The Lover’s Promise (No Exceptions #3)(23)
Author: J.C. Reed

Arrange neatly were the clothes of another woman. Another lover—the lover after me.

Or maybe it was someone before you.

I turned my face away in pain, hiding in the comfort of the solitude around me as tears started to trickle down my cheeks. I prayed inwardly that my eyes hadn’t seen what I knew was the truth, that my heart wouldn’t have to accept the ugly truth, and yet, as I looked again, there was no doubt: Jett had gotten rid of all my things, and filled the empty space with another woman’s belongings. He had replaced me as if I was replaceable.

Fucking asshole.

All his words of love—full of promises and plans of a future together—had been nothing but lies. He had always claimed I was the only one and yet I was no exception in his long list of games and women he dated. All the feelings I thought he felt for me were false. I had fooled myself. My legs were shaking, my body urging me to sink to the floor and allow myself to grieve, but crying wasn’t an option. Not now. Not when I was pregnant and needed to consider the well-being of my child.

Pregnant with his child.

I smiled bitterly, wiping the tears from my face. The reality of what lay ahead of me was too terrible to comprehend, and yet faking a smile was much easier than letting the pain engulf me completely.

As grief turned to anger, I ripped the clothes from the hangers, wondering who they belonged to. Was she younger than me? More attractive? It was probably someone he fucked when I was too busy making his company money; when I was stupid enough to believe him. He had claimed to work overtime many nights and I never once considered the possibility that he might be cheating on me when all those long evenings and nights had been perfect opportunities to see whoever he wanted to see.

Was it possible he had been cheating with Tiffany longer than I thought? The thought that Jett had been too much of a coward to tell me that it was over and so he waited for me to end things in order to have a new start with a past flame was much worse than him fucking her behind my back. It would mean that their friendship had elevated to a whole new level.

The entire situation was like a frigging train wreck. I had to look even though I didn’t want to. I began to touch each dress, each one prettier than the other, in search for more clues about her. Just like back in the bathroom, I didn’t find a lot. Then again, the stuff that occupied Jett’s closet now was maybe half of what I had brought with me when I moved in. Then again, maybe she didn’t have enough time to shift her entire wardrobe, considering that Jett and I had only been separated for one day.

One day!

God, I hated him. I hated him so much. Heat rushed up my back as my throat closed up again. Never again would I fall in love with someone, and surely with someone as good-looking as Jett.

The worst part of hating someone you love so much is that any form of self-inflicted pain will only fuel the anger and the hope to move on, even if that meant I had to find out who it was to get closure.

I looked through the closet, skimming through dress after dress. Not a single sweater. Not a single—I stopped in my movement when my hands touched a pink polka dot fabric, and I drew a sharp breath.

There was something oddly familiar about the fabric and the way the white specks were arranged in such an old fashioned way. My mind recollected having seen it before. Someone had worn something similar recently, and that someone wasn’t Tiffany.

I pulled the dress out, my fingers stroking the delicate heart-shaped bust line adorned with fine lace. Maybe I had seen it in a catalogue—except, because of my financial worries, I hadn’t bought a fashion magazine in forever. Maybe I had skimmed through one in the obstetrician’s waiting room. But, for some reason, I knew I was fooling myself.

My heart began to drum in my ears as memories started to flood my mind.

I closed my eyes and listed to my pounding heartbeat for a few moments, but it didn’t shed light on my suddenly racing thoughts and the grain of suspicion slowly settling in the pit of my stomach. A nerve started to twitch just beneath my left eye like some irritating fly. Suddenly everything around me evaporated as realization hit me.

Gina had a dress like this.

The memories came hard and fast. It had been my first day at my new modeling gig. All models wore polka-dresses while posing around fake birch trees. They all looked so pretty and the colors were rich and mesmerizing. I remembered all of it because I had admired the style.

Thalia had worn a yellow dress, but the pink one?

I touched the soft fabric, trying to prevent the next pang of pain hitting my head, and swallowed the lump in my throat. But it was too late. The thought entered before I could stop it.

Gina wore it on the fateful day she died, before changing into jeans and persuading me to have a drink with her at a famous club.

I held the dress away from me and shook my head slowly.

No, it had to be all a mistake, of course. The result of a very active imagination. Surely, it couldn’t be Gina’s dress.

That would be mad.

Crazy.

Insane.

Because it would imply that Gina had moved in with Jett and died within hours of it. And there was no way that was possible.

Never.

It just couldn’t be her stuff.

While my intuition said there was more to the mystery than met the eye, my mind began to conjure up unrealistic scenarios. Unfortunately, whichever way I tried to see it, I was stuck with a dilemma where things seemed to be more complicated than in a spy novel.

Think, Brooke. Think. Any rational explanation is better than nothing.

Tiffany was one thing, but Gina another.

Given that Thalia had said she had history with Gina, I doubted Jett—no matter how good-looking he was—could get Gina into his bed…unless she swung both ways. But what if—for some crazy, ultra-mad, super-insane reason—it really was hers?

Answers were supposed to be simple and not far-fetched. Like love was supposed to be easy and kind. Unless I found some real tangible proof that it was really hers, I had to abandon the possibility that it belonged to Gina and just assume Jett had let another woman with a penchant for burlesque dresses move in, even though our separation wasn’t long ago.

I turned my head to the bathroom, considering what to do.

If another woman moved in with Jett, she would have taken a shower, left a trail. She would have left something behind. Such as what, Stewart?

The hairbrush.

Why didn’t it cross my mind to check it earlier?

With so many things from me gone, I wouldn’t be surprised if the brush wasn’t mine, either.

All I needed was to hold a few stray strands of hair against the glaring lights of the bathroom, and I would have my answers. Given his sex-god looks and uncanny ability to make a woman scream his name, there had been countless female employees, all of them vying for his attention, some even going as far as flirting in my presence. The blonde could be any other woman’s delighting Jett for the night. If they were black, I could safely assume they were Tiffany’s.