Page 129 of The Billionaire's Baby

Of course, it is. And I am here, why? Because the asshole manipulated my life so he could ensure that I was close enough for him to keep tabs on me.

I raise my glass and throw back more of the vodka.

"Have you two met?" Isla looks between us. "This is my friend Ava, and this," she turns to me, "is Karina—"

Ava's face brightens. "You are Arpad’s—?"

"Not Arpad’s," I growl."

She blinks, then her cheeks redden. "Sorry, didn’t mean to imply something where there isn’t anything."

"There was, but now there isn’t." I toss back the vodka so quickly that my stomach protests. A numb feeling grips my hands and legs. Good. Not that I like getting drunk... In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did. But nothing like starting in the present moment, right?

"Oh," her lips tilt down, "I’m sorry."

She turns her body away from me, and I know I’m being mean. Isla glowers at me. I frown back. I am not really ready for company. But I couldn’t bear to be inside the apartment, even though he’d promised me that he was disconnecting the cameras. Not that I trust him.

I had dumped my phone, gone through the space to ensure I had found and destroyed each of the cameras—all of it expensive, top notch equipment, that I had taken great pleasure in wrecking under the heels of my favorite pair of designer shoes.

I nod at the bartender and he refills my shot glass again.

Isla grabs my hand. "You’re going too fast," she protests.

"Not fast enough," I grumble.

Ava pulls out her phone and taps out a message, then she slides onto the barstool on my other side.

"I’ll have what she’s having," she beckons to the bartender.

"You will?"

She nods.

"What about your friends?" I scowl.

"I just messaged them to say I'll catch them later. It's more important that I am here to keep you company while you get over your heartbreak."

Heartbreak? Is my heart broken? I thought it was more the disappointment that I hadn’t conceived. Hell, this was only my first time trying. The band around my chest tightens and I feel a hot, stabbing sensation. How do the women who try for children for months, years, decades sometimes, manage to keep going? Do they have more self-confidence than me? Are they simply luckier than me? Maybe it isn’t meant to be for me?Oh, stop that.

Ava raises her shot glass of vodka to me."Salut."

"Nostrovia."I clink my shot glass with hers. We down it at the same time.

The alcohol slides down my throat, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. The lack of sensation that follows is totally awesome. My head spins, then everything in my vision seems to pop and sparkle. Jeez, it’s like I finally took off the blinkers I’ve been wearing so far.

"I am sorry for my mean girl attitude earlier," I mutter. "It’s just… Well… You know…" I stare at her face, the trusting features, as she watches me, unblinking. Bloody hell, this girl really is so young. "Forget it." I wave a hand. "It’s not worth discussing. Just please know, I am not normally this horrible."

"Yeah, normally she wouldn’t have spoken to you at all," Isla chimes in.

"What?" I gape at her, "Are you telling me I’m normally a nose-stuck-in-the-air—"

"Haughty, condescending, bitch?" She nods.

I open and shut my mouth, and she chuckles. "I was only joking, silly."

"No, you weren’t." I swallow. Shit, is this what the few friends I have think of me? Why the hell do I have so much trouble hanging onto the people who mean something to me? Like him? Why did everything have to go so pear-shaped with him? It could have been different, couldn’t it? He could have meant everything he’d said to me. He could have actually wanted me. He could have married me for real and I could have gotten pregnant in my first try and we could’ve lived happily after, raising little Solonik-Beauchamp babies… In a suburban neighborhood with white picket fences… Not. I can’t stop myself from snorting. As if we’d ever be something so…bourgeois? Shit, now I was even thinking like him.

I turn to Ava, then reach for her hand and squeeze it. "I am sorry for being such a bitch," I swallow, "I really didn’t mean to come across so… so…"