After their excited shrieks over him saying that he wanted to be with me (including a very emphatic “I told you so!” from Shay), I asked them what they thought he’d meant by things he had to tell me. Of course neither one of them knew, either, but they had a lot of fun conjecturing.

“Maybe his new promotion means he’ll have to move so you’ll have to move?” Delia offered.

Shay said, “I’m sticking with he’s totally in love with her and wants to tell her in person about his undying devotion.”

While I appreciated her positive outlook, my internal pessimist had taken over and I had thoroughly convinced myself that he was going to say it all was a mistake and I’d have to move out and lose both him and Pigeon and my heart was going to shatter into a million pieces and I would never ever recover. “Whatever it is,” I sighed, “I hate that I’m failing in love.”

There was a pause. Delia asked, “Don’t you mean falling in love?”

“No, the way I’m doing it, it’s failing. Nothing seems to be going right. My mind is just all over the place and I can’t quiet it down.”

“You sound overcaffeinated to me,” Shay said. “How many cups have you had today?”

“I don’t know. Two? Eleven? I didn’t sleep last night because of all this. My brain wouldn’t turn off and now I’m exhausted and coffee is the only thing keeping me awake and somewhat coherent.”

Our intercom buzzed and I told the girls to hang on. “Yes?”

“Miss Huntington, there’s someone here to see you? She says her name is Oksana?”

I rolled my eyes so hard I almost saw my brain. Like Brad, apparently she didn’t understand what over meant. “Tyler’s not here. He’s on a business trip. Tell her she’ll have to come back later.”

I thought that was the end of it, but then I heard Gerald’s voice again. “She says she wants specifically to talk to you. Not Mr. Roth.”

That was super weird. Some part of me thought of telling him to just send her away but the bigger part was strangely curious as to what she might say. Like I was about to be a part of a big confrontation in one of my favorite reality TV shows.

“Tell her I’ll be right down.”

I got back on my phone and told the girls what was happening and promised to call them after I talked to her. Shay offered to drive over and be my backup, but I told them it was unnecessary.

My heart beat a bit faster as I stepped off the elevator and into the lobby. Oksana was waiting there, looking gorgeous as ever, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. She had on a red leather jacket that my aunt would have loved. She was also smoking, even though I overheard Gerald telling her this was a nonsmoking building and to get rid of her cigarette.

When I got closer she finally did as she was asked, and put the cigarette out under her high heel.

“That day, in the sushi restaurant?” she said when I got close enough. “I knew you were there. I wanted you to see me kissing Ivan. I wanted you to tell Tyler so that he would be jealous.”

Um, okay. Had she really stopped by to tell me that? Merry Christmas, I know you saw me making out with somebody else and I wanted you to pass that information along?

“I told him. He wasn’t upset.”

My response seemed to infuriate her. “I also know that you are in love with him,” she continued, and I hoped I didn’t look as shocked as I felt. Was I that bad at hiding it? Had Tyler known all along? Was that what he wanted to talk to me about? “I could see it from the first time we met. It was pathetic. You are nothing but his maid.”

“Roommaid, thank you very much!” As comebacks went, it wasn’t great. I was sure to come up with a better one at around one o’clock in the morning when I replayed this incident for the hundredth time in my head. “And you came here just to insult me? I already have a mom for that. So I’ll be going.”

She reached out, grabbing my arm. “You do not know him. Not the way that I know him. He does not care about women. He uses them and moves on. You will be just another broken heart in a long line of broken hearts.”

Was this sour grapes or was she trying to get in my head? Because if her goal was the second one, it was working a little. “That doesn’t sound like Tyler to me.”

“It is Tyler. He doesn’t make commitments. You may think he is the hero, but he is not. He will do whatever he has to do to get what he wants. He is not the good guy. He is ambitious and can be ruthless.”

I finally jerked my arm away, not wanting to hear any more. I had lived with Tyler, eaten dinner with him, gone out to restaurants and events with him, watched television with him, shared a dog with him, and slept across the hall from him. I’d kissed him and listened when he said he wanted to be with me. I felt like I knew him pretty well. I knew him well enough to be in love with him.

“I’m not going to listen to this,” I told her. “You can see yourself out. I won’t be coming down here to talk to you again.”

She was shouting at me in what I assumed was Russian as I left the lobby. I wasn’t going to let Oksana ruin what I knew to be true about Tyler. Although, a voice in my head whispered that maybe what she’d said had merit. Why else would she bother coming over here just to talk to me? Maybe she really had been trying to warn me.

Or had Tyler hurt her when she ended things and now she was lashing out? Trying to hurt and confuse me, someone who was, as far as she knew, his friend and roommate?

I couldn’t see her angle or why she had made this kind of effort. It wasn’t like Tyler was going to get back together with her after he heard what she’d said. So I had to assume that this was a mission sent solely to destroy me and the feelings I had for him.

Maybe I should have told her she’d failed.

I didn’t believe he was capable of being a bad guy. I’d seen too much kindness and goodness in him. But the commitment thing? If that was her main hang-up? That could very well be true. Given his financial situation, maybe it was easier for him not to be serious with anyone because of how much he took care of his mother.

Would I be okay with that? But, how could our relationship not be committed and more serious if I was living in the same apartment with him? That could be a problem, too. We would be starting out from a more serious place.

When I got back up to my apartment, my phone was ringing. I’d left it on the counter when I went downstairs.

At first I assumed that it was Shay or Delia calling, trying to see what had happened with Oksana.

It was my oldest sister. I quickly answered.

“Hi, Violet. What’s going on?” I wasn’t going to assume that she needed anything. Maybe this was just a sisterly call and she was checking on my well-being.

That hope was dashed a second later when she said, “You know that favor you owe me? I’m cashing it in. I need you to come to Mom and Daddy’s Christmas party tonight.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“What?” I asked. This was more than a little alarming. It was also the very last thing I’d expected her to ask for. Come to my parents’ annual, as they called it, Christmas Eve Eve party? They didn’t have it on Christmas Eve because they were worried that if they did, people wouldn’t come. That they would want to do silly things, like spend the evening with their families. So it was always the day before Christmas Eve and for many members of Houston society it was a tradition kept like any other Christmas tradition.