Treat Me (One Night with Sole Regret #8) (20 page)

Tina laughed. “Are you seriously scared of me, big sis?”

Amanda narrowed her eyes and opened her car door. If Tina wanted a fight, she was going to get a fight. But Amanda wasn’t going to start it. She closed the door and leaned against the overwarm metal, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Why did you come here?” Amanda asked.

“You have to break up with Jacob.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “I’m not breaking up with him, Tina. I don’t care about your feelings on the matter.”

“Do you care about
Julie’s
feelings?”

Amanda scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you think she’ll feel bad if the reason her mommy is always crying is because her backstabbing whore of a sister is fucking her father?”

Amanda’s jaw hardened. “You wouldn’t do that to her.”

“And won’t you feel terrible when Jacob doesn’t get to see Julie because—I don’t know—she’s too sick to get out of bed during his visitation weekends.”

“You can’t keep them apart, Tina.”

“I can’t? Are you sure about that?”

“It would destroy him.” And Amanda obviously wasn’t the only one who realized that.

Tina smiled coldly. “And won’t Jacob feel horrendous when he realizes the reason he’s not allowed any happiness is because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants
again
.”

Could anyone really be that cruel? What did Tina want from him? “He doesn’t love you, Tina. Just let him go.”

“You’re going to break up with him,” Tina said. “You’re going to do it tonight in person at Jack’s Grill so I can make sure it’s done. And you’re not going to mention that I had anything to do with your decision.”

“I’m not.”

Tina shrugged. “I guess you don’t care if you destroy our entire family. Making your niece hate you will be easy. It might take a little more effort to get Mom and Dad to disown you, but I don’t doubt I can do it.” Tina tapped her jaw with one finger as her gaze focused upward. “So, should I tell Mom about your fling first? She’s always thought you were a good person. This slut move is sure to change her opinion of her darling daughter. Or maybe I should go crying to Daddy first and let him tell Mom. Daddy never really liked you anyway.”

“Why would you do any of this? Why do you care so much that I’m with Jacob?”

Tina didn’t answer her questions. Instead she said, “So are you going to do as I ask and break up with him?”

“No!” Amanda said. “I’m not breaking up with him just because you can’t stand that he’s with me. Jacob is worth any shit you can throw at me, Tina. Do your worst.”

Amanda shoved Tina aside and headed for her front door. Her hands were shaking so bad she dropped her keys twice on her way up the brick path.

“Having him between your thighs is worth your parents hating you?”

Amanda figured they’d get over it pretty quickly. They were the type of parents who forgave their children, though Amanda didn’t really think there was anything to forgive. She’d fallen in love with someone they didn’t particularly care for—they still believed he was a horrible man who’d done their youngest daughter wrong—but if they saw how good she and Jacob were together, they’d eventually understand. Maybe.

“Is he worth your niece turning against you?” Tina called after her. “I’ll find a new babysitter for her. You’ll never see her.”

Amanda stopped in her tracks. Tina wouldn’t really manipulate her four-year-old daughter to get what she wanted, would she?

“I wonder if Jacob thinks
you’re
worth losing his daughter’s devotion over. Maybe he’s willing to risk it. And by the time he realizes how much Julie despises him, it will be too late to fix their relationship.”

Amanda pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. Her throat tightened, choking a sob from her. She tilted her head back and blinked up at the darkening sky to keep the tears in her eyes from streaming down her cheeks.

Jacob was worth any adversity to her life, but to Julie’s? Amanda wasn’t cruel enough to hurt her Julie Bean in any capacity, but she knew Tina was. Tina wasn’t making veiled threats. She would keep Julie out of Amanda’s life. She would find a way to keep Jacob from seeing his own daughter. Make his little girl hate him. Tina would do anything in her power to destroy Amanda’s fledgling relationship with Jacob, even if she had to use Julie as a pawn.

The fucking bitch.

“If I break up with him tonight, you’ll leave Julie out of this.”

Amanda could picture her sister’s smile of victory, even if she didn’t have the stomach to turn around and look at her.

“Of course,” Tina said brightly.

Rage boiled in Amanda’s gut. She wondered how much time she’d have to serve for murdering the cunt on her front lawn. Surely it would be deemed a crime of passion; that had to carry a lighter sentence than cold-blooded, premeditated murder, didn’t it?

Or maybe there was a way to prove Tina was an unfit mother and have her lose custody of Julie. Was using a child’s happiness to manipulate your sister into breaking up with your ex-husband grounds for a custody battle? Amanda doubted it. She couldn’t see a way out of this. The only door open to her was the one Tina was holding wide.

With Tina watching over her shoulder, Amanda fished her phone out of her purse and dialed Jacob.

Jacob was searching his fridge for items to round out a chicken dinner when his cellphone rang. He smiled indulgently when he saw who the caller was: Amanda. She missed him already? He knew the feeling.

“Hey,” he answered. “Did you get lost?”

“Um, not exactly,” she said. “Can you meet me at Jack’s Grill? The meat in my fridge is beyond saving.”

“I can probably find something here to cook.” Would she mind having pancakes for dinner?

“You just don’t want to be seen in public with me.” Her teasing laugh sounded breathless, but maybe it was just the phone connection.

“Of course I do,” he said. “I want the whole world to know you’re mine.”

“So you’ll come?”

“I’ve already done that with you several times today, but I can probably go for another quickie.”

“Jacob,” she chastised.

He scowled, puzzling over her lack of reciprocal flirting. One of the traits that he loved most about her was that she always countered his teasing with a comeback.

“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,” he said. “I still need to put on pants.”

She hung up without saying goodbye.

The entire drive to Jack’s Grill, Jacob couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Not only was it odd that Amanda wanted to meet for dinner in a public place when she knew he was naked and waiting for her, but he’d sensed a tension in her that he’d never felt from her before.

He spotted her car in the parking lot, but it was empty, so instead of dragging her into the back seat for that quickie he’d mentioned, he entered the noisy establishment and scanned the crowd for signs of her. He smiled when he spotted her, but she was staring into a bright green cocktail with a tight expression on her lovely face. Had her cat died while she’d been at his place or something?

Jacob sat on the stool across from her and reached for her hand. She tugged it away and hid it between her knees.

“I can’t see you anymore,” she said.

His breath caught in his throat, threatening to choke him. “What?”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” she said, her words hurried, almost practiced, as if she were reciting a speech. “The sex is great and all, Shade, but our little fling isn’t worth destroying my family over.” Her lips pressed together, and she looked down at her lap. “It’s best if you just stay away.”

“Where is this coming from, Amanda? We both know this is more than a fling. I love you.”

She flinched away from him as if he’d slapped her.

“And I know you love me too.”

She released a brittle laugh. “Yeah, well, I don’t or I would have said so. I always thought you were hot and all, but now that I’ve had what I was after, I’m moving on. You need to move on too.”

She slipped off the stool, but he grabbed her arm.

“What the hell?” he said. “An hour ago we were trying to figure out how to spend more time together and now you’re cutting me off entirely? What happened between then and now?”

She tugged at her arm, refusing to meet his eyes. “Why are you being so stubborn? I said I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“But what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. You can’t just turn off your feelings like a switch.”

She laughed. “You can if you never had feelings to begin with. Now let go of my arm.”

“I’m not letting you go, Amanda. Tell me the truth. What’s going on?”

“Don’t you get it?” she yelled. “Or are you too fucking stupid to grasp the simplest concepts?”

The background noise went silent, or maybe his ears just stopped working. The confusion holding his hurt at bay shattered. Anguish clenched his gut, expanded within his chest, and clawed up his throat.

“Do you really think someone like me would fall for an idiot like you?” she spat at him. “I just wanted to get laid by a rock star. That’s all this was.”

The strength melted from his fingers, and her arm slipped from his grasp. She backed away several steps, but apparently felt the need to deliver another blow to the metal stake piercing his heart.

“Thanks for the nice time, Shade, but I have better things to do than you.”

He was too stunned to fight for her. For them. Who was this person? It wasn’t Amanda. Not the Amanda he knew. Not the Amanda he loved. But maybe she was just like her sister and kept her inner bitch at bay to get what she wanted and then unleashed all her darkness and cruelty when it served her purpose.

“I’m going to the ladies room,” she said, “and when I get back, I want you to be gone. Don’t try to contact me. You’ll only make it harder for yourself. I’m through with you, Shade. Do you understand?”

The only thing he understood was how it felt to have his heart ripped from his chest and kicked around a dusty wooden floor, but he nodded anyway.

“Good,” she said. “Leave. Now. No one wants you here. Least of all me.”

She turned—golden brown hair dancing around her shoulders with the motion—and stalked away. That was when Jacob noticed everyone in the bar was staring at him. More than one person was recording his misery on a cellphone. He was sure that within the hour, the entire world would be able to watch him—Shade “Rock Star” Silverton—get his heart broken on YouTube.

Why had Amanda done it in public? Why had she done it at all?

Jacob pulled the sunglasses from the neckband of his T-shirt, flicked them open, and crammed them onto his face. Jaw set, Shade made his exit through the bar’s front door, giving everyone watching a one-finger salute as he went back to the life he knew best.

Thank God he could still rely on his fucking band.

Amanda stopped just outside the ladies room. The guy who’d hit on her on Friday was standing next to the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a knowing smirk on his handsome face. “I guess you skipped step one and went directly to full-out, man-hating bitch mode.”

Her eyes narrowed. She hadn’t skipped step one. She hadn’t even gotten to step one yet. “Go fuck yourself,” she spat at him before slamming both hands into the bathroom’s swing door. She gave zero fucks what he thought of her. Wasn’t sure why he’d taken the time to rub the breakup she’d predicted into her face. Asshole.

Before Amanda had even managed to cross the threshold, the tears she’d been holding in check started to fall. She somehow managed to stifle an anguished sob until the door swung shut behind her. Thank God Jacob hadn’t followed her. She wouldn’t have been able to force herself to say another cruel thing to him no matter how loudly her sister’s threats rang in her ears.

“That was brilliant,” Tina said as she burst into the ladies room a moment later. “He left all pride and swagger as usual, but for a minute there, I thought he was actually going to cry.”

“If you value your life, you’ll get the fuck away from me,” Amanda said in an animalistic growl. Her hands balled into tight fists and her eyes narrowed into slits. She wanted to hit something—
hard
—and Tina’s face would serve as the perfect target.

“You did the thing properly, at least,” Tina said with a self-serving chuckle. “He’ll never take you back after that public humiliation. Half the bar was recording it on their phones.”

Amanda’s stomach clenched, and she pressed her fingertips against her quivering lips. How could she have been so heartless? And to Jacob? He was always so good to her. Had she really called him stupid? An idiot? She knew how sensitive he was about his intelligence, and she’d fucking used his greatest weakness and insecurity against him? How could she have done that to him? In front of all those people?

But she had to go for the death blow, otherwise he wouldn’t have left. She’d had to break him to save him.

Oh God, Jacob, I’m so sorry.

With a wave of crippling grief, her stomach lost its battle and she raced into a stall, barely making it to the toilet before she heaved up everything she’d eaten in her entire life. Tina left Amanda sobbing and puking her guts out, kneeling on a grimy bathroom floor over a less-than-sanitary toilet. Amanda was surprised her sister hadn’t snapped a picture of her triumph before she abandoned her.

Tina had won. As usual. The bitch who always fought dirty had won.

So this is what rock bottom looks like
, Amanda thought as she used cheap, scratchy toilet paper to wipe her mouth.
It’s better than I deserve.

Thinking of what she’d done to Jacob brought on a new set of tears. She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor of the stall crying—several women entered the bathroom and a few even tried to help her—but she was completely inconsolable. She just wanted to cry until she was so dehydrated she couldn’t make any more tears.

It was Leah’s voice that finally reached her.

“Amanda, it’s me, honey. Unlock the door.”

“Leah?” Amanda croaked. Her throat felt as if she’d taken up sword swallowing as a new hobby.

“Tomás called and said you’d been crying in the restroom for over an hour and needed me to come get you. What happened?”

“I broke up with Shade.” She sniffed. The entire time she’d been focused on Shade, not Jacob. Making herself believe she was tearing apart the
rock star
—who must have a heart like a polished diamond—had been the only way she’d been able to get through that ordeal. But that rock star had looked like Jacob and acted like Jacob, and the pain in his expressive blue eyes had definitely been Jacob’s.

“Oh God,” she sobbed and curled into her knees, covering her head with folded arms as the tears began to flow again. She felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach a few hundred times. But what was worse was that she knew she deserved any pain she had to endure.

“Amanda,” Leah called through the narrow crack in the door. “Open up and let me in.”

Amanda shook her head. She didn’t want Leah to make her feel better. She wanted to wallow in this misery.

“If you don’t unlock the door, I’m calling the fire department,” Leah warned. “You wouldn’t want a bunch of sexy firemen to see you with crying-jag face, would you?”

Amanda didn’t give a fuck, but she figured she’d already hurt one person she loved today. She wouldn’t want to upset Leah too.

Amanda wiped her face on the hem of her shirt and pressed her hand against the wall to gain enough leverage to get her wobbly legs beneath her. Her stomach heaved, but she didn’t have anything left in it to hurl. She swallowed against a parched throat and released the bolt with a trembling hand. The door swung out, and Leah peeked around the green metal. Her jaw dropped, and she scurried into the stall to join Amanda, bolting herself inside.

“Oh God, sweetie, you’re a mess,” Leah said, but she didn’t try to clean Amanda up with cheap toilet paper. Instead, she immediately folded Amanda into a comforting embrace, setting off another flood of tears. “It’s going to be okay,” Leah repeated over and over again, but her words didn’t mean a thing to Amanda. It decidedly was not going to be okay. Nothing would be okay ever again.

When Amanda’s sobs turned to sniffles and her full-body quaking lessened to occasional shudders, Leah drew away and stroked Amanda’s tear-drenched hair from her cheeks. “Tell me everything that happened. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Nothing will make me feel better, Leah.” Well, maybe if a meteor shot out of the sky and struck her sister dead . . . No, even that would suck because Julie would have to go through the pain of losing her mother. And even with Tina out of the picture, Jacob would never love Amanda again. Not after the heartless things she’d said to him.

“I promise it will, sweetie.” Leah glanced around their less-than-inspiring surroundings. “But maybe we should go home first. It smells like vomit in here.”

“That would be my fault too,” Amanda said dully, her energy completely sapped.

She allowed Leah to lead her out the back exit so there’d be fewer prying eyes burning into the back of her neck. Thankfully, the asshole—Anthony was his name, she recalled—was no longer leaning outside the bathroom door. She probably would have kicked him in the nuts if he’d still been there. Because Amanda was too shaky to find her keys, much less drive, they took Leah’s car, leaving Amanda’s in the parking lot.

The distance to Amanda’s house wasn’t far, but as soon as Leah turned out of the parking lot, she said, “Start talking.”

“I don’t know where to start,” Amanda said, clutching her small purse to her chest. The phone inside had been silent for over an hour. Part of her had hoped that Jacob would call and fix the mess she’d made—that Tina had insisted upon—but part of her was glad he hadn’t. A clean break would be easiest for all of them. If she kept telling herself that, maybe she’d start to believe it.

“Start at the beginning.”

Amanda told Leah about setting off Jacob’s alarm and spending Friday night and Saturday morning alone with him.

“That morning, he told me he loved me,” Amanda said, the ache in her chest so sharp, her heart struggled to beat.

Leah pulled into Amanda’s drive, put the car in park, and turned to study her. “I’d say that’s fantastic, but I’m assuming this story doesn’t end well.”

Amanda shook her head miserably.

“Why don’t you go wash your face while I make you a chocolate milkshake? We’ll talk all night if you need to.”

Amanda smiled at Leah. She was already feeling more rational. Leah was a soothing constant in her life. She wasn’t sure what she’d do without her. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

“You’ve rescued me plenty,” Leah said, opening the door and climbing out into the balmy night air.

Cicadas cried repetitively to the summer sky. Crickets filled in the chorus with higher-pitched chirrups. The scent of freshly cut grass drifted over from a neighbor’s yard, and a dog up the street barked a sharp warning. Nothing unusual about any of those things—Amanda must have experienced them hundreds of times—but she’d never taken note of how comforting the mundane could be. Amanda was glad Leah had brought her home. She wrapped the familiar around her like a protective cocoon.

“We’re going to have to find a new hangout,” Amanda said as the motion-sensing porch light switched on and she fit her key into the front door lock. “I’ll never be able to show my face at Jack’s again.”

“No huge loss,” Leah said glumly. “Only losers go there anyway.”

Amanda glanced over her shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“Remember that guy Colton from Friday night?”

“Yeah.”

“He never called me after . . .” Leah lowered her gaze.

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Maybe.” Leah shrugged. “Okay, yeah, I did. We had lunch on Saturday, and I didn’t mean to get so intimate so soon. It just sort of happened.”

Which is why he didn’t call you
, Amanda thought, but Leah didn’t need to hear that when she was hurt.

Amanda reached out and stroked Leah’s silky jet-black hair. “I’m sorry he didn’t call you. He seemed nice. Maybe he just needs a couple days to figure out how awesome you are.”

“Men! They’re such assholes.” Leah scowled at the ground.

“Not all of them,” Amanda said, her thoughts on the wonderful time she’d had with Jacob that weekend
before
she’d pulverized his heart and his pride.

“Okay, correction,” Leah said as she followed Amanda into the house. “All the men
I’ve
ever been with are assholes.”

“You’ll find someone great,” Amanda said. “My theory is that if you strike out enough times, eventually you’ll get lucky and hit one out of the park.” And when you finally do, you probably shouldn’t make him hate your fucking guts, she added silently.

Setting her purse on her console table, she gave Tinkerbell a scratch behind the ears as she passed her lounging on the back of the sofa. The calico stretched out her paws and produced a mighty yawn, but obviously didn’t give two shits that the human who fed her and cleaned her litter box had returned home. Amanda had always been more of a dog person, but when Tinkerbell had shredded one of Tina’s curtains and Tina had threatened to take the stray Julie had found hiding in their drainpipe to the pound, Amanda had agreed to adopt the tiny kitten. She didn’t regret the decision—Julie adored the standoffish cat—but was it asking too much for a tail wag of greeting when she came home after a hard day? Tinkerbell leaped off the couch and padded toward her food bowl in the kitchen. Apparently unmitigated affection
was
too much to ask from the furball.

Amanda entered the only bathroom in her small cottage and washed her face with cool water. She made the mistake of looking at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked like she’d been to Hell and back, but she felt like she hadn’t actually made it back.

The blender whirred to life in the kitchen as Leah started making the promised chocolate shake. Moments later, Amanda was slurping the cold creamy concoction while she continued to tell Leah about her weekend. Soon they were both sighing over the sexy, sensitive, and virile hunk that was Jacob Silverton. He really was amazing. Their sighs turned to mutual outrage when Amanda’s story ended with Tina’s attack and her demands that they break up.

“That’s blackmail!” Leah said.

“It’s worse than blackmail,” Amanda said.

“I’ve always hated your sister, but now . . .” Leah snarled. “What she did . . .” Her entire body was shaking. “This is just too much.”

“There isn’t anything I can do about this, is there?” Amanda focused on Leah, hoping the woman’s super brain could devise a plan to make everything work out.

Leah rolled the tip of her straw between her fingertips and got that far-off look she’d typically sported when she was puzzling out the answer to a tough school assignment. After a long moment, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything. In every scenario, Julie is the one who gets hurt.”

Amanda sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “Exactly.”

Leah reached over and touched the back of Amanda’s hand. “Unless Tina’s just bluffing,” Leah said. “Maybe she’s just talking out of that perfect ass of hers.”

Amanda shook her head. “She isn’t bluffing. Tina never bluffs. You know she’d have no problem using Julie as a wedge between Jacob and me. If I hadn’t ended it tonight, the situation would have gotten worse, not better. Tina won’t back down until it suits her.”

What really irked Amanda was how Tina always managed to make everyone take her side. Somehow Tina would twist Amanda’s affair with Jacob into something tawdry and cheap. Everything would end up being Amanda’s fault when all was said and done. Except Leah. Leah had always been in her corner and Amanda trusted that she always would be.

“How can anyone be so selfish?” Leah fumed.

“She’s always gotten everything handed to her, so she thinks whatever she wants is owed to her. Nothing will stop her from taking what she wants. Did I mention that when we were having that brawl in Jacob’s driveway, she said that she still loved him?”