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“Karlee, wait!”
She never looked back. Karlee hitched a ride with one of the linen trucks and managed to get her SUV out of the impound lot herself. Now she was almost three hundred dollars in the hole. Hopefully she still had the job handling the wedding flowers for Elizabeth’s daughter. But she most definitely wouldn’t be delivering or setting up personally. Stella would have to do it for her. There was no way she could face Robert again—to see and not have. Not to mention the wedding planner and entire staff probably thought she was a world-class hooker.
That night, after closing the shop and turning out all the lights, she trudged up the dark stairwell to her apartment above the store. It was nothing like the Black estate. She was sure his en suite bathroom rivaled her entire place in size. Karlee dropped down on her sofa with a bag of chips. She stared up at the ceiling, wondering what Robert was doing. Was he thinking of her? Had he already moved onto his next target? Maybe the coffee shop girl or local dog walker. He seemed to like slumming. Her stomach turned just imagining him looking at another woman with the same mock affection in his eyes. Why couldn’t it have all been real?
Karlee would just pretend it had been real, like some kind of tragic romance novel.
Or she’d black it out of her memory forever. She was good at that.
Maybe she’d just get a cat.
Her phone rang. It was Stella. She almost didn’t answer but needed to face what had happened. A distraction from her thoughts was also welcome.
“Where have you been? I’ve left like a million messages.”
She wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. “I slept with Robert Black.” She took a breath. “It was a mistake. Big mistake. But it’s over and I’m putting it behind me.”
“Hold on. What?”
“It was good, the sex I mean, but whatever.”
“How did this happen?” Stella asked.
Karlee wasn’t a party girl and certainly didn’t sleep around—ever. Her friend would be understandably in a state of shock.
“He was really good at what he does.”
“And that is?”
Karlee exhaled in exasperation. “A player. He’s a player, Stella. The guy’s a billionaire, gorgeous as hell, and hung like a fucking horse. He could legit have a new woman every night, so I knew what I was getting into.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “I’m not convinced.”
“Of what? That it happened? I can hardly walk, does that count?” Karlee said.
“You’re not broken by this? You believed his lies, didn’t you?”
Tears built up in her eyes and a frog burned in her throat. Yes, she’d been struck by the not-so-fictional love at first sight. She would have given anything for Robert to reciprocate her feelings, but luck had never been on her side when it came to relationships.
“No, I’m fine,” she lied.
“Do you want me to come over?”
She shook her head, holding herself together by a thread. “No, silly. I’m just watching some Netflix. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Once she hung up the phone, she cried aloud, all her disappointment coming out in a wave of sadness that took her by surprise.
The fact she was incapable of trusting men was either a saving grace or her downfall, but there was nothing she could do about it. This entire Robert Black fiasco had tilted her world off its axis. It made her crave something she had no right to. She was a realist more than she was a dreamer, life had done that to her, so she’d push on and dismiss the fairytales that forever seemed out of reach.
Chapter Six
One Month Later
Karlee had just finished putting out her sidewalk floral displays when the small bells clanged against the glass door. It was unusual to get customers this early. She turned around to find a tall man in an expensive business suit, his face obscured by the largest bouquet of roses she’d ever seen. At first she thought it was a regular delivery, but she hadn’t ordered anything for today and the flowers were artfully arranged with baby’s breath and accent flowers.
“Hello?”
The bouquet lowered, revealing the one man she’d tried to forget over the past month. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she looked into those familiar blue eyes again.
