50 Hidden Desires by Jessica Lemmon

Author:Jessica Lemmon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

MONDAY CAME AND went.

Then Tuesday.

Then Dalton let Wednesday pass him by.

He didn’t go back to LLM that week, phoning the receptionist each morning and telling her he had the flu.

By Thursday, he didn’t bother calling. On Friday, he decided maybe it’d be easier to not show up and get fired after all.

He couldn’t go in there and see Holly. He just couldn’t. The idea of feeling what he was feeling and seeing her completely ambivalent made him want to howl.

Hell, he’d never been in love before. He was in uncharted territory. Before he’d even had his bearings, she crushed him—now he was suffering from a breakup he hadn’t seen coming. Dealing with this much pain from losing the woman he loved was worse.

He’d never done that before, either.

The women he’d dated in his past were in and out of his life quickly. Rarely did they bother calling again. They’d slide from lovers into the acquaintance zone, seamlessly in most cases, or, more often than not, end up sliding off the map. They had no reason to keep in touch.

Holly wasn’t like that.

There was no way to slate her into any zone other than the Larson Zone. She was one of them and he could see now how he’d foolishly built his entire life on a foundation laid by their family. Home. Work. Love.

All intertwined with the Larsons.

He’d boxed himself in and now there was nowhere to go.

Worse, there was nowhere else he wanted to go.

He’d been sitting on the couch for days, being at one with the cushions and binge-watching some show on Netflix he never wanted to watch when it was actually on the air. He’d managed to take a shower each morning, and eat at least once a day, so from the outside he probably looked like he was functioning.

He started season five of The Show He Barely Cared About when there came an angry knock at the door.

Followed by a shout.

“Dalton! You asshole! I know you’re in there!” More banging.

Using the remote to shut off the TV, he pushed to standing and went to his apartment door. When he opened it, Jace muscled past him.

“Won’t you come in?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t hit you and then come in.” Jace turned on him, nostrils flaring.

“Look, I know I didn’t call in. And I’m behind on the Brownsboro billing.”

“I don’t give a shit what you’re behind on at work.” His best friend stepped closer, looming. “What I care about is my baby sister who can barely function because she fell in love with you. Why did you…” He shoved both hands into his hair and stared, speechless for a moment. “How could you do this to her?”

Dalton’s brain was whirring, circling six words in particular that Jace had uttered.

She fell in love with you.

“No, she didn’t,” he said numbly.

“No, she didn’t what?” Jace grated.

“She didn’t fall in love with me!” Dalton shouted. “She dumped me because she’s too good for me. She wants us to go back to the way things were and I can’t because I love her so much I feel like I might die without her.

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