Sleeping With Paris (32 page)

He said what I’d wanted to hear all year long—that I was the one for him, that he had made a huge mistake and that he loved me, not her. That he wanted to marry
me
. And in another moment of extreme moral weakness, I collapsed into him and ignored the feeling that this time it was me who was making the mistake.

It was clear that we hadn’t been intimate in a long time. Jeff all but ripped my dress right off of my body, and I couldn’t unbutton his shirt and pants fast enough. His lips tasted so good, I could hardly stand it. His arms felt even stronger than I remembered as he picked me up and laid me down on the bed.

But, as I let all of the perfect things he had just said to me sink in, I thought of Luc. Luc, who’d flown across the ocean to be with me at my friend’s wedding. Luc, who’d been there for me all year, so patient, even though I was avoiding commitment like the plague. Luc, who was a real man who fought to keep his daughter. Luc, who treated me better than any man in my life ever had.

Luc . . . who I was beginning to fall in love with.

I gazed up at Jeff and realized with sudden and absolute clarity that even though he’d gotten me all stirred up again, he was the
last
person I wanted to be looking at, let alone climbing into bed with.

I pushed Jeff to the side, jolted out of bed and scrambled to get my bra and underwear back on. What was I thinking? I had to go find Luc. I had to tell him how I felt.

“Charlotte, what’s the matter? Come lay with me for a minute.”

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter? Oh, you have some nerve!” I yelled as I slipped my dress over my head. “If it was me that you had wanted all along, then why did you put yourself on an online dating site? Why did you cheat on me with Brooke? Why did you let me leave for Paris without even trying to come see me? Why didn’t you fight harder to keep me if you really knew that it was me and only me that you wanted to be with for the rest of your life?”

Jeff sat up, naked in bed, and stared at me with that same bewildered look he’d had on his face when I first confronted him in his office last summer.

“You want to know why?” I answered for him. “Hmm, let me think. Because you’re full of shit, that’s why. You think you can come in here with your puppy dog eyes and have sex with me and tell me all these romantic things and that’ll make it all go away? That it’ll make me forget that you humiliated me by cheating on me with that girl and then bringing her to
my
friend’s wedding to throw it all back in my face?”

Jeff stood up and paced toward me.

“Put your clothes on and go fuck your girlfriend. I’m sure she’s waiting for you,” I said dryly as I turned around to leave the room.

“Charlotte, wait, you’ve got it all wrong!” he yelled after me as he pulled his pants on and followed me out the door.

As I raced out of the room, I ran straight into a fuming little red-head—Brooke.

“I knew it! I knew you were going to do this to me, with
her
!” she yelled, pointing at me, drunk and frantic. 

I tried to push past her and leave the shirtless, sleaze of a man behind me to fend for himself, but Brooke wasn’t having it. She grabbed me firmly by the wrist and pulled me back toward her. Her bony little arms were much stronger than they appeared to be.

She shot her furious graze right through me. “What did you do with him?”

And there, in Brooke’s icy blue eyes, I recognized something very familiar. It was me, just eight months ago, when I had first found out Jeff was cheating on me. She had that same painful, hysterical look, like a deer in headlights, about to get hit.

Hannah’s words from this morning rushed back to me. Brooke didn't know that Jeff and I had been engaged when she'd first started dating him.

And while I didn’t want to perpetuate the drama any further, I figured she at least deserved to know the truth.

“You want to know what just happened? Your boyfriend just tried to have sex with me,” I said, pointing to my hotel room. “I know what you’re thinking—how could Jeff, my perfect, rich lawyer boyfriend do this to me? Well, I’ve got news for you. He was engaged to
me
when he started sleeping with
you
.”

“What? No he wasn’t. He told me you two had broken up a long time before we started seeing each other. You’re lying. She’s lying Jeff, isn’t she?”

Jeff stood with his shoulders slumped, a pathetic mess staring blankly at the ground.

“Why do you think he didn’t end up going to Paris?” I asked as I pulled my arm from her grasp.

“He said his trip got cancelled at the last minute.” Doubt suddenly clouded her eyes like a raging storm passing through.

“It got cancelled because I found out he was cheating on me with you, and
we
were supposed to be moving there together. So, Jeff decided not to go once he’d been caught.”

A new fire raged in Brooke’s eyes. She wasn't concerned with me anymore. It was Jeff's blood she wanted. “Is that true? Is that true?” she shouted desperately, surely waking up anyone in the hotel who may have been trying to get a good night’s rest.

Defeated, Jeff muttered back to her, “Yes, it’s true. I . . . I’m sorry.”

Tears streaked down her perfectly made-up face as she pummeled Jeff’s chest with her bony fists. She was a fiery little thing. “You piece of shit! I can’t believe you tried to sleep with her! I can’t believe you lied to me!” Brooke continued raging and Jeff continued making excuses as I turned around to flee the scene. But my eyes landed on someone else’s gaze this time.

Luc. Oh God,
Luc
.

He had been standing at the end of the hall watching the whole hideous scene unravel.

Then I noticed that he was holding something in his hands. It was a magazine. It was
Bella Magazine
. We made eye contact, and then, with a disgusted look on his face, he shook his head at me and turned around. I dug my heels into the floor and bolted after him.

“Luc, wait, this isn’t what it looks like! Wait!” I called after him.

Meanwhile, Jeff had pushed past Brooke and was following me down the hallway.

“Charlotte, wait! What I said was true, come back!”

I turned around and stared Jeff in the eye. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage for one day? Leave me alone!” And with that, I raced down the hall and jumped into the elevator with Luc just before it closed.

He glared at me with angry eyes as he shook the magazine in the air.

“What is this, Charlotte? Did you think I would never see it? Was I just a research project for you?”

My gut twisted in knots as I struggled to get the words out. “No, Luc, no, you were never a research project. I . . . I started writing this blog about being single in Paris, and it didn’t have names in it or anything, but then the magazine contacted me and wanted me to write an article. You and I weren’t together then, and you had all of those weird phone calls, and I . . . there's no excuse. I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know I never meant anything to you because now I see you upstairs with that man, ruining that girl Brooke’s life.”

“How do you know who Brooke is?”

“She gave me the magazine,” he said as he shook his head in disgust and stormed out of the elevator.

That little bitch.

I chased after him. “We didn’t do anything, I swear. I don’t love him anymore, Luc. I love you. I just didn’t know everything about you, so I didn’t understand what a great person you are. But now I know, and I’m so sorry—”

“I don’t care if you are sorry. After tomorrow you will never have to see me again.” Luc shoved the magazine in my hands and took off into the DC night.

I stood in the lobby of the hotel and dropped the magazine to the floor. What had I done?

“Charlotte,” Katie called. “Where have you been? Are you alright? Where’s Luc?”

I turned my weary face to meet hers, and with one look, she knew.

“Oh no. He saw the article, didn’t he?”

I nodded as I stared at the magazine lying on the ground. I wanted to rip it to shreds.

Katie took the elevator up to my room with me so we could talk. I opened the door to find the covers all messed about and Jeff’s shirt still on the floor.

Katie bent down and picked up his crumpled shirt. “What's this?”

“There's more to the story than Luc seeing the article,” I told her, the shame of what I'd just done making me want to curl up in a ball and never face the world again.

As Katie listened quietly to the latest turn of events, I noticed the sympathy slowly draining from her eyes. Finally, when I was finished, she spoke.

“Charlotte, I know that what Jeff did to you was awful, but you have to get over it. I mean, seriously, how could you have taken him into your hotel room when Luc was just downstairs? What is it about Jeff that makes you go so nuts? And this is Hannah's wedding for God's sake. You promised her you wouldn’t do anything to ruin it! Can you ever just get over yourself and all of your relationship drama and just be there for your friends?” She stood up and stormed toward the door, then stopped and turned back around to face me.

“I'm your best friend and I know I'm supposed to be supportive of everything you do, so I wasn't going to say anything about this, but I can't hold it in any longer. All year you've been writing on your blog about how awful relationships are, how dumb it is to even think about committing to a guy, when here I am, completely falling in love with Joe. At first, I understood. You had your heart broken and you were just lashing out. But as the months went on, you'd be on the phone with me one day, pretending to be happy for me, then the very next day write a blog post about how relationships are the devil. And it hurt my feelings that you couldn't recognize that good relationships
do
exist, Charlotte. And that I'd finally found one.”

“Those posts weren't aimed at you, Katie. And I
am
happy for you. I wasn't pretending.”

“You can't play both sides, Charlotte. Relationships aren't all black and white, and when you brought Luc as your date for the wedding, I really thought you were starting to see that. That you were starting to calm down and be yourself again. I missed my best friend . . . the one I could always count on. The one I knew
before
you went buck wild in Paris and decided to sleep around like it was your job. But after what happened tonight, I don’t think you’re the person I used to know. In fact, I don't even think
you
even know who you are anymore. I sure as hell don't.”

Katie gave me one last glare, then left me alone in my mess of a hotel room with no one to answer for my despicable actions except myself.

***

I woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door and sprung out of bed thinking it was Luc. He'd never returned to the room after Katie had left, and I'd finally passed out in my bridesmaid dress and heels, waiting for him to come back.

I ran to the door and swung it open, but to my dismay, I found Jeff on the other side. I started to open my mouth to tell him to leave, but he held his hand up to quiet me.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you anymore. I knew you were probably in here alone, and I just wanted to see if you were okay.” He looked genuinely concerned, even though I didn’t really believe that was possible.

“I’m fine. And what makes you think I’m alone?” I shot back.

“Luc and Brooke are downstairs at the bar together.”

I felt the blood rise to my head. If that red-headed little monster was trying to steal Luc now, it was on.

“Oh, well I’m sure they’re just commiserating over what assholes we are,” I said, trying to act nonchalant about it while I clenched my fists and forced myself not to think about what Brooke was probably saying . . . or
doing
to Luc.

“Yeah, I’ve pretty much messed everything up. With you, with her, with everyone.” Jeff leaned against the wall and looked down. “I’m sorry, for whatever it matters at this point . . .” he paused and looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”

“I just don’t understand you, Jeff. You seemed so happy with us last year, and then you went and cheated on me with her, and now here we are, and you want me again. You can’t just play with women like that and expect it to all work out in the end.” As I listened to my own words, I realized I should've been giving this same advice to myself. What I'd done to Luc wasn't much different from what Jeff had done to me.

“I know I’ve done some really shitty things,” Jeff said. “But I followed you upstairs today because I miss you and seeing you again made me realize how much I love you.”

“But you didn’t realize those things until you saw me with Luc. You were just jealous. And besides, you’re with Brooke now. This isn't fair to her either.”

“Not anymore. We broke up, and we’re not getting back together. I don’t love her, I never did. And I wasn’t just jealous of that French dude.”

“
Luc
,” I interjected, annoyed.

“Whatever,” he said, as if Luc was nothing more than a speck of dirt on the ground. “I’ve been in love with you this whole time, and I’m ready to do this Charlotte, to really do this.” He stepped into the doorway and leaned in to kiss me.