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The woman sounded apologetic. “Our policy is a 24-hour cancellation.”
“I understand. Wait! Can I give you another card number to charge instead?”
“That would be fine.”
Reese managed to find her purse and her credit card. When she heard the total for the day, she almost choked. But she couldn’t let Sterling foot the bill. He wouldn’t want to now, especially since she wasn’t going to use the spa. Of course, that left her with hours to fill until he was done. She couldn’t imagine waiting. Or the plane ride home.
Reese fought back the tears. She couldn’t keep crying about this all day. She should be praying for him instead. He was heading into the intervention with his sister, which he knew would be incredibly difficult. She had only seen them on television and wasn’t even a fan of watching strangers deal with such hard things. Knowing that he was probably going in with all the residual anger and the emotions from their conversation made her feel sick.
He probably had the same feeling of whiplash she did, going from ecstatically happy to crushed all in one day. At least they found out fast. Even if this now officially was his shortest relationship ever. He hadn’t exactly broken up with her, but he didn’t need to say the words. He had shown her.
Enough. She needed to focus on him and his struggles with May, which were a much bigger deal than her heartache. She could deal with that later.
Reese sat down on the balcony, watching people walk on the beach. It was hard to feel this amount of pain on such a beautiful day. As she sat, she prayed silently or sometimes in a whisper. She didn’t have a lot of words, but just repeated a few like a mantra. Be with Sterling. Help May. Restore their family. Give him strength. Heal him.
She didn’t know how long she had been outside when her phone started buzzing repeatedly. She had purposefully left it there, not ready to face Staci, who had texted her several times to see how the date went. But the continued buzz gave her pause. This might be more than a check-in.
When she saw the screen of her phone, her stomach dropped. She hadn’t thought that it was possible to feel worse than she did. But now she knew that things could actually get worse. Because in the past few hours, her life had gone nuclear. She called Staci first.
“How bad is it?” Reese whispered.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Staci said. “It’s very bad. But you know it will be okay, right? You’ll land on your feet. This stuff passes and it will all be forgotten the next time some starlet throws a temper tantrum at an event.”
“Just tell me.”
Staci sighed. “Have you really not seen yet?”
“I haven’t looked at my phone today. Just saw you calling and a million texts that gave me the heads-up.”
“There are pictures all over the internet of you and Sterling kissing on a balcony and then going into a hotel room together. You and Sterling on the beach and in a private cabana. I know you said nothing more happened, but whew. These look steamy. You said he was a great kisser and he sure looks like it.”
Reese wanted to cry. Surprisingly, her eyes were completely dry right now. She could still feel the way his lips had moved against hers and how protected she had felt in his arms, just yesterday. It only made the way he had left hurt more.
“The headlines?”
“What you’d expect. Along the lines of homewrecking slut steals Sterling James from his childhood best friend. The baby mama is back again, of course, on the talk circuit and the internet, running her mouth to anyone who will listen about how this just shows who he is.”
Reese sank down onto the couch, running her hands through her hair. “I knew that this was the wrong play—creating a fake relationship. Kevin pressured me into it, but it felt wrong. I should have said no and come up with something else. Is Kevin going to kill me? I think I’ve missed some calls from him.”
“I bet you have. I haven’t gone into the office yet.”
“Staci, it has to be afternoon there. What do you mean you haven’t gone in?”
“If you aren’t working there, I’m certainly not working there. Maybe we’ll have to move back to Texas together. Whatever. I hate him and I hate that place. I love you. And I’m sorry.”
“You think he’s going to fire me?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“I just kind of hoped.”
“Has Sterling seen this? I’m guessing not if you’re talking to me, not him, right now.”
“I’m not sure he’s talking to me at all right now, actually. I think we broke up.” Reese felt her breath catching and heard Staci groan on the other side of the phone.
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’ll be okay, but I’m not right now. I can’t talk about it. I need to focus. Maybe trying to fix this can take my mind off of the whole heartbreak thing. I think I know what I have to do. Well, at least part of it. I’m pretty sure there is no fixing what happened between me and Sterling. But as a parting gift, I can fix his PR problem.”
