Except we’re not talking. We are sitting in silence just staring at the sunset. I guess at this point there is nothing left to say. I’m just about to get up to get a break from the tension flowing between us when my mother and Georgina make their way outside. They’re both more than a little tipsy and I wonder what is about to come of this. “Jacob, the four of us are going out to dinner tomorrow. It’s already been decided.”

I’m seated next to Jacob, my legs crossed and I find myself flexing my foot into a pointed toe like I used to do when I was seated and anxious. It’s getting dark, but the lights around my backyard give everything a romantic warm glow.

“Sure, sounds good. Tell me where to meet you.”

The words, ones that I did not expect though I should have, instantly tank my mood. No. I cannot be having what feels like a visceral reaction to Jacob going out with another woman. I’m engaged. I told him no. He told me he loved me and I said it was too late. He can move on. He can…

NO. HE. CAN’T.

I’m up out of my chair before I can hear my mother’s excited response though I can hear her chatting animatedly as I make my way into the house. I bypass the living room where my father is talking to Nick Barnes from next door about his new lawnmower or whatever the fuck and make my way upstairs toward my bathroom. I did actually need to go but I also needed a moment away from the chaos that I was barely staying one step in front of. If this were a romance novel, I had about five seconds before Jacob showed up at the door, pushing me backward into the bathroom and demanding me to explain why I’m behaving like a jealous brat.

My sex clenches at memories of him calling me that when he’d pulled me over his knee and spanked my bare ass.

Parker. Call Parker.

Fiancé. You have a fiancé.

I immediately pick up my phone and press his contact and I frown when it goes right to voice mail. Come on. I’m sending him a text letting him know that I called him when sounds of movement outside of the door sends every hair up on the back of my neck. No. No. No. I cross my fingers and pray. “Please be Chloe, please be Chloe,” I whisper. “Chlo—?” I ask nervously.

“Yeeessss?” she sings. “Let me in, I have to pee.”

A sigh of relief but also… what feels like disappointment floods me. I try to ignore the latter feeling and focus on the fact that temptation in the form of my ex and my parent’s best friend isn’t standing on the other side of the bathroom door.