He snorted. “Yeah, another rung on her career ladder.”

“Stop,” she snapped. “You can be mad and you can be hurt—”

“I’m not hurt,” he interrupted sharply. Jesus, that’s the last thing I need. One more person thinking he was slinking around like a lovesick swain.

“Well, she is,” Grace said firmly. “She’s dying inside.”

“Yeah, a guilty conscience can be a bitch.”

Grace gave a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, I can see this was probably a mistake. And it’s really not my place. But . . .”

She pulled a rolled-up magazine out of her bag and tapped it against her palm. Grace bit her lip and looked at him nervously.

His eye caught the telltale image of a high-heeled shoe on the spine of the magazine and he let out a harsh laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that it?”

Grace gave a weak smile. “Our August issue. It won’t be out on stands for a few days, but I thought you should be the first to read it.”

The very thought made him nauseous. “So she wrote it. She actually f**king wrote it.”

He hated that the knowledge burned a hole in his gut. Hated that he’d been holding out hope that she’d cared enough about what happened to keep it private. That deep down, she’d meant what she’d said about him being more than a story.

“She wrote about you,” Grace said softly. “But not in the way you think.”

This was bullshit. He didn’t care what kind of pretty words she used to describe her f**ked-up game. His personal life was splayed all over a brainless women’s magazine, probably sandwiched between an article on Botox and one on the G-spot.

“I think you should leave,” he said, trying to keep his tone level.

Grace nodded, gathering her bag and taking another sip of her beer. “I should. But I’m leaving the magazine.”

“Great, I’ve been running low on toilet paper.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, resting a protective hand on the glossy cover. “My best friend’s heart is between these pages. You may not owe anything to her, and I know what she did to you was wrong. But you owe it to yourself to hear her side. It may give you some peace. And need I remind you that you’re hardly an innocent party in all this? What makes what she did so different from what you did?”

I loved her. I was going to call the bet off.

Grace chugged the rest of her beer before slamming the bottle with force back on the counter and marching to the door. He didn’t see her out. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the damned magazine.

Instinct demanded that he throw it away. Even if Julie had managed to spin a pretty story and had withheld his name, it didn’t change the fact that everything they’d shared had been a sham. The article would be too.

Grabbing another beer from the fridge, he started to head toward the couch, away from the magazine. Away from all reminders of her.

Then a headline caught his eye: “Pieces of a Broken Heart.”

Surely that wasn’t her story. That couldn’t be Julie’s article. But Grace’s words echoed in his ear. She’s dying inside.

Don’t touch it, man. Do. Not. Touch. It. Mitchell reached out a hesitant hand. Fiddled with the corner of the cover.

And then he sat down and began to read.

Chapter Twenty

As if Julie needed more proof that her once cheerful, predictable life was now turned upside down, she was running.

Willingly. On a Friday night.

She should be out on the town, living it up the way Julie Greene was expected to do. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have options. Keith had called for another date. Riley and Grace had begged her to join them for dinner. Even Camille had wanted to take her for drinks to celebrate. Sales numbers for Stiletto’s August issue were in, and true to Camille’s prediction, it was one of their best-selling issues to date, even though it had been only four days since it hit the stands.

Still, it wasn’t all good news. The feedback was starting to come in, and some of the readers were let down. After Allen’s Tribune article, they’d expected a juicer story. They’d wanted a tabloid-worthy exposition of what it was like to seduce a man into a relationship for the sake of a story, only to find out he didn’t want you in the first place.

Instead they’d gotten a love letter about heartache.

One columnist for a local paper had called her story classy, brave, and utterly dull. The New York Tattler thought she’d stolen the story from an eleventh grader’s diary. And then there was Allen Carsons’s follow-up article. He’d accused her of being a first-class swindler who’d resorted to playing the victim upon being outsmarted by his own “superior journalism.”

Julie ran faster, her breath coming in sharp gasps. Swindler, her ass. She’d poured her heart and soul into that article. She’d held nothing back.

And he hadn’t called.

Had he even read it? She suspected that the control freak in him would want to know what she’d said about him.

But the Mitchell who had stared at her that last day? That Mitchell had been done with her. For good.

Julie swore as she nearly tripped on a root. Maybe running in Central Park at dusk hadn’t been the best plan. She slowed her pace to a jog so that she could better see where she was going.

The breakneck sprint hadn’t accomplished what she’d hoped, anyway. She still couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Damn it, it was supposed to have gotten easier after writing the article, but she still couldn’t seem to go five minutes without checking her phone, desperate to see the one message that never came.

Still, the actual writing process had been therapeutic. Not only because she’d had a chance to spill her guts, but because she had hoped that it would help some other lovesick girl along the way.

Love is not a game, ladies. Treat it like one, and you’re bound to lose.

Everyone talks about the rewards of finding that one person. Nobody warns you about the pain of losing him.

She shook her head to clear it. Her own words had been running on repeat in her mind, and she just wanted to think about something else, anything else. But it was everywhere she turned. Riley had deemed her ballsy for spilling her guts. Grace had called her gracious. But right now she felt stupid. She’d told her story to strangers, and the one person who mattered didn’t give a damn.

Julie slowed to a walk and punched her hands into her hips as she gasped at the muggy summer air and fought back the tears.

Mitchell, I miss you.

Julie walked until her breathing returned to normal, but the anguished feeling didn’t leave. Running might have been a good idea, but running the exact same path she’d run with Mitchell that first day had not.

She kept seeing him with his easy pace ahead of her, glancing back to make sure she hadn’t fallen into the bushes or stolen someone’s bicycle. She pictured the teasing smile that was completely at odds with his stuffy image and high-tech running gear.

She pictured him waiting on the bench, ready with a hot dog and water bottle. The memory was so clear, so poignant that for a moment she really did see him. Saw the bench, saw Mitchell—

Julie stopped in her tracks.

Blinked. Blinked again. Squinted and crept closer.

It wasn’t a memory.

It was Mitchell.

Except this time, there was no teasing smile of welcome.

There was, however, a Stiletto magazine by his side.

He’d read it.

The heartbeat that had just barely returned to normal sped up to triple time as she slowly approached, her eyes locked on his, desperate for a sign of what he was feeling. Was he pissed? Pleased?

Did he still love her? Had he ever loved her?

But his blue eyes betrayed nothing. So afraid to hope that she could barely breathe, Julie wordlessly sat on the bench beside him.

She ordered herself to speak. Hi. Hello. I’m sorry. I love you.

Instead she said nothing. They weren’t touching, but she could feel the warmth from his hip just inches from her own, and she longed to lean in, just for a moment.

“You read it?” she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

He nodded once. “I wasn’t going to, but Grace brought it over. Came at me like a woman on a mission.”