More nothing. A more emphatic nothing.
I get up, visit the bathroom and do a quick lap around the suite, half hoping to find her passed out drunk behind one of the sofas or some such. At least then she’d be here, and I’d have some sort of explanation that doesn’t make me feel like shit.
No such luck.
The truth hits me slowly by degrees, probably because I’m desperate not to see or acknowledge it. But first, I run several increasingly wild scenarios through my mind, trying them on for size. Maybe she ran out for ice. Except that our suite has ice and she wouldn’t have needed to take her purse for an ice run. Maybe she meant to leave a note but couldn’t find a pen or paper. Maybe a sudden and dire problem with her eyesight prevented her from seeing the pen and paper on the nightstand next to the bed.
But she didn’t even bother to scrawl her phone number in lipstick on one of the mirrors.
She left. She’s gone. She’s not coming back. I’ll never see her again.
In that crushing moment, I’d almost rather believe that a crack team of foreign agents extracted her from the room while I was asleep and plan to hold her for ransom. Anything but the truth.
But the truth is that she walked out on me.
Walked. Out. On. Me.
Another woman has walked out on me with zero warning, and I’m the fool that’s surprised.
Haven’t I learned this lesson already? Didn’t my mother tattoo it onto the empty space where a heart should be when she walked out on her husband and three young sons to be with my dad’s richer best friend? And then again when she got herself killed in a car accident before we could reconcile? This is what women do. They lull you into a false sense of security and then they disappear from your life with no advance warning. They pretend to have a connection with you, then they rip the rug out from under your unsuspecting feet and leave you to try to figure out how to get up again.
I have temporarily and foolishly forgotten this one crucial fact about women.
I won’t forget again.
I seethe for a minute or two, plotting next steps.
My relentless and determined side demands that I hire an investigator to start downstairs at Bemelmans and track her down like bloodhounds after an escaped criminal. Her crime? Making me feel like shit.
But my pride won’t let me chase her. If she doesn’t want me, that’s her loss. Like Beyoncé says, Carly’s replacement will be here in a minute. Fuck Carly.
Fuck her.
I try to focus on my anger, but my hurt refuses to sit down and shut up.
My brain refuses to accept the idea that that was all of Carly I’ll ever get. I’ll never have the pleasure of seeing and feeling her pillowy lips wrapped around my dick while she sucks me off. I’ll never get to taste her pussy or discover the color of her nipples. I’ll never see her smile again or laugh with her again or find myself on the wrong end of her tart humor again.
That was it. One and done.
I rub my hands over my face, laughing bitterly at my own stupidity. But what can you expect from a fucking loser like me? I just had sex for the ages, and she couldn’t even be bothered to give me a fake phone number and pretend she wanted me to call her tomorrow. I just spent the better part of five large for this suite to impress her (I didn’t become a near-billionaire by wasting money), and she was so impressed that she didn’t even stay an hour or, hell, try to steal my credit cards.
The worst part?
I know, deep in my gut where it counts, that I can march around impotently cursing her for the rest of the night, but all she has to do is show up again, smile at me and issue some sort of half-assed apology—any sort of apology at all—and I will sign up to be her fool again. Whenever she deigns to reappear and crook her little finger at me, I’ll be her puppet. I know I will.
Fucking Carly No-Last-Name.
Honestly, walking out is the best thing she could have done for me. I’m glad I’ll never see her again.
I mean it.
Glad.
I don’t lose control of my feelings like this.
Not for anyone.
4
Carly—Three weeks later
You’re never going to see him again, you bloody idiot, I tell myself as I hurry down the steps from my apartment building and toward the limousine idling at the curb. It’s all for the best that you take this time to get your life together rather than hang any foolish romantic hopes on some bloke who just wanted a quick fuck. So stop looking for him in every crowd.
Excellent advice that my roving gaze ignores as I quickly scan the passersby on the sidewalk, hoping for a glimpse of Damon’s tall frame, broad shoulders and sleek sable hair. God, I’m so unbelievably stupid. As if he somehow discovered my last name and went to the trouble of tracking me down to my apartment here on the Upper West Side because he couldn’t bear the idea of never laying eyes on me again. As though I made that much of an impression on him when I know in my heart of hearts that he probably woke up, discovered me gone and said a fervent prayer of thanks that he’d executed a perfect one-night stand with all of the great sex and none of the morning-after awkwardness.
Please, Carly.
Try to muster a single milligram of common sense.
Yet I can’t help looking for him. Straining for some sign that he still exists and that I didn’t imagine the entire interlude.
But there’s no sign. There never is.
To make matters worse, I’m stuck attending some stupid cocktail party for Manhattan’s elite, making small talk with people I don’t know or care about and trying to pretend that my mood isn’t foul when I’d much rather be home reading one of my Agatha Christie mysteries. And the icing on top of my ruined evening? My escort for the night is my father, who made the long flight across the pond from London to “come see his poppet,” when we both know that the real purpose of his visit is to rub noses with said elite and to give me shit about the deplorable state of my personal life since my graduation from NYU a few weeks ago.
The chauffeur hops out, races around the car and opens the door for me before I can dream of doing it myself.
“Thanks,” I say, gluing a smile onto my face and keeping it there as I slide onto the seat next to my father, his Royal Highness Prince Edmond, the Duke of Montgomery.
Let the fun begin.
“Hello, darling,” he says, every silver hair in place as he beams at me and pulls me in for a kiss on each cheek. “How’s my poppet? You look lovely. Love the suit. Very smart.”
“Thanks, Daddy. How was the flight?”
“A nightmare,” he says, then sips his drink as the car pulls into traffic. My attention automatically goes to the rearview mirror, where I see his security detail follow us in a dark SUV. A hazard of being the youngest son of the Queen of England. “Whiskey?”
“Am I going to need it for this conversation?” I ask tiredly.
“Probably,” he says, reaching for the decanter.
“Hmmm.” I stare out the window—still no sign of Damon; in a city of eight million people, you’d think there’d be something—and wait for the official lecture portion of the proceedings to begin. “I can hardly wait.”
“I don’t understand you, Charlotte.” He passes my drink, which I sip gratefully. Perhaps if I burn my throat to cinders, I’ll be excused from having to explain myself. “Breaking your engagement at the very moment you’re supposed to be moving back home and settling down? Leaving London again and hiding out here before any of us can talk sense into your stubborn head? Ignoring my phone calls for three weeks and forcing me to fly over here for a face-to-face? What’s gotten into you?”