Page 16 of Worth Every Moment

“Erica… come on, don’t—”

“I’m serious. I really don’t want you here if you’re standing someone else up. Please. Just go.”

“What about your ankle?”

“I’ll be fine. Please.” She flicks the back of her hand at the door. “Go have sex. I know you want to.”

At the sound of her condescending, slightly repulsed tone, I straighten, puffing out my chest. But beneath the instant defense mechanism, I’m aware of an unpleasant sensation, like my blood has turned to sludge. “Why are you saying that like it’s disgusting? Like me wanting sex might be disgusting?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Why are you being so weird about this? It’s just sex. It’s human. Everyone does it. It’s like wanking—”

She covers her face with her hands and lets out a groan. “Gross. Can you just go? Please?”

I hesitate, then point at the door. “Do youwantme to go and meet her?”

She crosses her arms over her chest, and when she speaks, her voice is devoid of emotion. “I don’t care what you do, but I don’t want to sit here knowing you have a hard-on because a woman in a hotel room is sending you naked photos.”

Fuck’s sake.“I don’t have a hard-on.” I gesture at my decidedly not-hard dick. Except… it kind of is a bit hard, like it knows Erica’s talking about it, and nowstaringat it, and it wants to say hello.For fuck’s sake.

Erica’s gaze shifts to my crotch, where there is an unmissable bulge, and her eyes widen. “Get out.”

Fuck this shit.I shove a hand in my pocket and adjust things down there. “That’s not what you think it is.”

“Oh, no? You got a sock down there? Or is it just your big fat wallet?” she says with cruel derision.

I press my palm to my forehead. “Erica—”

“Out. I am completely serious. I don’t want you here right now.” She nods at my crotch again. “Not like that.”

Shit.This can’t be how tonight ends, with me looking like a sex pest with no self-control, and her rejecting me for a misplaced semi, which is absolutely all for her.

I wait for her to say something else, but all she does is give me an ice-cold glare. I assess her for a few seconds, but her expression is hard. She’s made up her mind. I snatch my jacket off the back of the sofa and shrug into it, and when I look back at her, she’s studiously avoiding eye contact.

Fine. If that’s how she wants to play this. “Have a good evening,” I throw out. “I know I will.” I have no intention of going to find Emerald, but if Erica thinks that’s where I’m going, then so be it. Without another glance in her direction, I pace tothe door, my shoes slamming on the tiles like the repeated crack of an air rifle.

I resist the urge to slam the door on the way out, but once I’m in the hallway, all I can think is that there is no way I can ever explain to Erica what happened tonight without admitting that I really,reallylike her.

And I’m a fucking idiot for ever sleeping with anyone else.

6

ERICA

The door closes, and I sit in a stupor for a second, hoping against hope that Seb will come back. Any second now, he’ll knock on the door and walk in again.

The longer I sit there, the clearer it becomes that he isn’t coming back. He’s gone to the hotel. To the woman with the naked photos. I pushed him out. I sent him straight into her arms.

Good riddance.How dare he come and sit on my sofa and pretend to give a shit about me, when he’s half hard because of some woman in a hotel room?

But I can’t convince myself I actually feel angry when I don’t. I’m devastated that he couldn’t have concentrated on me for one evening. That I couldn’t have been enough for him, just this once.

But I’ll never be enough for Seb Hawkston. Not when he has women throwing themselves at him like that, and he’s not shy about taking them up on what they offer. And me? What can I offer? If he got his dick out, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

A horrible urge to cry cramps my throat and it has nothing to do with the ache of my sprained ankle.

I pull out my phone and put his name into the search bar. It’s a stupid thing to do, and yet I can’t stop. Picture after picture comes up of him with different women. Sometimes two of them, sometimes three. A gaggle. And he always looks so happy… like he hasn’t a care in the world. That handsome smile and his little dimple…