Love Me Not, page 1
Love Me Not
Edie Bryant
Contents
Copyright
1. Paige
2. Anna
3. Paige
4. Anna
5. Paige
6. Anna
7. Paige
8. Anna
9. Paige
10. Anna
11. Paige
12. Anna
13. Paige
14. Anna
Epilogue
Broken Record Preview
Chapter 15
16. Heather
17. Lindsay
18. Heather
Free Bonus Chapter
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Edie Bryant
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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This book is a reimagined version of a previously published MM romance novel. I really enjoyed revitalizing this story with lesbian themes and new lovers. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed rewriting it.
1
Paige
I stared down at the side table next to my chair. The wood was a light golden color, though you could hardly see that because of the pile of magazines scattered across it.
Ironically, they were all family oriented magazines. Why they would put magazines covered with happy, smiling families in the office of a divorce lawyer was beyond me.
Maybe they just really liked to get you hyped up before your appointment. You know, really get that rage boiling so you forgot that you were spending way too much money, and just focused on the fact that you wanted to stick it to your ex, no matter the cost.
Well, it wasn’t working with me. My blood wasn’t boiling. I wasn’t an inherently angry person to begin with, but I definitely didn’t feel much anger about this divorce. Honestly, I didn’t feel much of anything. I was just… kind of numb, I guess you could say.
Which was how I’d been feeling for many years now. Numb would very accurately describe my feelings about my entire marriage.
It’s weird. When you’re young, you think you have this idea of what marriage is going to be. You see your parents, who still seem passionately in love, and you think, yeah, that’s marriage. It’s passion, happiness, it's living life with your best friend.
So when you meet a guy who seems to have all the qualities you look for in a partner, you date him. You laugh with him, grow with him, and maybe it’s not as passionate as you imagined, but you do love him.
So after a few years, he proposes and you accept. Because it’s what you’re supposed to, it’s what your family is pushing you to do, and it’s clearly what he wants. And you’re a bitch if you string someone along for three years in a relationship that has no problems but don’t marry them. So he proposed and we got married.
But I had my reservations. All along, there was that nagging feeling in the back of my mind telling me things weren’t right. The passion that I had always imagined just wasn’t there.
I loved him, definitely, because I valued the person that he was and he was my closest friend for years. But it wasn’t like I was thrilled to wake up to him everyday. It wasn’t as if the plans for our future planted warm, fuzzy feelings in me.
But relationships get comfortable, right? At least, that was what I told myself. Instead of dealing with the fact that maybe I didn’t really want to marry this man, I redefined what marriage was.
I convinced myself this was how everyone felt: they got comfortable with someone that they cared about and they made a life. Passion was fleeting, something you only felt in the beginning of a relationship, so it was fine that I didn’t feel it now, before I was about to marry him.
The truth was, I didn’t even have passion in the beginning of our relationship. I just never had those kind of feelings for him. He was always just a nice enough guy with good enough qualities to date.
Still, would things have been different if I had felt passionate about him from the start of our relationship? Like I said, that faded with time, anyway. We would have ended up in the same situation regardless of where we started.
And I never felt those kind of emotions for any man that I’d dated in the past. I didn’t know if it was possible to even feel those things for another person.
It sounded like something spoken about only in movies or overly romantic books. I knew people in real life talked about feeling that way, of course, but maybe it was something they talked themselves into because that was how they wanted to feel.
Or maybe I was just broken. I’d always been pretty unemotional. Maybe the part of my brain that was supposed to feel strong emotions simply didn’t work. Hell, maybe no relationships would ever work for me because of this.
I didn't really care, though. Not right now, at least. Getting into a new relationship sounded like a nightmare.
“Paige?” the office receptionist called out.
I looked up at her with a faint smile. “Yeah?”
“She’ll see you now, go ahead and head back to her office.”
“Great, thanks,” I said, sitting up and walking the few feet to the heavy door that led out of the waiting room.
I always dreaded coming here. Not because I hated thinking about my divorce or anything. It didn’t bother me much. I just hated offices like this. I hated empty waiting rooms, and I hated narrow hallways that always held the stench of Lysol. This place reminded me of the doctor’s office and gave me the same twinge of anxiety that seeing the doctor did.
I went into the office, my lawyer smiling at me from behind her desk.
“Paige, hello, nice seeing you again.” She reached out to shake my hand.
“Yeah, you too,” I lied. She was a likeable person, but I didn’t exactly relish my meetings with her. I was really hoping this would be my last one.
“So, David’s lawyer got back to me yesterday and they’re happy with our offer,” she said with a smile.
He damn well better be happy with the offer, I thought. I was more than generous. I essentially gave him almost every shared asset we had, which was mostly the house we lived in together.
It wasn’t a hard decision to make. I had nothing against him. He had recently lost his job, so financially, things were harder for him right now than me.
Plus I had no desire to be in that house anymore. It made me lonely. It was too big, too empty for one person to live in. I felt much more comfortable in my new apartment across town.
Honestly, the house gave me such a strange feeling that I wouldn’t want to return to it at all. Not even to do renovations and prepare to sell it. I’d rather just stay away. If it didn’t create the same loneliness in him, he could keep it.
“So, he signed the papers and this is all done with, then?” I asked.
“Not exactly. He apparently did have one little issue that wasn’t addressed.”
“Oh?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s about the dog…”
“You’re kidding!” I snapped instantly.
I meant it when I said that I didn’t anger easily, but hearing this infuriated me.
“That’s my dog,” I said defiantly. “He can’t take him. My husband had no part in raising and training him, he never cuddled up to him at night, and he never walked him. I can’t believe he’s trying to lay claim to him now!”
I loved that dog more than I loved anything or anyone. I had raised him since he was just a pup when I found him abandoned outside my office. He was my everything. He was really the only thing I had left, the only thing I didn’t dare hand over to David in the divorce.
“Paige…” my lawyer began slowly.
“No!” I cut her off. “He absolutely can’t have him. I won’t budge on that. If he wants the house, then he has to give him up. End of story.”
“Paige, relax!” my lawyer insisted. “He doesn’t want the dog.”
“He… doesn’t?” I asked. “But you just said—”
“He says he’s concerned about the dog’s well being. He knows you love the dog and take good care of him, but he’s concerned that you work long hours every day and the dog is now kept pent up in the apartment.”
Okay, I supposed that was a legitimate concern. It was something I had been thinking about myself, actually.
I wasn’t comfortable with the situation either, but with the mess of the divorce and my increased hours at work, I hadn’t had much time to figure out a solution.
“So what does he want, exactly?” I asked. “To keep the dog because I have to leave him at home during the day?”
“Like I said, he doesn't want to fight you for the dog, but he wants what’s best for him. If you can demonstrate that he is being well taken care of through the day while you’re at work, then this will be a non-issue.”
“But how can I do that?” I asked. “I mean, you just said it yourself. I’m at work. I can’t go in and check in on him or anything.”
“Have you considered doing either doggy daycare or sending him to a dog sitter?” she asked.
“No, I hadn’t even though about that,” I admitted, though I felt kind of dumb saying it.
“Look, this is an issue that pops up often with my clients. One partner watches the dog while the other one works, but it’s the working spouse that wants to keep the animal. Obviously, dogs are social creatures and sitting at home alone for eight hours a day isn’t ideal. So this is what most of my clients do to combat the problem, if they can afford it, which of course, I know you can.”
“Right, absolutely, the money isn’t the issue. Honestly, I just hadn’t thought about it.” Which shouldn’t have surprised me—my brain felt like it was in a fog lately.
“So that’s something you can do, then?”
“Definitely. I’ll start looking for somebody right away.”
“Excellent!” she said. “Then we’ll go ahead and meet again in a few weeks to finalize this after you’ve found a trustworthy sitter. Sound good?”
“Yes,” I said, though it didn’t sound good. I really wanted this to be my last time here. “I’ll see you then.”
I left her office with a bunch of options whirling around my head. While doggy daycare sounded nice, I knew my pup, Buddy, wasn’t going to be okay around a bunch of other dogs. Despite my best attempts to socialize him as a puppy, he just didn’t have a very good reaction to other animals. People he loved, animals not so much.
A sitter without any other dogs to watch would be the most ideal, but that would probably be hard to find. Maybe I could put an ad out for somebody. I was sure if I paid decently it wouldn’t be too hard to find someone.
But Buddy was also hesitant to go new places. I didn’t know how he’d do in somebody else’s house all day. He was a pretty nervous dog, always had been. Except around me and my ex-husband, as well as friends that he slowly had become acclimated to.
Maybe I could have somebody come to my apartment instead of taking him somewhere else. Actually, that would work out much better. I ended up doing a lot of overtime in the office and on nights where I was going to be home a little late, the dog sitter could just leave at their usual time since Buddy would already be home.
I wouldn’t have to stress about drop off and pick up times. The sitter could take Buddy to the nearby park that he knew and trusted. They could do the usual walks around the block. Buddy would be much more comfortable that way.
It’d be a little risky having a stranger in my apartment, but I had good judgement. I’d just have to pick someone I trusted. And of course, I’d be doing background checks on anyone I interviewed. Not to mention the fact that I already had security cameras set up around the apartment. I installed them as soon as I moved in so I could check on Buddy throughout the day. They were all on a live feed that connected to my phone.
It was decided, then. I’d do some online browsing tonight to find sites to post my ad to and wait for somebody to get in contact with me. In a city this big, I’d be able to find a trustworthy candidate at the end of the week. Then I’d be able to finally put this divorce thing to bed and move on with my life.
Except, I wasn’t really even sure what that meant anymore.
2
Anna
I rubbed my eyes slowly. They were dry and itchy as they usually were when I woke up. Especially when I’d overslept, which I guessed I did again today, like I had been all week.
“Anna!” a familiar voice called out to me. “Are you home?”
“Yeah.” I groaned.
My roommate, Krista, popped up at the door of my bedroom. Her face was full of disapproval.
“You’re still in bed? Anna, it’s 2pm!”
“I know, I know.” I sat up.
She sighed. “You can’t keep doing this, Anna. I know your life is kind of depressing right now…”
“Kind of?” I cut her off, eyebrows raised.
“Okay, fine, very depressing.” She rolled her eyes. “But you can’t just give up on life and sit in bed all day!”
“Krista, it’s been two weeks. Can you cut me some slack?”
“No! I definitely can’t! If I don’t push you, who’s going to?”
She wasn’t wrong. Krista was the only voice of reason in my life. She wasn’t my only friend; I had quite a few other friends I hung out with, but they were just friends I did shit with. Went to bars, clubs, random festivals.
But they weren’t the kind of friends who had a vested interest in my future or anything. And I was no longer in contact with my parents, so they weren’t around to push me, either.
“Okay, fine,” I told her. “You know what? I’m going to look up jobs right now. How about that?”
“Fantastic! That sounds great.” She gave a little huff and then went into the kitchen.
Krista always gave me a lot of shit, but I loved her for it. I needed someone like that in my life. I wasn’t sure how I’d get on without a push from her, especially at times like this.
A month ago, I felt like I had everything going for me. I was finally moving in the right direction in my life. At age 25, I felt like it was finally time to take my life seriously. I cut out the bar hopping and the weekend partying and I began to settle down.
I had a good job. I was a nanny for a pretty wealthy family. Every day from nine to five, I watched their only child, four-year-old Brianna, and their pets. And because Brianna was a total sweetheart, it was a great job with awesome income. I had more than enough money to pay my rent and bills here with Krista and save for the future.
I also had a lovely girlfriend, Jade, who I’d been with about a year. I was sure that I was going to marry that girl. It felt like everything was falling into place for me.
Then Brianna’s parents both got laid off from the company they worked for. They were forced to find other jobs which, unfortunately, took them to the other side of the state. So I lost my job.
And that sucked, because it was hard to find work in a city like this, where there were tons of people looking for jobs.
But whatever, it sucked, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I had good savings to tide me over until I found my next job, which I was determined to do ASAP. I still had Krista and Jade, after all. They were both my rocks.
Until Jade left her phone at my house one night, and the texts I received indicated she wasn’t exactly being faithful to me.
In a span of two weeks, I lost the best job I ever had and the best relationship I ever had. My super comfortable, happy life got flipped right over. Now everything felt like a mess.
I had never taken a break up so hard before, but I really thought Jade was the one. She was everything I wanted, she had her shit together, she was a good person. Or so I thought.
I also really hurt because I’d never been cheated on before. That stung a lot. A relationship ending sucked, but a relationship ending because the person you trusted most in the world betrayed you? That was a lot worse.
I didn’t know how to move on from that. How could you just forget about the fact that you’d been seriously hurt and move forward? How would I meet someone else, like them, begin to trust them, and not worry about getting burned?
I was feeling a little hopeless. I’d admit, it wasn’t very mature, but a part of me wanted to say fuck it. Forget growing up, forget maturing, just go back to partying and not worrying about my future. Because the future I had planned had fallen to pieces.
But I wasn’t going to give in to that. I was proud of myself for moving on from my old lifestyle and I didn’t want to feel like a disappointment once again. Plus, fuck Jade, I wasn’t going to let her take away all the progress I’d made.
My laptop was sitting on the floor next to my bed. I grabbed it and pulled it onto my chest. I may have been determined not to give up, but I was still too lazy and too depressed to get out of bed.
I logged back onto the old nannying website I used before I got hired by Brianna’s parents. It wasn’t a nannying site specifically; it was just a site that set up people with different home care jobs. Nannyies, house sitters, care givers, drivers for people who couldn’t drive on their own. People posted personal ads and workers posted profiles for people to sift through.
I hadn’t logged in since the break up, so there were quite a few ads for me to look through. Unfortunately, even with a bigger selection to go through, it didn’t seem that I fit most applications, which requested more experience than I had. I applied to a few of the general posts, the ones made by parents too lazy to actually list their specifications, but I never got much of a reaction from those ads.
