Sexy in Stilettos (A Sexy Contemporary Romance)

by Nana Malone

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Okay, so he left you,” Micha said, brows drawn.

  Ricca chimed in. “Then he came back to you, and still made it to the wedding reception.”

  Jaya nodded. “But it was a lie. All of it a lie. Who he was, his real name. Everything about him.” The pain of it all still percolated in her belly, as if she'd swallowed an ample helping of boiling pain-and-regret soup. God, she felt sick. Sure, Alec had been clear about the whole relationship thing and she’d seen him as some fun to be had for a couple of weeks. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love. So maybe that had been her fault. Love was a tricky animal. But he'd still abandoned her and lied.

  The lies were the part she just couldn’t swallow. She shook her head. “I must be a giant lie magnet.” She circled her forehead with her index finger. “Big ol' target here that says, ‘Yes, I’m easily duped and tread upon. Have at it. Do it for sport even.’” Feeling another pinprick behind her lids signaling yet another round of the sniffle-sniffle and dab-dab, she sniffed deeply and blinked hard to try and ward them off.

  “You’re not a fool, Jai. These things happen sometimes,” Ricca tried.

  Micha gave a quick shake of her head. “None of this is your fault. How the hell were you supposed to know he was a Westhorpe?” She shrugged. “So this whole time, Adele Westhorpe was his mother.”

  “Step-mother,” Jaya corrected. “So now, I have to think about what all this means. Do I still have a job? Was she in on the whole thing?”

  Rica flopped back on Micha's duvet cover. “What are you going to do? Talk to her?” Jaya's head did the side-to-side routine again. “No. She's huge on professionalism. So I’m going to go to work on Monday and do my job. Until somebody shows up with security to show my black ass the door. It's the only thing I can do.  And did I mention that Brett James wants to hire me to do the All-Tech?”

  “Holy shit!”  Micha gaped at her.  “Again with the burying the lead.”

   Jaya pinned Micha with a stare. “Can we get back to what’s important?  Plan is I'm just going to status-quo it. For all I know, Adele has no idea about the shenanigans. All she'll notice is that Alec isn’t around as much.” Then a thought struck her. What if Alec didn't go to Durban like he'd said? What if he stayed? Then what would she do?

  Oh, come on Trudeaux. Like he’d stay. He said himself he was not that guy. Always needed to be on the move. He wouldn’t stay for her, so she needed to stop expecting the big grand gesture.

  Micha picked up one of her wigs and adjusted it on her head. The pretty ringlet curls bounced around her shoulders cheerily.

  Jaya was in no mood to be cheery. “How the hell did my life go to shit in a matter of weeks?”

  Ricca did the usual hug-and-back-rub routine. Pat-pat, rub-rub.

  Micha pinned her with a stare. “Sure. It's been a shitty two weeks, I give you that. But you know what? You got a job out of it.  Shit, you got two. Your sister is actually, really trying with you, and maybe you'll repair your relationship. Plus you had the best sex of your life and you've crossed off some of your Thirty list. All in all, you gained, right?” She smacked Jaya on the shoulder. “And keep in mind, it’s a job you actually like, despite the tyrant-like nature of your evil boss.  Not to mention, Derrick is about to get fired by Brett James.”

  Good old Micha. Keeping it in perspective.