King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, 4)

I should’ve told Bentley to fuck off, but my curiosity won out over anger.

That Sunday, four days after his call, I got out of a cab and walked into a nondescript bar in a remote area of town. It was half past noon, and the bar was empty thanks to the early hour and holiday weekend.

Xavier and I had spent a quiet but cozy Thanksgiving at his place. I’d been nervous about celebrating the holiday together—I hadn’t spent any holiday with any man since Bentley—but thankfully, Xavier didn’t make a big deal out of it. We ate, drank, watched movies, and had sex. On one occasion, he convinced me to play strip poker, which ended with us naked on the floor in about two point five minutes (and it had nothing to do with the cards). Overall, it was exactly what I needed.

The only damper was my meetup with Bentley. I hadn’t told Xavier about it because there was nothing to tell until I figured out what my ex wanted.

So here I was, on a freezing Sunday in the middle of a bar that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Reagan was in office, just to meet the man who’d cheated on me and broken my heart.

I’m an idiot.

Bentley was already waiting for me in a corner booth, his blue polo and clean-shaven face a startling contrast against the grunge decor.

He rose when he saw me. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”

“Get to the point.” I took the seat opposite his and kept my coat on. I wasn’t planning on staying long. “I’m busy.”

Bentley’s brow pinched as he sat down again. The son of a big-time financier, he possessed the preppy, all-American good looks of a Ralph Lauren model and the arrogance of someone who’d been rich, popular, and good-looking his entire life. He wasn’t used to being treated like an inconvenience, which was too fucking bad because that was what this was.

“It’s Georgia.” To his credit, Bentley recovered from my insult remarkably quickly. “She’s having…difficulties with her pregnancy.”

Of everything I’d expected him to say, that hadn’t been one of them.

I cocked an eyebrow, confusion mingling with a smidge of concern. I despised Georgia as much as one could despise their sister, but I wasn’t a monster.

I was, however, confused as to why her husband was telling me instead of literally anyone else in her orbit.

“Has she seen a doctor?” I asked.

Bentley blinked, then laughed. “No, not medical concerns,” he said. “She and the baby are fine. She’s just been so temperamental. You grew up with her. You know how she can be. She’s constantly screaming at me over the stupidest things, like the other day when I didn’t get her a frozen hot chocolate at three in the morning and she threw a Lalique vase at my head. A Lalique vase. Do you know how expensive that was?”

Any sympathy I had vanished, replaced by an urge to knock Bentley’s head against the wall until an iota of common sense rattled in that thick skull of his.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You called me out here on a holiday weekend to complain about being yelled at?”

“I could’ve died from that vase,” he said defensively. “She’s out of control.”

“She’s pregnant, Bentley, which means she’s growing an entire human inside her. It’s understandable if her hormones get a bit out of control.” Especially when her husband is a shithead.

I couldn’t believe I was defending Georgia, but Bentley had his head so far up his own ass, he could give himself a root canal— preferably without Novocain.

“Yes, well, I didn’t expect the pregnancy process to be so messy,” Bentley said, as if he were discussing a misbehaving pet instead of his wife and unborn child. “But that’s not all. Ever since we saw you at the hospital, she’s gotten more paranoid. She accused me of checking you out and said I still had feelings for you. She said she was my second choice and that I’m always comparing her to you. The thing is…” He leaned forward, his face earnest. “She’s not wrong.”

Pin-drop silence.

I gaped at him, sure I’d heard wrong. There was no way he was bold enough and stupid enough to say that to my face.

Our server approached before I could respond. Bentley ordered a beer, and after a small pause, I ordered a glass of red wine.

After the server left, Bentley continued. “I didn’t mean for things between us to blow up the way they did. You have to understand, you were working all the time. When you were home, all you talked about was Kensington PR. We barely had sex. I felt like I was living with a roommate instead of my fiancée. I needed more of a human connection, you know? Georgia was there, and she was so understanding of my concerns, and…well, she reminded me of you. Except she was a little warmer at the time.” He let out another laugh.

A muscle beneath my eye spasmed as our drinks arrived. Our server gave me a sympathetic look—people who worked in bars had a finely tuned asshole radar—but I didn’t say a word.

Let him dig his own grave deeper.

“I thought she was what I wanted,” Bentley said. “But things aren’t the same as they used to be. After we got married, she became so demanding. She’s always complaining about this or that, and we don’t have sex as much as we used to. Plus, she’s obsessed with tracking your every move. Did you know she set up a news alert for your name? It’s unhealthy. When we saw you at the hospital and she found out you were dating Xavier Castillo, she lost it.”

“I see.” I didn’t touch my wine.

The news alert revelation was a surprise, but it was exactly the type of thing Georgia would do. She was a huge believer in monitoring her “competition.”

“I miss you, Sloane.” Bentley gave me a mournful look. “You were always so calm and rational about things. You’d never throw a vase at my head. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, and I should’ve.”

“Interesting,” I said coolly. “Because I distinctly remember you calling me an ‘ice queen’ and telling me that dating me was like dating a block of ice.”

He blanched. “I said that in the heat of the moment. I was upset that you seemed to care more about your work than our engagement, so…”

“You fucked my sister on our living room couch and tried to gaslight me into thinking it was my fault? Then you married her a year after you proposed to me and didn’t say a single word to me for years until you ran into me and magically realized you were still into me?”

This wasn’t about me or his relationship with Georgia. Maybe there was trouble in paradise, but at the end of the day, Bentley was driven by his ego. He’d seen Xavier, who was a better man than him in every single way that counted, and he’d seen Georgia’s reaction to him.

He felt threatened, so he was trying to claw back power by 1) seducing me away from Xavier, 2) proving he could get me back despite what he’d done, and 3) secretly sticking it to Georgia for whatever slights she’d committed against him.

He was more transparent than a poorly stitched web.

“It wasn’t like that,” Bentley said, his cheeks red. “You have no idea the pressure I was under at the time. I had a lot riding on my transfer to New York, which I’d insisted on so I could be closer to you. Then I got there, and you weren’t even paying attention to me. I was insecure, I admit it, but I’ve been paying for my mistake since.” He gave me the same puppy-dog eyes my younger self could never resist. “We were so good together once. Do you remember London? Us walking by the Thames, eating at the best restaurants every night, checking into a hotel, and staying there all weekend…it was perfect.”

I ran a hand over the stem of my wineglass, silently taking in the man who’d broken my heart and destroyed my relationship with my family. My father and Georgia weren’t blameless, but Bentley had been the trigger.

Once upon a time, I’d thought he was the love of my life. I’d been so swept up by his good looks, his deceptively sweet words, and the magic of falling in love abroad like in the rom-coms I watched so often. His proposal was supposed to mark the start of our happily ever after.

But happily ever afters didn’t always end so happily, and now, after age and experience stripped the rose tint off my glasses, I saw him with crystal clarity.

His hair was too perfect, his clothes too pressed, his smile too fake. His words dripped with entitlement instead of a teasing lilt, and what I’d mistaken for charm was simply manipulation wrapped in shiny clothing.

He was so utterly boring, so nauseatingly fake, that I couldn’t believe I’d ever fallen in love with him.

Most of all, I couldn’t believe I’d let this asshole scare me away from relationships for so long. He didn’t deserve the power I’d given him over me, and I was done letting him ruin my life.

“I do remember London.” I smiled. He smiled back, clearly taking it as a sign that I was warming to his advances. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying we can have that again.” He paused and glanced around. “I can’t leave Georgia while she’s pregnant, but I know we won’t work out in the long term. However, you and I can still rekindle things in the meantime. I know you miss me as much as I miss you.”

“I’m dating someone, Bentley.”

“Who, Xavier?” He snorted. “Come on, Sloanie. We both know that loser isn’t good enough for you.”

“I see,” I repeated. My expression didn’t waver at my much-hated nickname—Sloanie. It was so damn condescending. “I’m… flattered, and obviously, there’s really only one answer.”

“Obviously,” he said with enough smugness to power an entire fraternity house.

“Take your proposition, and go fuck yourself with it.”

Bentley blinked. My words registered, and his smile disappeared beneath a mottle of red. “You—”

“Let me make a few things clear.” I spoke over him. “One, I would rather sleep with a leprosy-infected ogre before I ever let you touch me again. You are a disgusting, misogynist pig whose brain is inversely proportionate to the size of your giant ego, and you’re lucky I was too young when we met to know otherwise. Two, Georgia has many faults, but she and every other woman who’s unlucky enough to cross your path deserves better than you. I hope the next time she throws a vase at you, she doesn’t miss. Three, Xavier is ten times the man you could ever hope to be. He’s smarter, kinder, and better in bed.” I cocked my head. “News flash, Bentley, you’re not the sex god you think you are. Your technique is shit, and you couldn’t find a clit if the woman drew you a map and marked it with a giant X.” A burst of laughter punctuated the end of my rant. A group of twenty-something women had taken over the neighboring booth, and they were listening to us with rapt attention.

Story Sunday indeed. I hoped one of them recognized Bentley and told everyone they knew about his shortcomings. It was a long shot, but it was what he deserved.

I stood, my smile widening at his indignant sputters. “All that to say, I disrespectfully decline your offer to be your mistress. Don’t contact me again, or I’ll slap you with a restraining order and make sure every single person in your workplace and social circle knows you can’t take no for an answer.”

“You fucking bitch—”

I’d ordered the biggest glass of the darkest red wine, and I didn’t wait for him to finish his trite insult before I tossed the full contents in his face and walked out. Once I was outside, I stopped the recording on my phone and saved it to my files.

I hadn’t decided whether to send it to Georgia yet. She deserved to know what her husband was doing and saying behind her back, but our relationship was complicated, so I held on to it for now.

Bentley didn’t follow me, though I hadn’t expected him to.

My lips curled into a smile at the memory of his mouth hanging open while wine dripped from his hair and chin.

I’d written many film reviews excoriating the cheesy power move of throwing a drink in a guy’s face, but as I hailed a cab to go home, I concluded I’d been wrong.

The move may be cliché, but it was damn satisfying. Sometimes, the rom-coms got it right.