If I hadn’t seen and heard it myself, I might have been touched. But Ethan hadn’t been risking his life to earn money for me. Whether he’d been trying to close a big deal or to win some hard-to-get girl, I didn’t expose him.
Drunk, he kept smiling like an idiot, and I couldn’t tell whether he was happy for me or for her.
He then leaned against me, intimate in the way that used to comfort me, but now his breath stung of alcohol.
Through the blur in my eyes, I still saw the lipstick mark on the ridge of his ear. That tiny stain set my eyes burning and my chest aching.
By the time I got him home, I was exhausted and drenched in sweat from the effort.
He sprawled on the floor in a drunken starfish and, for the first time, I felt no pity. I didn’t bother carrying him to bed or making him the usual wake-up soup. I was not his maid. I had no obligation to do those things.
I took a hot shower, locked the door, and climbed into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. His phone kept buzzing in his pocket, and the sound gnawed at me until I fished the device out. It was the first time I’d ever checked his phone.