Marrying My Best Friend's Sister: A Billionaire Enemies to Lovers MC Romance (Secret Love) by Nikki Bloom (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

I lay down on the bed, wondering if he would come and join me. If he would apologize and maybe explain himself. I heard him moving around in the other room, but he didn’t come to me. I lay curled up miserably, my ears pricked to every footfall and shuffle. Eventually he settled down, and I heard him sigh. Closing my eyes, I determinedly tried to get to sleep. I still had my meeting in the morning, and I still had to bring my A-game. So this little spat would have to wait.

I couldn’t relax though. My head was churning with all sorts of things. On one hand, Chaz’s words echoed in my brain.

It’s not bad to want something for yourself sometimes, Nico.

But then the question remained, what did I want now? This grant had filled my thoughts, my plans, my everything for the last couple of years. It had been all I could think about. Now here I was, on the eve of make or break, and all I could think about was why Dom was behaving the way he was.

It was annoying on several levels. For one thing, I wasn’t about to be that girl who dropped everything in her life for a boy. For another, it was like that story of the scorpion and the frog where the latter convinces the former to take it across the river but then bites the frog halfway. And when the frog asks why, the scorpion says that it’s in their nature.

I know better than to be that frog. At least, I thought I did. It’s soul destroying to be confronted by your own hubris. I got up, deciding that I couldn’t be there anymore. I picked up my phone and called an Uber. I still had my apartment; I could go home, sleep there and get to work on time.

As I crossed the living room, my eyes flicked to the couch, where Dom was laid out. “Where are you going?” he rasped.

“Home,” I spat as I grabbed my coat and stalked out in an echo of his own actions earlier in the evening. I descended the stairs instead of taking the elevator, giving the Uber time to arrive. Thankfully at 3 a.m., it only took us ten minutes to get to Brooklyn.

I barreled into my apartment and slammed the door, then stopped short in surprise. My living room was massively depleted of furniture and I remembered that most of my stuff was now integrated with Dom’s. I crossed my fingers, hoping my bed was still there as I headed down the hall to my former room.

The bed was there, although stripped of any beddings. I just flopped down on it, still in my coat and my sweatpants, and closed my eyes. It was really a surprise when I actually fell asleep. I woke up the next day feeling sore, achy, and stupid.

“Why didn’t I take some clothes with me?” I groaned as I anticipated the embarrassment of heading back to Dom’s loft to get some clothes. “Ugh, why am I like this?” I covered my head with my hands and sighed. It was 6 a.m. in the morning. If I left now, I could probably make it in time for my 8 a.m. meeting.

The knock on my front door came as a surprise. I hadn’t told anyone I was here. Slowly, I got off the bed and shuffled to the door, hoping it was Chaz who had somehow divined my presence. “Who is it?” I called through it.

“Nico? Open the door.”

Of course it was Dom. I unlatched the door and opened it blinking at him in inquiry. “What do you want?”

He held up a bag. “I figured if you were going to work, you’d need clothes.”

I stared at the bag, torn between the thoughtful gesture and the implication that he was fine with me leaving. I reached for it. “Thanks.”

He pulled it away. “First, we talk.”

I couldn’t help sneering. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

“I was drunk. Stringing thoughts together was a chore. I’m sober now. Hungover, but sober. So let’s talk.”

I nodded, moving back to let him in. He walked into the apartment, looking around at all the empty spaces with a lifted eyebrow. “Do you even have a toothbrush here?” he asked.

“Shut up.” I hadn’t actually checked the bathroom yet, but my guess would be no.

He turned to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable in your new home.”

There he went again, catching me off guard. I shook my head. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was pissed.”

“And you always leave when you’re pissed?”

“I tried talking and you weren’t having that.”

He held up his hands in supplication. “Fine. It was my bad.”

“What made you go off like that anyway? Did something happen? Did you not get the job?”

He looked away from me. “Yeah, something happened alright. Someone I thought I could trust betrayed me.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

Frankly it came as a surprise to me that he trusted anyone. He turned around to face me. “You.”

I blinked at him, unable to assimilate the words that were coming out of his mouth. “I beg your pardon?”

“You, Nico. You betrayed me. I heard you talking to Chaz.”

My mind was whirling as I remembered my frantic call to Chaz yesterday, begging him to pass by my new place on his way to work. He’d complained bitterly but still showed up. I just wanted a sounding board. Someone to bounce off the utterly ridiculous offer Roman Alexander had made me. It was so far out my comfort zone that I had no clue how to proceed.

Chaz came from money despite all his…flamboyance. I figured he’d know what to do.

Clearly Dom had misunderstood something we’d said.

Betrayed him?

He took a step closer to me. “Who’s paying you to betray me? Tell me now and maybe we can get through this.”

“Shit.”

He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. “Tell me.”

“I…” I realized I didn’t really have the words to explain