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I pack up my things slowly, the sick feeling in my gut worsening. I feel like absolute shit by the time I get home.
I drop my bag by the door, stumble past the still-unsorted bags of clothes that Declan bought for me in Paris, and collapse straight onto the couch. Without sitting up, I pull out my phone and start browsing takeout menus. Right now, I’m in desperate need of some comfort food.
Luckily for me, I’m not completely alone—there’s a knock at the door. With a groan, I heave myself to my feet and cross the apartment to open it.
It’s Reagan. She greets me with a smile, which fades as she takes in my expression.
“God, you look awful,” she says. “I heard you come in and thought I’d stop by—I just got back. I wasn’t expecting you to look like a zombie.”
“Thanks.” I sigh, then open the door wider, inviting her inside.
Reagan joins me on the couch. “So what’s up? Bad day at work?”
“You have no idea.” I plop down next to her, picking up my phone to continue perusing delivery apps. I select a local Chinese place that I’ve tried a few times in the past. “I’m getting takeout. I need some calories. You want anything?”
“I’m okay,” Reagan says. “But don’t let me stop you. Tell me everything.”
As I add crab Rangoon and kung pao chicken to my cart, I regale Reagan with the story of this past weekend. I tell her about Declan taking me to the airport and surprising me with the private jet.
She blinks, astonished. “He took you to Paris?”
“Yeah.” I nod, clicking through the last steps of the ordering process. “Insane, right?”
“I’ve never even been out of the country, unless you count Canada,” she says wistfully. “So he took you to Paris. That doesn’t exactly explain the bad day. Are you jet-lagged, or something?”
I set my phone on the coffee table and shake my head. “God, I wish. No, the trip got cut short. It was great while it lasted, but an emergency came up that Declan had to deal with. And is still dealing with. It’s kind of a crisis.”
“Oh, no.” Reagan bites her lip. “Nothing too bad, right?”
“His father’s trying to take over his company,” I explain. “It’s a long story. You can read about the gist of it if you pick up a financial paper, or The Journal or something. But basically, he’s been in meetings for the past forty-eight hours or something ridiculous like that, trying to figure out how to stop Johnathan from ruining all of his hard work.”
“That sounds like a nightmare.”
“It is,” I say heavily, leaning back against the cushions. “It’s just—everything was so perfect, and now it seems like nothing is going right.”
“Well, the takeover doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Reagan points out. “And he’s a CEO. There are always going to be crises in his life that he has to take care of. It doesn’t stop you guys from—”
“That’s the thing, though,” I say. “He hasn’t texted me all day. No text in the morning. No text during work. No plans to meet up later. I feel like I’m getting ghosted.”
Reagan frowns. “Okay, that’s not great. But you might want to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Maybe.” I seize the pillow next to me, hugging it to my chest. “I’m just worried that he’s forgetting about me, or something. I just feel… left behind, you know?”
Sympathetically, Reagan nods, her hands folded in her lap. “I hear you.”
“I feel guilty for even feeling this way,” I confess. “Like—he’s having such a terrible day, and he’s dealing with so much, and I can’t even imagine what it must be like. But all I can think about is how much I wish he would text me.” I look up at Reagan. “Is that bad?”
“I don’t think so,” she assures me.
“What if I’m being selfish?”
“You’re not being selfish! You deserve a man who has room for you in his life—period. There’s no reason you should have to put up with being ignored.”
I nod, sighing softly as my thoughts churn over in my mind.
“You look like you could use a distraction,” Reagan says. “Do you want to watch something? I’ve been meaning to binge this new cooking show on Netflix.”
A little bit of the tension leaves my body at her suggestion, although I’m still on edge and worried. “Okay,” I say, “but you have to order some delivery too. I don’t want to be eating dinner while you’re just sitting there watching me!”
