew that she’d made a mistake, but I’d hoped that you could work it out, especially when she told me over and over how lost she was without you, and how very sorry she was.”

“She’s excellent at manipulation.” I sigh and wrap my arm around my mother’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Mum. I should have told you more.”

“I can promise that I won’t be speaking to her again, except to give her a piece of my mind.”

“She’s not worth it,” I reply, shaking my head.

“I gave her money,” Dad says. “She was pathetic and sad, saying that you wouldn’t help her.”

“You gave her
money
?” I ask, appalled. “Jesus, Dad, I didn’t even know that she’d come to you with that bullshit.”