But she took the choice from me.

“Goodbye, Cole,” she said and firmly shut the door.

Not goodnight but goodbye.

Oh hell no!

I pounded on the closed door. “Vivian! Open the f**king door! We’re not done!” I yelled. There was nothing but silence. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number.

I heard it ringing in Gracie’s room but she never answered it. I started alternating between banging on her door and obsessively calling her.

“Fucking hell, Vivian! Just open the goddamn door!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, kicking the wall with my foot.

“Sir, you are being a disturbance. I need to ask you to leave this floor.” A pimply faced, middle-aged twat that I recognized from the front desk put his hand on my arm. I hadn’t noticed him come off the elevator.

“Get your f**king hands off me!” I roared, knocking his hand away as I started pounding on Vivian’s door again.

“Vivian!” I yelled.

Pimply-faced dude pulled out a walkie-talkie and started talking into it. I didn’t pay much attention; I was too focused on taking Vivian’s door down.

Then two guys Pimply dude said were hotel security were dragging me into the elevator.

I gave up fighting after that.

Garrett came down to the lobby to talk to the night manager on duty and took me back to his room, because according to him I couldn’t be trusted on my own.

“Just let it go, man. You’ll get us all kicked out,” Garrett warned, obviously pissed at being woken up in the middle of the night.

I tried calling Vivian again and when she didn’t answer, I threw my phone against the wall where it smashed into pieces.

“What the hell, Cole?” Garrett asked, looking as worked up as he ever had.

I shook my head and lay down on the couch in his room. I flung an arm over my eyes.

“It’s nothing. It’s done with,” I muttered, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

Fuck Vivian and her bullshit.

I didn’t need the head-trip.

And she said I was the mind f**k? Whatever!

There were plenty of girls to take her place. I’d make sure to find a couple after the show tomorrow night. Hell, I might not even wait that long.

I’d get over it and move on. Not that there was anything to move on from.

Vivian Baily didn’t mean shit to me.

I repeated that over and over again even as her face danced across closed eyelids.

And I swore I didn’t care even as I thought about the look in her eyes when she said we were done.

And I ignored the pang in my chest when I realized she was right.

12

I had done it. I had severed the proverbial cord. I had cut ties. I had put a fork in it, we were done. I was every crappy break up metaphor out there.

Because I had officially ended things with Cole. Our hormone driven, lust-fueled, so-much-angst-it-might-kill-me relationship was finished once and for all.

And I was relieved.

Wasn’t I?

I mean, I didn’t feel good per se, but I felt okay about it.

Okay was fine, right?

Of course it was fine! It was great! I was Vivian Baily, woman able to resist the sexual allure of Cole Brandt! That deserved its own brand of commendation.

Yep, I felt okay.

So maybe I had slept like crap in Gracie’s bed. I had tossed and turned and thought about going back to Cole’s room with my tail tucked between my legs. That look on his face when I told him it was over had been stuck on replay in my head. It was on an endless loop.

What did that look even mean?

Because he didn’t look happy. He didn’t look angry either.

He looked…devastated?

Well that certainly couldn’t be right. I didn’t matter enough to be a blip on his radar, let alone devastate him. Psh.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting to run back to him. The familiar chaos was even more tempting now that I had made the decision to let it go. Then I chastised myself for being such a loser.

My internal battle had left me exhausted and irritable. I wanted to talk to Gracie. I wanted my friend’s affirmation that I hadn’t overreacted. That the honey fiasco had just been the tipping point in our dysfunctional coupling.

But she didn’t show up until the next morning. I had bitten my nails to the quick and gone through the entire contents of her mini-bar. I was hung-over and pissed off. Though I hadn’t been sure if I was pissed at Cole for being an ass**le or pissed at myself for wanting the ass**le so damn much.

I was so caught up in my boy troubles I never thought to wonder about where my wayward friend had been for the entire night. It wasn’t unlike her to shack up with someone, though it was unusual for her not to talk about it afterwards. Gracie believed whole-heartedly in kissing and telling.

She had been entirely too discreet. But she was in luck, because I wasn’t in the mind frame to care much where she had parked her v-jay for the night.

After Gracie had returned to the room, we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel like we were on the run. I sent a quick text to Maysie, making a lame excuse about our neighbor needing us to watch her cat and then we hightailed it back to Virginia.

Gracie listened to me bitch and moan the entire way. She offered little in the way of advice, because honestly I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it anyway. But she agreed I had made the right choice.

So I was feeling better by the time we pulled up out front of our apartment. I was feeling down right euphoric about my supreme act of girl power. Cole would not bring me down. He could keep his hunky rock god body far away from me.