Chance Encounters

by Jessica Prince

  For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what the fuck we talked about those last few minutes. My mind was consumed with what was happening across the crowded restaurant. Somehow, maybe by the grace of God, I managed to keep myself in check until my client and his wife left. Instead of following them, I headed for the bar, perching on a stool with the best vantage point of Melany’s table.

  I felt like I was coming out of my skin the longer I watched. As their meal progressed, her smile grew more and more forced, until it disappeared altogether, an unhappy frown taking its place. It was only then that my anxiety started to wane. I told myself that there was a perfectly logical explanation as to why she was in a restaurant that she’d normally never eat at, with a man she’d claimed to spend five years loving. Maybe it was a business dinner.

  Then she stood. For a moment, I thought she was going to leave. But the dick stood as well. His body was blocking my view of Melany, but there was no missing what happened next. His arm wrapped around her and his body twisted in a way that I could see his lips on hers perfectly. It felt like something was crushing my lungs. I couldn’t pull in enough air. I was slowly suffocating as I waited for what felt like an eternity for her to push him away.

  But she didn’t.

  In my haste to leave, I’d accidentally run into a busboy carrying a tray loaded with dirty dishes. They fell to the ground with a crash. I should have stayed to help him with the mess since it was my fault, or at least thrown a few bills his way for the trouble, but I was running on autopilot. My only thought was on escaping.

  I hadn’t calmed down a bit since reaching home. Instead, with every minute that ticked by, I felt another little piece of me die inside. I thought something important had happened between us when we made love earlier that morning. I felt the shift, and I could have sworn she did too. I just couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong.

  I lifted the highball glass in my hand to down the last of the whiskey, only to discover it was already empty. I stopped midpace, the sight of the empty glass only fueling my rage, and before I could think better of it, the glass was flying through the air. The shattered glass glinted in the overhead light as it rained down onto the floor, but I couldn’t find it in me to care about the mess. I only wished I had another glass in my hand that I could throw.

  Just as I contemplated going to the kitchen to grab another one, the front door opened and Melany stepped inside. “What happened?” she asked, her eyes going from the shards of glass to me.

  “Dropped my glass,” I grunted in return. I tried to swallow back some of my anger and make my tone conversational as I stated, “You worked late tonight. You hungry? I could scrounge you up something for dinner, if you want.”

  She hung her purse on the hook by the front door, her smile trembling nervously. “Oh, uh… no. Thank you. I’m good. I, um… o-ordered some t-takeout at the office.”

  That lie from her lips killed another piece of me. “Really? You ordered takeout? From where?” Tell me the truth. Please just tell me the truth and we can get pastd it. Please don’t have chosen him, I begged inside my head.

  “Uh, just s-some Chinese place.” Christ, it was like someone reached inside my chest and was squeezing to the point of agony. Melany moved into the kitchen and pulled a glass from the cabinet before turning to the sink and filling it with water. “So, how was dinner with your client?”

  “It could have gone better,” I managed to answer past the knot that had formed in my throat.

  “Oh no. Did you have trouble with the client or something?”

  My gaze stayed fixed to her mouth as she lifted the glass and drank, her tongue darting out to catch a drop of water that was resting on her lips. “No. Nothing like that,” I replied, my tone sounding as dead as I felt inside. “It was the restaurant. I wasn’t a fan. Pretty sure I’m never going back.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  I crossed the room to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room—separated her from me—and rested my hands on the cool granite, leaning in closer to her. “Some French place. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Le Petite?”

  I knew she understood when those amber eyes got big and her face drained of color. “Y-you…”

  “I saw you with him, Melany. I saw you fucking kiss him,” I growled. “What I want to know is why the fuck you did it? And why did you come home and lie to me about it?” I finished on a yell.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like,” she rushed out, as she skated the bar in an effort to get to me, but I took two steps back before she could touch me. “Chance, I swear.”

  “I just fucking asked you about dinner, and you lied to my fucking face, Mel!”

  “Because I was afraid you’d react like this! Please, just let me explain—”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I laughed sarcastically, crossing my arms over my chest. “I can’t wait to hear this. So tell me, Melany. Why’d you kiss him, huh? Why’d you fuck me this morning, then turn around and kiss another guy tonight.” I hated how sharp and condescending my voice sounded, but I had no control over it.

  “I didn’t kiss him!” she cried. “He kissed me! Chance, please, just listen—”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t see you putting up much of a fight,” I snapped.

  Her eyes welled with tears, and when she blinked, they tumbled down her cheeks, dripping off her jaw as she continued to try and get through to me. “I was in shock! I didn’t expect for him to kiss me. I got up because I wanted to leave. I shouldn’t have even agreed to that stupid dinner! I just wanted to get out of there, but he cut in front of me, and the next thing I knew, he was kissing me! I was surprised. It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t even want it to happen! As soon as I realized what was happening, I stopped it and walked out.”

  My top lip curled in an ugly sneer. “You really expect me to believe that? The guy you’ve been fucking obsessed with for five goddamned years finally kisses you, and you expect me to believe you didn’t want it?”

  “It’s the truth!” she shouted, throwing her arms out to her sides. “I didn’t want to go to dinner in the first place! I just wanted to come home and go to sleep, but he caught me when I was walking out and my stomach grumbled so I couldn’t claim I wasn’t hungry. I agreed to a quick dinner, just as work colleagues.”

  I raked my hands through my hair and began my agitated pacing. “You know, I can’t really be mad at you for it. I mean, it’s what I told you I’d help you do, right? Land another guy? Why the fuck I’m surprised when it finally happened is beyond me. But I at least expected you’d have enough respect to fucking tell me when you wanted to end what we were doing before making a move on another guy.”

  Her hands clenched into tight fists at her side as a vein in her forehead began to throb, and she yelled, “That’s not what happened!”

  I should have stopped right then. I should have given us both time to get control of our emotions, but men don’t function that way. We throw our punches first and ask questions later. “I don’t know why the fuck I thought this time would be different. Should have learned my goddamned lesson the first two times.” By that point I was ranting more to myself than to her. “I told myself when we started this bullshit plan that I wasn’t going to fall for another woman who already had her eyes on another man, but did I fucking listen to myself? Of course not!”

  “Wait, Chance. Please!” Melany shot out in front of me, her hands slapping against my chest to stop my pacing. “What are you talking about? Just stop for a minute and talk to me. Please. We can fix this.”

  “I’m talking about how I’m a goddamned idiot!” I barked. “First, I make a move on Pepper, but she’s been pining for Griffin nearly her whole damn life. Then, I actually think I’m getting somewhere with Devon, that we have something good, but she’s so wound up in Collin she couldn’t even see straight. But with you…!” I threw my hand in her direction as I carried on. “With you, I go and do something as epically fucking stupid as fall in love with yo
u, only to lose out again to that bastard!”

  “Y-you…” Melany’s entire frame locked up, her mouth dropped open, and her chest began to heave with every breath she took. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her. “You love me?”

  “Of course I do!” I shouted.

  She looked like she was in a daze as she repeated. “You love me.” She gave her head a tiny shake, like she was trying to clear it. “W-why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh please!” I scoffed, laughing in disbelief. “When I met you, you could barely put two sentences together without risk of lapsing into an all-out panic attack—”

  “It wasn’t that bad!” she defended, her own anger starting to outweigh her bewilderment.

  “Please, you were fucking terrified of everything! Everyone. You really think you wouldn’t have freaked out if I’d told you my feelings had changed?”

  “No. I don’t think I’d have freaked out. But you didn’t give me the chance to prove that.”

  “If I had said anything to you, it would’ve scared you half to death. You’d have closed yourself off in that goddamn imaginary world you invented in your head so you wouldn’t have had to deal with real, authentic emotions. I knew I’d lose you, so I did everything I could think of to make you see that you could do better than that son of a bitch! That I was better for you. I kept going along with that stupid plan of yours. I fed you that line of shit about practicing with me.”

  I should have stopped right then. I should have reined in my temper and checked the pulse of the room. I should have focused on the fact that Melany’s entire face had turned an unhealthy shade of red.

  But I didn’t.

  “Hell, I even got you to go on a date with that anchor-wearing douchebag to prove to you that I could give you everything you thought that asshole could. But you’re so blind you didn’t see it!”

  It was her next words that clued me in to the fact I’d just made a big mistake, a huge fucking mistake.

  “You played me?” she said on a whisper, but her voice held so much fury the room practically vibrated with it.

  Uh-oh. “What?”

  “You played me? You manipulated me in order to get me into your bed?” Of course that would be all she’d hear in that entire longwinded speech I just gave.

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “From everything you just said, that’s exactly what happened! You played games! You promised you’d always be honest with me, but you played head games! All to benefit yourself!”

  “Because I’m in love with you!”

  “Oh my God!” Her laugh was loud and hysterical. “You expect me to believe that? After everything you just said, it sounds to me like you saw an easy target and went in for the kill. After all, I’m just some pathetic, terrified little girl who’d rather live in her own head than deal with my feelings, right?”

  When she threw it back in my face like that, what I’d said sounded pretty bad. But she wasn’t the one who had a right to be angry. I was. She was the one who’d been sucking face with someone else just hours after I’d been inside her. “You’re twisting what I just said.”

  “No, for the first time, I think I’m actually seeing things clearly.”

  “And I’m telling you,” I said in a low rumble, “you’re wrong.”

  “Then maybe I should move out,” she threatened, a defiant gleam in her eyes. How the hell had this shit gotten so tangled up? The entire argument had gone so far off course I couldn’t even remember where I’d been initially going.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking her exact expression. “Maybe you should.”

  “Fine!” she snapped. “Then I will!”

  “Fine!”

  And just like that, we’d reverted back to childishness, neither of us willing to apologize first, neither of us able to admit defeat. And because of my stupid male pride, I just stood there, stewing in my anger as Melany threw clothes into a suitcase and walked out the door.

  Wondering what the ever-loving fuck just happened.

  Chapter 27

  Chance

  I WASN’T TOO proud to admit that I was a miserable bastard to be around the next few days. I spent the weekend after Melany’s departure drinking and sulking around my apartment, glaring at the things she left behind like they might magically spring to life and give me a perfect outlet to vent my still brewing anger on.

  I didn’t even shower until I woke Monday morning, smelling like a goddamned distillery. I might have made partner at my firm a few years ago, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be snatched away. And that was exactly what would have happened if I stumbled into the office looking and smelling like a drunken bum off the streets.

  I’d convinced myself that Melany would come to her senses by Monday and call me, apologizing for kissing that needle-dick bastard, and we’d ride off, on horseback, into the sunset—or some such sappy, chick-flick shit. But that didn’t happen. Tuesday morning passed with the same sense of hope, but by Tuesday afternoon, I realized I was being a dumbass. I awoke Wednesday pissed off and ready to bite the heads off anyone who looked at me sideways, and Thursday wasn’t any better.

  It was now Friday. Exactly one week from my meltdown with Melany, and I still hadn’t heard a word, not even so much as a goddamned text. Needless to say, no one wanted to be anywhere near me.

  “Cynthia!” I boomed into the intercom on my desk phone. “Where’s the goddamned discovery file for the Hanson case? I asked for it two days ago!”

  My assistant’s beleaguered voice carried through the speaker. “I put it on your desk next to the draft of the motion in limine just as you asked.”

  I began shuffling papers as I replied sarcastically, “Well, if you put it on my desk just like I asked, then I wouldn’t be asking you where the hell it is, now would…?” I trailed off as I lifted a deposition transcript I’d tossed on my desk the day before, uncovering the discovery file sitting exactly where Cynthia had indicated.

  She knew exactly what my silence meant. “You’re welcome,” she snapped before disconnecting. If this shit went on much longer, I was going to owe her a seriously large Christmas bonus.

  I was losing my mind. And it was all Melany’s fault. Resting my elbows on the cluttered desk, I dropped my face into my hands and scrubbed violently. I couldn’t manage to pull myself out of my foul mood no matter how hard I tried.

  There was a knock on my office door just as I was in the middle of my self-flagellation. “Go away,” I grumbled, but whoever was on the other side wasn’t in the mood to take orders.

  I looked up just as Richard, Devon, and Collin came waltzing through. “Jesus, man. You look like shit,” Richard announced.

  “Told you so,” Devon muttered.

  “Good to see you too,” I deadpanned. Pointing to Collin, I said, “I’m not sure what he’s doing here, but I know for a fact you two have other shit you could be doing instead of harassing me, so if you don’t mind, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I’ve got shit to do.”

  “We’re here for an intervention,” Devon declared, clearly the ringleader of the three of them.

  “They’re here for an intervention,” Richard stated. “I’m just here to witness the train wreck everyone in the office is talking about.”

  I flipped him off and turned back to my computer screen, trying to tune them out by burying myself in work.

  “I wouldn’t necessarily call this an intervention,” Collin chimed in. “I’m mainly here to tell you to fix whatever the fuck you did to my assistant. Melany’s been damn near impossible to deal with all week.

  My head shot up at the mention of Melany’s name, all thoughts of work quickly dissipating. “What are you talking about? Is something wrong with Melany? What happened? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Collin exclaimed defensively. “I’m the victim here. Look, I don’t know what you did last weekend to piss her off, but whatever it is, fix i
t! I made the mistake of asking her to grab me a cup of coffee if she happened to pass the break room, and she actually told me to, and this is a direct quote, ‘Get it your damn self. Then shove it up your ass.’ Not even lying, man. The look on her face when she said that was downright terrifying. Thought maybe she’d been possessed or something.”

  For the first time in a week, I felt the desire to laugh, but I didn’t. “Whatever’s going on with your assistant’s got nothing to do with me. Not my problem if you can’t handle your staff.”

  “You’re one to talk!” Devon cried.

  I turned my glare on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She was all sass as she propped her hands on her hips and leveled me with a killing look. “It means Cynthia and the rest of your staff are about to mutiny. You need to remove whatever bug crawled up your butt this week before your testicles have an up close and personal one-on-one with her size seven heel.”

  I flinched at the image that painted in my head and unconsciously tried to cross my legs beneath my desk to protect my junk.

  “Fine, I’ll admit that I’ve been a little… difficult this week. And I’ll work on it.”

  “That’s a start,” Devon said. “But what about Melany?”

  “Not my problem,” I replied in a dry, emotionless voice.

  That answer obviously didn’t make Devon happy. The look on her face said my nuts were seconds away from meeting her high heel. “Excuse me? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means exactly that. She’s not my problem. She moved out last weekend, and we haven’t talked since. If you’re unhappy with how she’s been acting, then I suggest you take this little intervention back to your fiancé’s office.

  “She moved out?” All the sass fled Devon’s face. “What happened?”

  I leaned back in my chair and prayed for patience, squeezing my eyes closed and rubbing at my temples. “Look, whatever happened between Melany and me is between us. If she wants to share, that’s up to her. But I don’t. Now, please, I have a lot of work to do. I don’t have time for whatever—” I waved my hand to encompass all three of them. “—this is. I appreciate the concern, but I need to get back to work.”