I glared at the man before me as I shifted gears to speak to him. “One day, there’s going to come a woman who won’t tolerate your shit, who sees through your disguise, and who you wish like hell wouldn’t find you lacking. Do you really want her to see this? Or maybe when you pull your head out of your ass and find her, you’ll realize you already treated her like this, or her best friend, or sister, or …”

“I get the point,” he growled before turning his attention back to Ariel or was it Aria? Shit. Now I couldn’t keep the woman’s name straight. “Thanks for the night of fun, but I really do have important matters to attend.”

“So important you already replaced me with a tiny, bitchy version of another woman?” She asked snidely while giving me a rotten little side-eye.

“I didn’t replace you with her. You were more like the placeholder until I was ready for my fiancé.”

“Fiancé?” She hissed and I turned in time to see wide, panicked eyes move to meet my own. Her brave face crumbled, and tears overfilled her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Oh God, I would never! I’ve seen him in the news with so many other women, I thought he was single.”

I shook my head and turned slightly, so I could see Sam’s reaction. He was stunned by it. “See what I’m talking about? These women are human beings too.”

“My fiancé cheated on me, with my best friend. That’s why I was out last night. I was trying to forget,” she murmured. “I never wanted to be a woman who did that to someone else.” Her admission quickly degraded to sobs and that was something I couldn’t ignore. I walked to the woman, who was thankfully dressed at that point, and wrapped her in a hug even though she smelled like cigarettes, liquor and incredibly bad decisions.

“We are not engaged. We were, but it’s complicated. You did nothing wrong, I promise,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry about your lost relationships with your former friend and ex-fiancé. That sucks.”

Ariel, Aria, whoever she was, slid out of my arms and swiped at the tears running down her face. “I don’t know how you could be so nice to me but thank you.” She turned to Sam then. “I hope for her sake that she doesn’t take you back, if this is how you treat your fiancé.” She grabbed her purse and left after that without saying another word.

“Was this what you wanted to show me?” I asked after watching the woman leave as Sam stood there and said nothing. “If so, I already knew what kind of a person you were, so there was no need.” I moved to follow the woman out of the apartment when Sam stepped forward to stop me.

“I didn’t know she’d be here.”

“You told her to stay,” I reminded him.