Broken Ex-Bully by Victoria Pinder
2
Renzo
I checked the balcony area twice for Chloe, but she’d disappeared from the party entirely. Her face seemed so familiar, like I’d seen her before. It was like she was a woman from one of my dreams. I wanted to find out everything about her.
As the party ended, my older brother Damon stopped me and stood in my way. “Renzo, Mirabelle wants you to leave her friend Chloe alone.”
My eyes narrowed. No one in my family had ever told me what to do before. “Why? She’s the hottest woman here.”
He shrugged. “Mirabelle’s the bride, and that’s her friend.”
“How do they know each other?”
“Friends in college. Chloe’s a nurse.”
Mirabelle had gone to a community college, but I didn’t know her college friends because I’d just moved back from USC. I patted my brother on the back. “Look, I won’t cause you any grief at your wedding. Don’t worry about me.”
I would need to see her again and find out why she stirred something inside me. She’d flirted, and I wanted to fuck her brains out against the nearest wall, but there was more. I wasn’t sure what it was, though.
I took extra time sprucing myself up and headed to the open-bar cocktail party the night before the wedding, though I refused to put on a tie. I’d become CEO of a new company, and our dress code was absolutely informal. But for my brother’s wedding the next day, I would have to sport a tie.
I gazed at the bar. Most people weren’t early birds, so the crowd of guests was still thin. I circled the room and said hello to those who were there. Then I turned toward the door, and the room became fuzzy as I stared at the one woman I wanted. Her black dress clung to all the right areas. Her breasts swelled, and my hands ached to touch them.
I closed the space between us. My heart beat faster, and I smelled the coconut-vanilla air. “I thought you were going to stand me up.”
She shrugged. “Why? I said I’d be here, and I’m on time.”
She pointed to the bar, and I walked over there with her. “I was commanded to leave you alone.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
My heart pounded as I realized she hadn’t asked the bride to do that. We ordered the same as earlier, white wine for her and a beer for me. Once we were alone again, I asked, “So how did you and the bride become friends?”
“We both wanted an associate’s in nursing so we’d have a path for making our own way, though she ended up meeting and falling for your brother. Did you go to school?”
Mirabelle was exactly my age, and Chloe probably was too. I glanced at her profile, and for one second, I remembered how in high school I’d had the same feelings for a girl my parents would never have wanted me to bring home. I could hear my mother telling me women were supposed to be arm candy for important men.
I blinked the memory away. “I finished my accounting BA last month.”
She inhaled and touched my elbow. “That was fast.”
I don’t remember swapping IDs with her.I looked more closely at her. She resembled Chloe from high school, but she was taller and gorgeous. “How do you know?”
Her face went as white as her drink. She took a sip. “You don’t seem that much older than me.”
I wanted to find a corner and put my hand up that black dress of hers. “And you are…?”
She lifted her chin. “Twenty-one.”
I massaged the back of my head. She made me think about the hateful kid I used to be. “Me too. I graduated in three years. I wasn’t really into the college scene.”
“Me either.” She clinked her glass to mine.
We took sips as the music started. My cock was hard, and I wanted to touch her everywhere, so I asked, “Want to dance?”
She looked down and shook her head. “I don’t know. Let’s finish our drinks this time.”
Others hit the floor, and the music grew loud, but I stayed next to her. My skin buzzed, not from the sounds but from her nearness. “Fair enough. Maybe I’ll figure out why you’re such a puzzle to me.”
We drank a little more, comfortably silent. But my dick hurt from wanting to take her over the bar and sink into her. I pushed down that desire.
“Probably time to come clean with you,” she said.
My eyes widened. I hoped she wanted the same thing I did. “Yeah?”
Her face turned bright pink. “We knew each other in high school.”
A small pool of dread spread through my gut. “What? No way.”
“Yes way. I’m Chloe, the ugly four-eyed porker.”
Chloe was the girl who’d sat behind me in half my classes, and she’d weighed more than me. She was the first girl I ever wanted to fuck, but I knew my mother would blow a gasket if she thought I liked a fat girl. I knew I could never do anything about liking her, so instead, I’d done the unspeakable—I’d picked on her so nobody would know that she affected me.
My face burned. “No fucking way.”
She inched away and reached over to pick up her drink. “Yeah. So we probably shouldn’t dance.”
I placed my hand on her side and stared into her brown eyes. If she left, I’d never see her again, so I quickly said, “I’m sorry, Chloe.”
She let out a sigh. The music changed to a salsa, but neither one of us moved. She asked, “Why did you torture me in high school?”
Fucking fair question. I glanced at the chandelier and swallowed. I’d been an ass. My skin felt like it was squeezing me. “The truth?”
She sipped her drink and nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice. You could have just ignored me like everyone else there.”
I squeezed her arm. I needed to get her alone, away from the romantic beats of music that strummed parts of my heart I wasn’t supposed to have. “Because I noticed everything about you even then. Come, let’s take a walk and enjoy the resort.”
She rocked up onto her toes, and I half expected her to slap me for how I’d acted. I wouldn’t have blamed her for disappearing, but then she said, “Okay. You’re on.”
Maybe I would never know how it felt to be inside her. I didn’t deserve it, but at least I had a few more minutes near her. It would have to be enough to last a lifetime.
