Barry shook his head, his face bewildered. “So?”
“So?” she shrieked. “
So
who are Susan and Melissa and Allison and Michele?”
I groaned and clapped a hand over my eyes.
“Listen, Swee—” he cleared his throat when her eyes narrowed “—Cindy. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know these women.”
“I may not be as smart as some of your friends, but I’m not dumb either. I can tell you’ve been cheating on me.” Her face livid, she advanced on him. “That’s why you stood me up those two times, isn’t it?”
“No!” He retreated as far as he could cornered on the couch, hands raised to ward her off. “No, of course not. I told you, it wasn’t on my calendar.”
Wince. Guilt stabbed me in the gut, and I heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Matt’s whisper,
that’s what you get
.
“I love you, Sweet Blossom,” Barry said with more emotion than I’d thought he’d be capable of.
“Ha!” She kicked him with the pointed toe of her strappy shoe.
He grimaced and rubbed his shin. “Sweetie, listen—”
“You’re a bad man, Barrington Wallace.” Tears started to trail down her cheeks again, but I didn’t think she noticed because she was so intent on Barry. “I loved you with every fiber of my being and you treat me like this.”
“I love you too!” he protested, his heart in his eyes.
“Liar,” she spat.
Something in my chest lurched sickeningly. What had I done?
Barry suddenly looked panicked, like it hit him that this was actually happening and that he was losing his Sweet Blossom. He started to get up, but Cindy whirled and headed for the door.
“Wait!” I said.
Everyone paused and turned to look at me.
I flushed. I couldn’t let Cindy and Barry end like this. He’d found what I found in Rio—a soulmate. It wasn’t right that they’d break up because I’d had a less than brilliant idea.
Matt had been right. (I hated that.)
The weight of their combined stares made me fidget. Shit. How was I going to fix this?
I cleared my throat. “There has to be an explanation for this.”
Cindy harrumphed as Barry said, “Yes.” She arched her brow in disbelief, crossed her arms, and scowled at me. “What explanation?”
Like me sabotaging Barry to get him to come to my sister’s party with me. I winced. Put bluntly like that, it really did sound mean.
Cindy tapped her foot impatiently and huffed a couple of times.
“Okay—” please, let inspiration strike now “—maybe Barry let a friend use his phone.”
Oh, excellent comeback, Philomena. I mentally patted myself on the back. I smiled triumphantly at Cindy.
She didn’t look convinced. Glaring at Barry, she said, “Did you?”
He frowned. “No, the only person I lent my phone to lately was you, Sweetie.”
She turned to me, eyebrow raised and foot tapping.
I gave Barry an irritated look. I’d handed him a perfect way out of this situation and he didn’t take it. What an idiot.
But I needed to fix this, so I tried again. “I bet those are just work calls he made. You know, women at the office he has business with.”
I think I heard Cindy mumble, “Yeah, monkey business,” but I figured I was wrong. I widened my eyes at Barry, imploring him to collaborate with my story.
He shook his head. “I don’t work with anyone named Allison or Melissa. And the only Susan I know is the girl who brings us bagels from the bakery down the street.”
I rolled my eyes. Another great excuse down the drain.
“That leaves Michele. If he did work with her—” Cindy sniffled and swiped at her cheek impatiently “—then it’d explain why he stays late so often. And when he stood me up he said he was at work.” She took a shoe off and beaned him in the middle of his forehead. “Jerk!”
Rubbing the end of my nose, I wondered what to do as she took off her other shoe and chucked it too.
“Wait!” I shouted before she picked up something heavier to hit him with.
Everyone looked at me again.
I had no choice. I had to come clean. I couldn’t let Barry’s life get screwed up because of a seemingly brilliant plan that was actually Waterloo in the making.
I gazed at Rio to gauge his reaction. He looked puzzled but not necessarily alarmed. Which meant he still had no clue what was going on. How would he react when I admitted everything?
He’d be okay, I reassured myself. He’d remember I loved him. It’d be okay.
And if I kept telling myself that, I might believe it.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, Mena, but it’s not going to matter. Barry obviously doesn’t love me like he said.” She stifled a sob with her fist and started to flee the room.
“Wait! It was all me.”
This time when everyone gawked at me, the looks of confusion were exponentially greater.
I took a deep breath. “I did it. I planted those calls on his cell phone. I changed his calendar so he missed your dates.”
I waited for that feeling of relief you’re supposed to get when you unburden your soul. Didn’t happen. If anything, I felt more wretched. I figure the look of betrayal on Cindy’s face was a big contributor.
“But why?” she asked faintly.
I winced. “That’s a long story.”
“I don’t think we’re going anywhere,” Barry said with obvious relief now that the heat was off him.
“Um. Well.” I took a deep breath. “My parents never paid attention to me. But then they did, only it was because of Barry. Except I didn’t find out until I broke up with him. So I thought I could get him back and they’d notice some more. There was one problem. He’d started dating you.”
Mouth gaping and eyes riveted on me, Cindy eased herself onto the edge of the couch, still away from Barry but at least she wasn’t throwing things at him anymore. Barry’s entire being was focused on her.
I nodded. This was the right thing to do, even if it caused some trouble between me and Rio. “So I thought I could break you guys up and then snap him up again.” I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry.”
Cindy frowned. “But you love Rio.”
“I know.” I glanced at him again, willing him to see I meant it.
His face was closed and his eyes stony. “Why did you agree to go out with me?”
Damn. I grimaced. Figured he would ask me that. “Because I was attracted to you?”
“Or were you playing a game?” he asked coldly. “To make Barry jealous.”
I cleared my throat again. I supposed lying when you were coming clean wasn’t a good idea. “I might have briefly considered that, yes.”
“I see.” He stood up and turned to Barry and Cindy. “I’ll take Mena home and leave you two to work things out. Okay?”
They both nodded mechanically, as if not believing what was happening.
Rio came to stand in front of me, his beautiful eyes staring at me like I was a stranger. “Let’s go.”
My heart cracked, enough that it shot piercing pain through my chest. But I nodded and followed him out of the house. In the car, when it was just the two of us, I’d make him understand.
Somehow I managed to wait until we were both buckled and the car running before I twisted in my seat and said, “I can explain everything.”
“You already have.” His voice was flat and his hands gripped the steering wheel like it was a lifeline.
Not a good sign. “No. Well, yeah, I did, but you don’t understand—”
“I think I got a pretty good idea of what happened.” He pulled out of the parking space, driving extra carefully. I think I would have felt better if he were driving like a maniac, to tell the truth. The overly careful driving, and the way his jaw was gritted, showed me just how angry he was at me.
Like I said before, not a good sign. So I tried again. “It’s not like how you think. I—”
“Which part?” he asked. “The part where you used me or the part where you lied?”
“I never lied to you.”
He glanced at me with one raised brow.
“I didn’t.” I banged my fist on the dashboard. Then I realized what I did and rubbed the console, silently apologizing for any damage I might have done. You can’t treat a thing of beauty callously. Ironic, since that’s exactly how I treated Rio. “I never lied to you. Every second I was with you was genuine.”
“You still used me. What makes it worse is that I told you about Lisa, the girl I chased to Portland, and you still did it.”
I winced. “Maybe just a teensy bit in the beginning.” I held up my hand to forestall what he might say. “But it was just the first time or so that we went out. I kind of forgot about Barry after that.”
“Kind of forgot,” he repeated slowly. “That’s really reassuring.”
The sarcasm in his voice cut to my heart. “Don’t be like that,” I whispered.
“Like what, Mena? What shouldn’t I be like?”
Everyone called me Mena, but it sounded like a slap coming from Rio. I would’ve given anything to hear another
Phil
out of him.
Oblivious to my inner turmoil, he ranted on. “I shouldn’t be hurt? Because I am. I thought we were special.”
Ouch. “We were. I mean, we are—”
“Bullshit,” he said bluntly, staring ahead. “You deceived me. You thought I could serve your purpose and you manipulated me until you had all the pieces of your chess game in the right place to go in for the win.”
I wanted to argue with him, but he was right. “Okay, I admitted it. In the beginning I was going to use you. But that was only in the beginning. Once I got to know you, I couldn’t do that. And even in the beginning, I couldn’t keep my plan firmly in my mind around you—”
“That’s a real consolation,” he muttered bitterly.
“You’re not giving me a chance.”
“Give you another chance so—what? You can cheat on me? Lie some more?” He shook his head. “I should have listened to Barry.”
I blinked. “What?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Barry warned me not to trust you. I thought he still had feelings for you that would fade when he got closer to Cindy. Guess I should have listened.”
My reply was silence. What could I say to that?
Staring unseeingly out the windshield, I rubbed my nose, which tingled with the tears in my eyes that I was trying to hide. I would
not
cry. I would not. No matter how much I wanted him to stop the car, take me in his arms, and tell me he forgave me. No matter how unlikely that was at this point.
He pulled over and put the car in park.
My heart beat so hard in my chest I thought it was going to burst out. I put a hand over it to calm it and turned to Rio expectantly. The hope that he’d give me another chance was almost painful.
Then he said, “We’re here.”
I looked up to see my house, lit brightly from within, and hope died in my chest.
I slumped against the seat. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“
The trick is learning to live with it
,” he mumbled.
I whirled to face him. “Did you just quote MacGyver?”
He heaved a sigh and rubbed his face. “Just go, Mena.”
The tears I tried so hard to suppress broke free. I swiped them as I pointed at him. “You may be mad now—”
“Mad?”
His laugh contained no trace of humor. “That doesn’t even cover it. Try livid. And more than disappointed in you.”
I’d had people disappointed in me all my life. Rio saying it shouldn’t have fazed me, but it hurt more than I could have imagined. I wanted to lash out at him and tell him to take a number and stand in line, but my tears choked the words in my throat.
I threw the door open, scrambled out, and slammed it shut. Head high, I walked slowly up the walk to the porch steps. I got all the way to the front door with my key in the lock before I heard his engine rev. I turned around in time to see him race off down the street.
My heart broke. I swear it did. I felt the already slightly cracked pieces shatter and crumble inside me as he drove off. The only guy I’d ever truly loved in an all-consuming, man-woman kind of way—my soulmate—and I’d messed it up.
I looked up at the light shining in the living room window. It was Daphne’s fault.
Shoving open the front door, I yelled up the stairs. “Daph! Where the hell are you?”
“The living room,” she called back.
I stomped up the stairs—or at least I tried to. My heels made it impossible to make any kind of satisfying noise so I had to pause halfway up to take them off so I could make enough of a thump.
Daphne was curled on the couch with a
Cosmo
, wearing a pair of my pajamas. “You made enough noise coming up the stairs. I’m surprised your tenant doesn’t complain.”