Page 49 of The Girlfriend Agreement (Conwick U #1)

Blondie leans back in her seat, crossing her arms, drawing my gaze to her lovely collarbones and generous cleavage.

Her sharp tone has my eyes darting back up where they belong.

“Up until a few moments ago, I honestly wasn’t really sure what I was.

But now?” She shakes her head, her tongue pushing out her bottom lip.

“Yeah, I’m fucking mad ,” she decides, her eyes hard as she glares at me.

“When I first read this”—her finger taps against her phone screen—“I actually thought, for one ridiculous second, that you weren’t being entirely selfish for once.

That maybe…you were trying to protect me from what some people are saying online. ”

A heavy weight sinks into the pit of my stomach. So, then she is aware of the commentary. Or at least some of it. Does this mean she’s changed her mind about our agreement?

Would it even matter if she has?

I want to ask if she’s seen any of the positive stuff, or if she’s only been exposed to the negative, but before I can even open my mouth, she says, “I told myself you probably thought this post would somehow manage any blowback and paint this whole fucked-up situation in a more positive light.” She laughs again, and the sound cuts through me like glass.

“But it’s obvious now that this ”—her upper lip curls as she stares down at her phone with disgust—“was never about me, but entirely about you and whatever it is Damian needs. And I…well, I just feel like an idiot for ever trying to rationalize your behavior.”

I gape at her, open-mouthed. Seriously? I was doing her—doing both of us—a fucking favor, and this is how she reacts?

“ This ,” I counter, echoing the disdain in her tone as I reach for her phone, and lift it into the space between us for emphasis, giving it a shake, “was me helping you. You’re welcome, by the way. ”

“ Helping me?” she practically screeches before catching herself, taking a calming breath, and dropping her voice.

“Aside from the fact that the wording in this escalates the perception of our relationship way beyond what we agreed to, can you not see how I might feel used? You have literally set me up as a tool to sell your bullshit redemption arc. For fuck sake, do you even mean any of what you wrote? Are you even remotely sorry about any of it?” Deflating, she rips the phone from my grasp and tosses it on the table.

When she next speaks, it’s as if all the fight has left her, the voice that held such fury only a moment before now barely a whisper.

“Did you only write that post to stop your parents from disowning you? Because you’re afraid they’ll take away your allowance ?

” Though her tone is soft, she spits that final word with contempt.

The guilt that gnawed at me earlier fully surfaces now, sinking its teeth into my neck as if determined to rip out my throat. What the hell do I even say to that? Sorry for dragging you into my mess without a proper plan?

Maybe she’s right to be pissed at me. The Instagram post, this stupid dinner…

I don’t even know if any of it is helping or if it’s only making things worse.

Part of me is convinced that my parents are just hanging me out to dry, waiting to see if I’ll screw this up even further before cutting me loose for good.

I didn’t want to admit it—not to myself, not to her—but that’s the real reason I’ve been avoiding Blondie the last two weeks.

Not because of midterms, not because I thought she might need space to adjust to the media frenzy, but because of this growing fear writhing inside me that all of this might have been for nothing.

And the longer I let that silence stretch, the more intense that fear grew until, in a moment of desperation, I convinced myself that enduring this dinner would be better than another day of waiting for absolutely nothing.

So, what the fuck can I say that will in any way make this right between us? That will convince her I’m not the asshole she’s making me out to be?

Definitely not what I find myself saying, that’s for fucking sure.

“That’s an awful lot of judgment coming from a paid accomplice.” I sneer, returning her glower with a scowl of my own. “Don’t act like you’re suddenly above all this.”

Blondie scoffs. “ Accomplice ? Accomplices work together, but every decision that impacts how people view us—how they view me —you’ve made without my input.

So, no, I’m not your accomplice, Damian.

I’m just another pawn for you to use and then cast away at your leisure once I’ve finished serving my purpose. ”

Plucking the napkin from her lap, she pushes back her seat and tosses the white cloth on the table before rising and grabbing her phone. As she shoves the device in the five-hundred-dollar clutch purse I bought her, she begins to walk past me, but then pauses mid-step beside my chair.

“These problems you’re so worried about?

” she murmurs, her tone quiet despite its serrated edge.

“They’re nothing compared to what other people face every day, so don’t expect me to feel sorry for you because Mommy and Daddy aren’t paying attention to you…

or to play along with this. I refuse to be the crutch you lean on to justify your shitty behavior. ”

Then she walks away, leaving me to stew over her damning words alone.

The restaurant seems to go completely silent, or maybe it’s Blondie’s deafening judgment of me—my own judgment of me—that blocks everything else out.

Is that really what I did—place the entire weight of my public transformation on her shoulders by unknowingly turning her into some kind of unwilling symbol of my redemption?

I suppose I did know what I was doing. I actively chose to cast her in the role of my forgiver because I needed a way to repaint this picture of us in pretty colors, so people will only see the revision instead of the original image underneath. And using Blondie was the easiest way to do that.

It wasn’t my intention to demean her. When I made that post, I merely wanted to show my parents that I am capable of owning up to my mistakes. Of taking responsibility like they want me to.

And besides, I do regret the list and the bet, so it’s not like I didn’t mean any of it.

I am sorry, and I was thinking of Blondie’s well-being when I wrote those words.

Shit, I presented her as a benevolent goddess of forgiveness, but then…

I never actually asked her for her forgiveness in the first place, and I realize now, that’s the problem.

I took that choice—that decision of whether I even deserve absolution—away from her, and pushed her into a role beyond what she bargained for just to prove a point to two people who might not even be listening.

Fuck. Blondie was right. This really was just another bullshit stunt, and I was too blinded by my own selfish needs that I couldn’t even see it.

Mussing a hand through my hair, I down the rest of my wine in one gulp and push back my chair. When I stand, that’s when I see it: the dozens of eyes watching me…and the phone across the room that is definitely filming me. Filming us .

And I have absolutely zero doubt that it just caught every second of Blondie storming out.