The Publicist's Plight (Book I in The Harrison Inc. Series) | ✓

Chapter Seventy: The Broken Wine Glass

**

This scenario seems too familiar to me.

You know—the scenario of me crying on my kitchen floor while trying to calm my nerves with a glass of wine. The familiarity of this is probably what's hardest. It seems like my life is a cycle of reoccurring events.

Sebastian's gone, and I'm here surrounded by a broken wine glass. But I'm not the innocent one; I went after him shortly after he left me flustered and deceived against my kitchen sink. There was broken glass involved in that, too. Broken glass, screaming, pushing, hitting. Most of that done by me. I'll take the blame for that.

I suppose it's best to explain the events that came after Sebastian left me in my kitchen.

I can't stop thinking about it anyway.

**

Where to begin?

Well, it took me a good ten seconds to realize what had just happened. Sebastian Harrison—notorious Playboy, potential Harrison Incorporated CEO, Garrett Harrison's son and my client, had left me against the sink after our make out session that put me under the impression that everything was okay. It wasn't; he knew about the journal, and only came to my apartment to exact his revenge on me.

At first I was shocked. Then, I was heartbroken. Finally, I became angry. I tightened my robe, grabbed the vase of flowers on the table and furiously stormed out of my apartment. I made it to Sebastian in time when I walked outside into the warm air. Vase in my hand and fluffy slippers on my feet, I called his name out into the night, and when he didn't respond, I chucked the vase against the sidewalk. Of course it didn't hit him; I'm not that crazy. But it caught his attention.

He spun around, stared at the broken vase, the tulips, the water spilt on the sidewalk and then at me standing ahead like a deranged mad woman. Now he acknowledged that I was present; I existed, and I was pissed.

Sebastian pointed to the shards of glass on the sidewalk. "Seriously? Are you insane?"

"No!" I yelled at him. "You're insane! How long did it take you to plan that shit you just did? Or was this part of your plan all along? Was I just your next conquest?"

"Jesus Christ! You're a flat out narcissist, you know that?"

I was shocked the adjective even left his mouth. "How?" I drawled out, offended at his claim.

He scoffed, walking closer towards me and stepping over the glass and flowers that separated us. "You leak my journal that I trusted you with—the journal that I poured my heart out into, and still you manage to play the victim?"

"I didn't leak the journal!"

"Really?" his question was purely rhetorical. "You didn't?"

"No, I didn't, Sebastian. If you got your head out of your ass and listened to me for once—"

"Fine. If you didn't leak it, I want it back."

Fuck. I knew then that Garrett scored himself a few more points. Ingrid did, too. That clever Judas bitch.

"I don't have it," I answered honestly, and Sebastian smiled when his point is made.

"You don't have it?"

"No, I don't! I gave it to Ingrid last night because I was angry at you; Ingrid's the one who published it, not me!"

Claude was right when he said that no one would believe my side of the story. Sebastian surely didn't; he said that I had reached a new low for dragging Ingrid into the mess that had nothing to do with her.

Go figure.

"Oh, stop with the bullshit, Sebastian! After everything I have done for you—"

"I," he suddenly said, confusing me until he spoke again. "That's all this is—I. I didn't deserve this. Was I just a conquest, how can I forgive you, Sebastian. And of course: after everything I have done for you! All you're doing is making this shit about you."

"You're reaching," I lashed back. "You know for a fact what I mean. We've gone through a lot together, and you're just throwing it away because you can't help but project your insecurities onto other people, and then build a wall around yourself when they try to refute your bullshit."

At this point, Sebastian turned the other cheek because he knew I was right. But of course, he had to get his word in; a word that was entirely true but sparked my furious fire.

"And what about you? The bitter, lonely twenty-something who blames everyone around her except herself when something goes wrong? You never stop and think to yourself, 'Maybe I did mess up. Maybe I should stop running  and hiding when things go to shit.'" I'm starting to think that your mom is right about you after all—"

I pushed my hands into his shoulders even though he barely staggered back; I had different luck when he was drunk last night. "Don't you dare bring my mother into this!"

"You did the same shit, Leslie!"

"Gloria was not your real mom, Sebastian! She was never your real mom!" God, I regret saying that the more I repeat it to myself now.

You know that look someone gives you when they're completely shocked at something you said; a look between anger, appalment, and a bit of pain? That's the look he gave me after I yelled that at him. I knew then that there was no apology big enough to mend the hole I've dug for us both.

"Fuck you, Leslie," he said plainly; passive-aggressively, rather, and stepped away from me like I was some type of monster. Tears were forming in my eyes, but I refused to cry in front of him. My stubbornness and pride wanted him to see that I didn't need him the way he thought I did.

"Yeah, just walk away then!" I yell towards his distancing figure. "Who was the one who held you while you cried, Sebastian!?"

"I should ask you the same question!" he shouts back at me—that's the last thing he said to me before he left.

The tulips were still on the ground, dirtied and ruined from the water and broken glass. I was more worried about the broken vase and the flowers than the people on the sidewalk watching what happened. I glanced around at them; their eyes followed Sebastian's Aston Martin speeding down the street, then their eyes landed on me paired with murmurs and whispers to their peers. I let the tears flow freely and ran back inside my apartment building. Wine. I needed wine—Moscato to be exact. Wine happens to be my first resort for everything, actually. Whether it's work biting my ass or my mother calling to blame me for her and my father's divorce again, it numbs the senses. But now, I don't know if anything will numb my senses enough for this. I could have tried hard whiskey, but I don't carry that; that's Sebastian's drink, not mine.

I busted through my apartment and stomped into my kitchen, ravaging the cupboard for my peach Moscato and my most prized wine glass Beth gave to me for my 25th birthday.  But my trembling hands caused my favorite wine glass to fall onto the floor and shatter into a million glistening pieces.

"Goddammit!" I cried piercingly, kneeling down as if I could possibly put the glass together again. But who am I fooling—I can't fix it. I can't glue these broken pieces together, no matter how hard I try; I'll only make my hands bloody and spend time trying to fix something that's unfixable. What I can do? I can stare at the mess until I get a broom and throw what has become of my favorite wine glass away in the trash, accepting the fact that it can never be mended again.

But I don't want to do that. Instead, I currently sit on the kitchen floor and cry against the cabinets at the messes I've made. And when I realize that there is a chance that everything I've caused may be unfixable, that's when I pitifully break down into complete and utter sobs.

END OF BOOK 1