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blows everything out of the water.”

 
    “I wasn’t obsessed with you,” I seethed
through gritted teeth. “I loved you.”

 
    She tossed her head back and a maniacal
laugh fell from her full, red lips. “You don’t love anyone but yourself, Preston.
Who are you kidding?”

 
    I shook my head, my blood beginning to
boil. “I loved you, Sapphire. You were the first woman I ever said those words
to. And you lied. Everything about you was a lie.”

 
    She sauntered up to me and wrapped one
manicured hand around my tie, pulling me closer to her. “Not everything.”

 
    She slipped her hand down and cupped my
cock. We had an amazing sexual chemistry, almost inexplicable, but that was it.
Everything else I thought we had was all an illusion and Sapphire was the
greatest illusionist who ever lived.

 
    “Don’t touch me,” I growled. “What do you
want, Sapphire?”

 
    “I want to know what you’re doing with
that girl,” she said, her eyes glowing with jealousy.

 
    “What does it matter to you all of a
sudden?” I asked. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s not what it
looks like.”

 
    “Oh, yeah?” she said with a half-smirk.
“You’re not grooming her to be the next big thing? Your cute
little protégé? Someone to help you fly high in the
world of advertising? Someone to please your little fantasies every time
the mood strikes you?”

 
    “Get out,” I said in a low tone. “Now.”

 
    She wouldn’t budge. She stood, Louboutins planted, and
locked horns with me.

 
    “I mean it, Sapphire,” I threatened. “If
you don’t leave, I’m calling security.”

 
    “I made a mistake, Preston,” she said,
her eyes looking defeated for the first time ever. “I picked the wrong guy.”

 
    “That’s nice,” I said. “Now leave.”

 
    I placed my hand on her lower back and
ushered her towards my office door, which I’d then realized had been open the
entire time. Sapphire turned, flashing me a seriously phony apologetic look,
and stepped down the hall, heels clicking behind her. My eyes glanced over to
my right, where Mirabelle was seated at her desk. Both our doors were wide
open. She’d heard everything.

 
 
 

 
 
FIFTEEN

 
 
 
    MIRABELLE

 
 
 
    I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I wasn’t
usually so nosy, but when the ex-girlfriend and former employee of the man
who’d just fucked me on my desk the day before was screaming at him in his
office, I couldn’t help it.

 
    “ Miri ,” Preston
said as he stood in my doorway. He knew I’d been listening. He walked into my
room and shut the door behind him. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

 
    I didn’t know what to say, so I bit my
lip and looked down at my computer.

 
    “It’s not how it sounds,” he said. “I’m
not…interested in you because you look like my ex.”

 
    I shrugged my shoulders and looked up at
him with my big, blue eyes. “The resemblance is rather uncanny, wouldn’t you
say?”

 
    He sighed. “I know it seems that way.”

 
    “She was in the bathroom at Giatta’s last night,” I said. “She recognized the blouse.”

 
    “Oh, geez,” he huffed.

 
    “She said Giatta’s was your restaurant. You used to take her there on dates,” I continued.

 
    He ruffled his fingers through his thick
hair, leaving a disheveled mess in its place. It was so unlike him to ever have
a single hair out of place.

 
    “It does seem bad,” he admitted. “But
it’s not like that at all.”

 
    I wanted to believe him. I did. But I
couldn’t.

 
    “Look,” I sighed. “We’re both adults
here. We can move forward from this and pretend it didn’t happen. We’re
professionals. Let’s keep our relationship that way from now on.”

 
    Preston looked like I’d just run over his
dog. His normally straight posture slumped down as he stuck one hand in his
pocket and stared at the ground.

 
    “What if I don’t want