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I slam my hand on the table, knees accomplishing unprecedented feats as I stand up so quickly that I almost knock my chair over behind me. “Don’t listen to her,” I implore my girlfriend. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

She shakes her head in disbelief, upper lip trembling and long hair fluttering in the breeze. “Then what was it like, Julianna? Did you need those files at all? Or had you planned on fucking me the whole time I was afraid of losing my job?”

I know better than to lie. “I’ll tell you right now what I told you back then. I intended to seduce you, yes, but…”

“But you had no idea who I even was until that moment, right? I was a nameless, faceless intern you thought you could toy with.”

“But…”

“Don’t you fuckingbutme, Julianna Marcon!” Her cry of fury causes the robins to abandon the trees around us. Red claims her fair face. It takes exactly two seconds for me to know what she’s going to say next, yet I don’t move to stop her. It’s like I want… no,need… to hear her rake me over the coals. “You were going to fuck me and forget me and give your complicit girlie here a token of my pussy’s affection!”

“But I didn’t, did I?” I fling back at her. “You think you would be on this terrace right now if I had felt that way about…”

She slaps me.

My sweet, docile, submissive Alessa fuckingslapsme!

“You’re both trash.” She grabs her shawl from the back of her chair and her purse from the ground. “Fucking disgusting trash who think you can play with peasants like us because it gets your pathetic asses excited.”

“Alessa!” Where is she going? I don’t care if she did slap me. For fuck’s sake, she’s got it all wrong! “It’s not like that at all.”

“Don’t!” She stops short of knocking over the maid carrying dessert. “Don’t come after me. Stay away from me. I fucking quit… all of this. I quit it!”

I’m too shocked by this sudden turn of events to immediately go after her. Presley’s mouth is permanently dropped open behind me. Her maniacal girlfriend continues to hide her shit-eating grin behind the back of her hand.

I don’t know who to blame. Who the fuck do I blame!

Alessa…

Where is she going? How do I stop her when my feet are glued to this place? How do I make this right? Who the hell do Ithrow money at to make her come back here right now so I can explain?

Explain that her walking out of my life would be the most devastating thing I’ve ever experienced.

Explain that I…

That I love her, and now my heart has broken. I have no idea who the hell to blame.

Kill me. I am nothing without Alessa Penrose, and now she’s gone. By the time I finally regather my bearings, it’s too late.

She’s gone.

Part 5

Loved by Her

Chapter 42

Julianna

Inever retained delusions that I might enjoy my brother’s bachelor party. It’s in a city I don’t particularly care for and is, for lack of a better term, an utter sausage fest because that’s what happens when a bunch of red-blooded gay men with a shitton of money get together.

But the fact that I was dumped by the woman who could’ve possibly been the love of my life… that only adds to my misery.

I came to this party because, with any luck, it will be the only one my brother hosts for the rest of his life, and to be fair, I would expect him at my important party. Honestly, the fact that he came to my penthouse and dragged me onto the family plane playednopart.

Who the hell told him that Alessa dumped me? Was it Presley? I bet it was fucking Presley. Or maybe Vern. Someone in my office leaked that precious info to my brother.

Come to think of it, I bet it was Presley because she’s always so concerned that I’m not having enough fun. Joke’s on her. That obnoxious brat Cher Lieberfield ended up dumping her too. Right after Alessa walked out on me.