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“Connolly?” And she tilted her head, as though there was something wrong.
“James Connolly. That’s who you’re with.” Chi smiled smugly. “Why? Did he give you a different name?”
“Flanagan. He said his name was James Flanagan. I looked him up. He practices law in Chicago just like he said.”
“I looked him up too, and James Connolly practices law in Chicago. So, I guess he lied to you.”
“Or to you,” the woman said, regaining her equilibrium, as she lifted an elegantly arched brow. The look she gave Chi was designed to put her back in her place.
Part of Chi wanted to go back and crawl under the rock she should never have come out of. He hadn’t even given her his real name.
Or he’d lied to the woman in red. One of the two.
Anger, fierce and sharp, swept through her, lighting her on fire, causing the red haze that had obscured her vision to darken and shimmer.
She’d never wanted to claw someone’s eyes out so bad in her life before. This man had been lying to her for months. He led her along, invited her to live with him, and everything he said had been a lie.
“I trusted you!”
She wanted to call him names, tell him what a low-down dirty rotten sneak he was, wanted to slap him, wanted to hurt the woman beside him, even though logically she knew it wasn’t her fault. But the desire to hurt someone else the way she had been hurt was strong.
Mostly she felt stupid.
And worthless. Used. And totally and completely unloved and unlovely.
She barely noticed the blast of air that shot over her as the door opened again. Her eyes were focused solely on James, whatever his name was. He didn’t even look contrite. He only looked concerned that the woman in red beside him believed him.
She wanted his attention back on her.
“Are you married?” she asked, not shouting, but her words were loud enough to cause several conversations that were nearby to stop as people craned their heads to look.
“You’re going to make a scene,” James said, talking to her like she was a child. It made her mad. Even more angry than what she already was, but logically, she knew there was no point. She would only make herself look bad, while James would walk away, spinning everything so that he looked like the victim, instead of the lying jerk he was.
Her heart beat wildly, and her breath came in gasps as she tried to figure out what she could say that would wound him, put him in his place where he belonged, show him how little he meant to her.
But there was nothing. Because she was the fool who had fallen for his lies. She was the one who had believed him. And the reason she had was because she wanted to move up in the world. She wanted more than what she had. She wasn’t content with what God had given her, she wanted more. Wanted power and prestige and money and all the things that came with being on the arm of a handsome, wealthy, successful man.
She was here, because of her greed and sin and stupidity.
She saw that just as clearly as she saw that nothing she said would make any difference at all.
“He’s very convincing. I guess I’d be careful if I were you,” she said, looking at the woman in red, pity swirling through her, replacing the anger. Pity for that woman, pity for James who obviously wasn’t content with what he had either but wanted multiple women on his arms, on his string, in his house or bed or whatever.
The idea sickened her. That she had almost fallen for that. If she had decided to come stay, she would have. Now, she just needed to turn and walk away, and try not to show how embarrassed and ashamed and stupid she felt.
“Chi?” The deep voice touched every nerve ending she had in her body and somehow made her heart feel like it was lifted up off the floor and set back in her chest properly.
“Griff?” she said, looking around, sure she recognized that voice.
Sure enough, there he stood. Leather jacket over top of a white T-shirt. Worn blue jeans, and those boots he’d worn every day she’d seen him since she’d known him.
His bald head glistened under the gala lights, and he set his shades on top of his head, so his ice-blue eyes drilled into hers.
The way he looked at her made her feel like she was the only woman in the room. Like she wasn’t wearing a frilly high school-like dress, didn’t feel out of place, but that she totally belonged and he admired and respected her.
He always made her feel like that. Like she could do more than what she thought she could, just because he thought she could do it.
Funny how Griff had the ability to make her feel that way. No one else ever did.
