Billion Dollar Boyfriend (Celebrity Love)

Chapter Three

Dinner would be nice.

Shelby flopped back against the pillows on her bed. She squeezed her eyes shut as the four words that had fallen out of her mouth a few nights ago in response to Aiden echoed in her mind. It was a memory she had replayed countless times since that evening.

What she still couldn't get over was the smile that had followed her answer—not just Aiden's, but also her own. She'd felt her grin spread wide across her face while an elated feeling had surged through her from head to toe. There was no turning back after that, but it didn't stop her from having doubt-filled thoughts as their dinner date got closer.

The text message she'd found on her phone from Darren when she had woken up this morning only made her question her choice more. She didn't need another dating disaster on her hands right now. Darren was enough, since he had been sending her texts and leaving her voice mail messages since she had made the decision to end their second try at a relationship.

This morning's message was nothing new: Can we talk? I want to explain what you think you saw. I miss you.

Shelby had deleted it from her phone, just like she'd deleted Darren's other messages. She knew from too much past experience that anything he had to say would be nothing but excuses, blame, and trying to convince her she had imagined something. He was a lying, cheating, no-good player, and he would never change.

Shelby should have left him in the past, but much like her in-the-moment decision to have dinner with Aiden, she had kicked her common sense to the curb and bought into Darren's claim of being older, wiser, and regretful of the events of years ago that led to their first breakup and losing her. That had been his opening to waltz back into her life. If she was someone who made good decisions, she would have turned around and walked in the opposite direction when she had spotted Darren on the sidewalk outside of her office that afternoon a couple of months ago. But no, she had agreed to see him and catch up, and it had snowballed from there.

Time did funny things, or maybe she was easily conned. Whatever it was, something that day had made her believe Darren had matured and become a different person than who he'd been before, during, and after their messy breakup that had gone down a few weeks before she'd finished college.

Messy breakup. Shelby bit back a laugh. Messy didn't even touch the unraveling of their relationship and what she had tried to ignore.

Shelby had met Darren as a freshman at the University of Southern California, right after moving into her dorm. It had started with a hello at the elevator in the building they both lived in, then bumping into one another at dinner in the cafeteria the same day. They went on their first date a week later. By junior year, they were living together in a tiny one-bedroom apartment on a quiet street in North Hollywood.

Everyone who knew Shelby and Darren thought they would get engaged after graduation. They were a happy couple, or so their friends thought. Shelby had convinced herself of that, too, even with the strange vibe she always got from Jana Hainley, a friend of Darren's she never quite hit it off with. Jana was a singer, and Darren had met her while doing an internship for his music industry program. He began working with Jana after his internship was over and had gone on the road with her for a four-week tour the summer before Shelby's senior year, which meant canceling the plans he and Shelby had made to go backpacking in Europe.

Darren had been almost impossible to reach during those four weeks, barely answering texts and almost never returning calls. He claimed he was busy all the time except for late at night when he thought Shelby would be asleep. But something had felt different when he'd come back from the tour, and Shelby sensed a growing distance between her and Darren. When she asked him about his time on the road, he always found a way to change the subject. She gave up asking.