Read TROUBLE 2 for Free Online Page B

with a smile on my face and enough cheer to light up New York. Until now.
    “It’s a business dinner. I want you there in case I have to leave early,” he says stonily, giving me his usual look of command.
    “Greg, be reasonable.”
    Why is it always like this? One minute I am convinced he’s a good guy, and the next he’s showing me how truly awful he can be. I’ve given in recently and admitted to myself that I feel a lot more for him than plain, old-fashioned lust or like.
    Obviously I’ve been sleep-smoking crack cocaine, because I seem to have done the dumbest thing I could and fallen for him. Like, love and babies — yikes — kind of fallen.
    It’s been hard and is getting harder to hide the soft feelings I have, feelings I know he does not share. If anyone ever tells you that love is all you need, kick them in the balls and get running, because it’s bullshit.
    I love a man who not only is getting married to the world’s sweetest socialite, but is so heartless he’s willing to make me go wedding shopping with her.
    And then today he’s decided to add insult to injury and wants to introduce me to his family. Now I know why I’d been so against getting together with him in the first place. I am and will always be nothing more than his mistress, a piece of ass he’s currently interested in but will eventually tire of.
    If miracles happen and he does want me for, say, a year or more, something he’s been hinting at, I will be worse off than I am now. At least now he’s still not married. Very soon though he’ll have a wife, a good woman who deserves more than this, and I will be that woman, the one nobody likes, the one who’s left a broken wreck, waiting for a man she can never own.
    But see, as much as I know this is true, giving him up is not possible. Not as long as I have this useless hope clawing at me. It’s idiotic, but I keep imagining that soon he’ll realize he loves me and he’ll break off his engagement to be with me.
    This is how far I have fallen from the self-respecting woman I was. I am now wishing misery on another woman so that I can have what I want.
    “Hannah?” he barks impatiently, and I focus on him, shaking my miserable doubts back to the back of my mind, where they’ve been for days.
    “No. You can go to that dinner with your fiancée like a decent man,” I snarl, throwing his messages at him. “I may be a goddamned whore, but I’m not a total glutton.”
    I storm out and grab my bag, hightailing it out of the office before Mr Bossy Boots can get hold of me again.
    I need a break, and as far as I’m concerned he can get through lunch without his sycophant mistress hanging on his every word.
    “Oh, hey! You finally coming out of that cave? Good, let’s go grab lunch and talk. I can’t wait to hear what the life of a corporate PA is like. Oh, and happy birthday!”
    Lucy, just what I need right now, I think angrily, forcing a smile to my pinched lips.
    “Hey, Luce, sorry, I can’t make lunch today. I’m going to see Amber.”
    It’s a split second decision, and the moment I make it I know it’s something I need to do. Besides getting my money back, I want to know just what’s going on with the bakery and Gregory’s stake in it. A little late, but at least I’m getting there.
    When I reach her shop, I am shocked at the changes. It’s no longer a dark little hole in the wall, but a bright, swanky place that seems to be doing well, from the number of people I have to squeeze through to get to Amber.
    “Amber!” I yell, getting her attention.
    She looks up and grimaces, waving me to the back as she rings up an order. I enter her office and flop into a seat.
    “So, you here for your money?” she asks, slamming the door forcefully.
    “Yup. I have things to pay, Am. I told you that when you took the loan.”
    Her lip curls and she sneers at me, shocking me with a fury I’ve never seen from her. Amber is spoiled and rude at the best of times, but she’s