Page 101 of Twisted Beauty

He sat down across from her, still smiling, actually looking kind of smug. She took in his perfectly styled blond hair, his baby blue eyes, and those long eyelashes. She’d always hated that his eyelashes were longer than hers. But it was easy to see why so many women swooned over him. What they didn’t see were his temper tantrums when things didn’t go his way, or how patronizing he was toward his assistants in the studio. Why did no one notice these things but her?

“To us.” Grant held up a glass of red wine in a toast, and Liv realized she had a full glass on the table in front of her. The rest of the bottle stood between them.

Liv looked him straight in the eye. “I only came here because you tracked me down in Mexico. Nothing’s changed. You cheated on me and lied to the rest of the world about it to make me look like the bad guy. I’m here to return your ring.”

Grant set down his glass and leaned onto the table. “Oh come on, Red. We’re the perfect couple. Jilly never meant anything to me, you know that.” His voice was smooth and slick, like plastic. It made her edgy.

“Jilly? You call her Jilly? Never mind. I don’t care what you call her.”

“Don’t be like that.” Grant reached across the table and covered Liv’s hand with his. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip. He went on about something, but her heart was pounding in her ears and she couldn’t focus. She hated that he was touching her. Hated it. “You’re the one I’ve decided to spend my life with. That’s all that matters now.”

Unbelievable.

“That’s all that matters to you, maybe.” Liv clenched her teeth. This wasn’t supposed to be a fight, but damn. “Personally, I’ve always wanted to spend my life with a man who cares enough about my feelings not to fuck my friends at work.”

Grant’s eyebrows shot up and he leaned back. Liv took the opportunity to pull her hand away and tuck it under the table. “Since when do you talk like that? Mexico’s been a bad influence on you.”

Liv let out an astonished burst of laughter. “You think this is about Mexico? This is about you, Grant. You made a promise to me. You said you loved me. But you never did, did you? I think you loved how easy I made everything for you. How little I expected. For all I know, you just liked how I looked on your arm.”

“You suddenly have a very high opinion of yourself, don’t you?” Grant leaned forward on his elbows again, but all the softness had vanished from his eyes. He lowered his voice to the point where he sounded menacing. “You think someone with a degree in photography and zero experience would ever get a job like yours at the station? Everything you have in your life is because of me. You know damn well you’d never have gotten this far on your own, and you wouldn’t have that swanky apartment either. Without me, you’re just another starving artist who’s going nowhere fast. You’d do well to remember that.”

A starving artist going nowhere fast. God, those were the same words she’d been hearing for years. Almost verbatim.

“You and my mother,” she muttered under her breath. Almost as if the two of them had compared notes, and that was the only reasonable conclusion that could be drawn about her. Of course, that was ridiculous.

“Well, your mother’s a smart lady. Which is why she begged me to give you a second chance.”

“What?” A wave of betrayal swept through Liv, and she felt her jaw fall open. Her own mother begged him to give her a second chance? What the hell? “You—you spoke with my mother?”

“Yes, and she’s been trying to reach you for weeks. What kind of a daughter treats her own mother that way?”

“That’s enough.” Liv reached into her purse and fumbled for the ring. Her hands were visibly trembling but she didn’t care. She needed this to be over. She shook the drawstring pouch over the table until the ring fell out, and slid it toward him. “This belongs to you.”

“You’ll regret this. Have you seen the Twitter explosion since you left? You think anyone’s going to hire you after this?”

Twitter? He thought she cared about Twitter? Of course she’d seen it, all the hate directed at her for walking out on Mr. Perfect himself. But what the hell did that have to do with their relationship? Apparently to Grant, appearances were all that mattered.

“If you think I’m marrying you to make your fans happy, you’re delusional.”

“No wonder your mother felt she had to step in.” His voice was cold. Like a completely different person. “She was right. You can’t make a decent decision to save your life. I suggest you rethink this, Olivia. This offer won’t be on the table tomorrow.”

“I’m sure Jilly will be thrilled to hear that.” She shoved her chair back, toppling her glass of wine as she stood up. “Enjoy your five-star lunch. Don’t contact me again.”

Liv grabbed her purse before the wine could soak into it and bolted through the restaurant, knocking into the edge of the hostess stand on her way out the front door. She was so furious she could hardly breathe. She rushed down the boardwalk, needing to be as far away from him as possible.

You can’t make a decent decision to save your life.

Maybe her mother was right after all. How could she have ever thought she was in love with a man like Grant? She had to be the crappiest judge of character in the history of crappy judges. Shit. He was so fucking arrogant. She swiped at her eyes, brushing hot, angry tears from her cheeks.

She’d spent two years with him. Two years. Without even stopping to ask herself why his words never seemed to match his actions. He’d said he loved her, that she was the perfect woman for him. Yet he’d never believed in her, never cared what she wanted for her own life. Instead, he tried to make her into someone more valuable, someone more acceptable for the wife of a primetime meteorologist. Someone his adoring fans would approve of. And despite all of that, she’d accepted his proposal thinking she was, what? Doing the right thing? Finally making her mother proud? What a joke.

She stopped to catch her breath, and realized she’d made it all the way to the far end of the boardwalk without noticing. Naturally, she wound up next to a bronzed sculpture of a happy couple sitting side by side on a bench. She recognized it too, as one she’d photographed for her blog. Because the story behind it spoke to her—by an artist so smitten with his wife that he created it as a symbol of his love for her.

Ironic, considering she almost married a man who was only capable of loving himself.

And now she’d fallen for her rebound fling. A man who’d made it clear he was only in it for the sex. Which, at the time, had actually sounded like a good idea to her. She really was the queen of bad decisions, wasn’t she?

Liv waved down a taxi and climbed in. The city she’d come to love spread out before her as the taxi wound through town, but it all blurred together into a meaningless haze. Was it possible to feel numb and stupid and heartbroken all at the same time?