Page 82 of Worth Every Moment

He watches me carefully, as if he’s readingeverythingon my face. And then, rather than question me on it as he’d normally do, his expression hardens as he breaks eye contact.

He approaches the table and takes a seat opposite me, rubbing a hand over his forehead and up into his hair. “I’ve got to tell you something.”

My heart hammers an uneven beat. “Are you fake breaking up with me?”

“No.” He puts his hands on the table, fingers splayed, and stares at them. I stare too, because damn, he has perfect man hands. But—ugh—I hate this anxious feeling that’s bubbling up while I wait for him to tell me whatever is on his mind. “I’m really sorry, but…” He closes his eyes and time drips, slow and thick.

“Oh, God. What is it? How bad?”

He winces, opening his eyes to stare at me while his face is still angled towards his hands. “That depends.”

“On what?” He sits, quiet.I can’t take it.“What? You’re making me nervous. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He frowns, reassessing. “Not really.”

“Why are you being so weird then?”

He looks up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” he mutters, as if he’s praying to some god stuck between the downlights. Then he looks back at me and it all sprays out like a round of bullets. “My bedroom. There are cameras in there.”

I don’t move.

“I asked you not to go in there,” he adds, and my stomach plunges right to the marble floor. “I saw…everything.”

My body flushes hot, panic roaring through me. “Oh, God. Oh, my God. You saw?”

“Yeah. I saw.”

I cover my face with my hands. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. So sorry.” I can’t look at him. I completely abused his rules. Hisspace. I’m aterriblehuman being. I invaded his privacy and masturbated on his bed, and heknows. Hewatched. But…

Hold on.

A single thought jerks at the chaos rampaging through my head.He watched.

More thoughts tumble like a house of cards now that I’ve picked up the first one.

He was on the phone. He wastalkingto me. My head snaps up, hands falling from my eyes. “Wait, you watched? Youwatched?”

He lowers his chin.

I cup one hand over my mouth and point at him with the other. “You were on the phone and you saidnothing? You let me…fuck, you just watched? You sat there in your office and watched me and saidnothing? How could you do that? You… you—”

“You asked me to keep talking. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

“Not keep talking,” I shriek. “Not… let me… to the sound of your voice. Oh, God.Your voice. Jesus.” I cover my face with my hands again, but they’re trembling. “You… you could have said something. A friend would have said something. A friend would—”

“You went into my bedroom after I specifically told you—”

“This is a total betrayal of trust.” My voice sounds gritty; hard and somehow broken all at once. “How could you… how could you? You should have hung up. You should have—”

“Should have what? Politely asked you to stop masturbating on my bed? Don’t make out I’m the bad guy. You’re guilty here too. Yes, I could’ve stopped you. I probably should have. But I’ve sat on the sofa beside you for years and done nothing. Not touched you. Not held you. Not really. Not the way I’ve wanted to.” He clenches one fist on the table. “And I’ve fucking wanted to. So much. So if you’re asking me to stay on the phone whenyou’re lying naked on my fucking bed, then I’m staying on the fucking phone. I’m not goinganywhere. Because I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you coming undone on my sheets.”

Heat burns through me at his words, and despite the humiliation raging through me, a throbbing begins between my thighs. I leap out of my chair. I can’t sit still and keep staring at him across the table like we’re having a casual supper together.

“No. No. Don’t say that. Don’t say any of that. I don’t want to hear it.” I bite my knuckles, hoping the pain might wake me from this nightmare. It doesn’t, and I let my hand drop. “All this time?All this time? I thought we were friends. I thought… That’s not friendship… that’s… that’s—”

“You know what isn’t friendship?” His harsh tone cuts across me. “Letting yourself into someone’s bedroom”—he points violently in the direction of his bedroom—“while they’re at work and giving yourself an earth-shattering orgasm on their bed. That’s not fucking friendship.”

He’s right. This isn’t friendship. This is a mess. A fuck-up. A giant, enormous fuck-up, all because of that article and the film and the PR… and the stupid fake dating that feels like maybe it wasn’t entirely fake after all.