The Billionaire And The Waitress (gxg)

44 - a tangle

     ONCE Muse had finished packing, later that evening, she tried coaxing Pegasus out of the room.

     "It's time to go." She stood like a stereotypical cartoon character: hands on her hips, tapping one of her feet impatiently. "Come on. I know you like it here. I do, too. But we're going to Hawaii in two hours. You won't even be able to tell the difference from one beachy place to the next."

     Pegasus stared at her mutely, as if he were silently protesting that he could, in fact, tell the difference between one beachy place to the next.

     "I'm going to get food," Muse said. "Don't you want food? It's dinner time, Pegasus."

     Pegasus narrowed his eyes. He seemed to be on strike.

     Once Muse had returned to the wedding suite after eavesdropping on Adrien and Grey's conversation, she'd ranted to Pegasus word-for-word of the conversation. Pegasus must have been taking it harder than even her―and she'd spent an hour in tears, knees up to her chest, on the floor.

     She had made it clear her and Adrien couldn't be together, not after Adrien's lie. As soon as the honeymoon was over, she would go back to New York City and never see her again. So why had it hurt so badly, hearing Adrien agree with Grey? Why did she care, when she knew this was bound to end? Maybe it was because, in her head, she had believed Adrien to be a different person than she actually was. Maybe she had built up an idea of Adrien, and that idea was wrong. 

     Adrien knew how to change her personality, change her mannerisms, and change her behaviour for a business deal. It didn't matter that she had told Muse she loved her. Even if she had kissed her forehead a thousand times, and waited for her to come home every night, and touched her so gently, so softly―as if Muse were the most precious thing in the world. 

     Maybe that was just her way of selling the deal.

     After all, before Adrien had met Muse, she had slept with different women every weekend. Models and daughters of businessmen and elite New York City influencers. Perfect and beautiful women, who had each probably begged Adrien for more than a one-night stand, for more than her ruthless, stone-cold facade. 

     And Muse had told her to fuck whoever she wanted. What was to say Adrien hadn't? What if she had never changed her ways―only hidden them from Muse? After all, she had agreed with Grey when he'd said, "That's just who you are, Adrien."

     What if that was the real Adrien? The heartless womanizer? 

     They had both confessed their love for each other. But Muse had to consider that, in the end, Adrien wanted her father's empire more than anything―wanted to be the CEO of the Vitaly Enterprises more than she wanted a wife, more than she wanted Muse.

     All of the women Adrien had slept with had realized that. Leila and Piper had both warned her.  It had just taken Muse longer than most to see the truth. 

     Pegasus meowed softly, almost in protest. As if he could see the train of Muse's thoughts.

     "Well, it makes sense," Muse argued. "She agreed with Grey. You know this. It was stupid to think she changed just for me, just because she loved me."

     Another meow.

     "Do you think I should go talk to her?" Muse paced around the room. Her stomach growled. "What is there left to say? I know how she thinks. She played me like I was a business deal. Well, I was. But then she changed everything when she told me she was in love with me." Muse came to a stop, almost paralyzed by her next thought: "Maybe that was a lie, too."