Billion Dollar Boyfriend (Celebrity Love)

Chapter Three

Then there was Jana herself. Any time Shelby was in the same room with her, she noticed how close she stood to Darren, and the way she always had to have his attention. One flip of her auburn hair and her tinkling laugh was all it took for Darren to stop what he was saying or doing and turn his focus on her. Jana seemed overly physical, too, often holding on to Darren's arm while speaking to him, reaching over to rub his shoulders, and constantly leaning in for hugs. Shelby didn't know how to talk about what she saw with Darren and not come across as a jealous and suspicious girlfriend, so she didn't. They rarely fought, and she didn't want to start a fight about Jana.

Then she found the email that blew everything apart.

Shelby hadn't meant to go snooping. Her computer was broken and the repairs wouldn't be finished until the following week. She was using Darren's laptop to write a paper and had wanted to email a backup copy to herself. She'd typed in the link to her webmail provider, but she hadn't been greeted with the sign-in page. Instead, she found herself inside of a different email account, already signed in.

The only emails in the account were from Jana, and there were thousands of them. At first she thought Darren had set up a special email account for his internship so important messages wouldn't get lost, but then one of the email subject lines caught her eye. Dreaming of Vegas and you. It sounded cheesy, and like a bad line from someone in love. Jana wasn't Darren's girlfriend, though. She was.

"Do I click on it?" Shelby had asked out loud to the empty room. She'd debated with herself for a full minute, aware there was no going back from what she might find.

Invading someone's privacy and breaching their trust was out of character for her. Shelby had never read Darren's emails or texts before, but something hadn't felt right since he had gone on tour with Jana that summer. From the list of emails she saw in his inbox, he talked to Jana more than he talked to her these days, even though they lived together.

She'd held her breath, then clicked on the email. The words she saw when it opened made her wish she hadn't.

The email had read like a steamy romance novel. There were detailed memories of intimate moments splashed across the screen. Shelby pieced together that Darren and Jana had hooked up, and the first time had been in Las Vegas, one of the early stops on Jana's tour. Bile rose up in Shelby's throat as she scanned the message and the vivid depictions of what Jana and Darren had done. She stared at the screen until the words blurred in front of her, hot tears pricking at her eyes.

Her worst fear had been confirmed: Darren had cheated on her with Jana. But was he still? He hadn't broken up with Shelby when he'd come home from the tour, and it had been months since then.

It shouldn't have mattered to Shelby if Darren was still cheating on her or not. Finding out about it should have been enough for her to end things with him, but she didn't. The top spot on her list of horrible choices she had made in her life was a tie between the actions she took then and her more recent decision to give Darren another chance.

Instead of breaking up with him or confronting him about what she'd found, she decided she would fight to keep him and make him forget about Jana. Since Jana was rail-thin and often wore skintight, midriff-baring outfits at her shows, Shelby was convinced she needed to tone up her already-lean body and invest in the same kind of clothing for their nights out together. She doubled up on her runs and time at the gym and stopped eating anything with sugar or dairy in it. For weeks, all she ate were vegetables and grilled chicken. Shelby knew the reasons for what she was doing were self-destructive, somewhere deep down, but she continued on her mission.

Emily noticed. "Are you feeling okay?" she had asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Shelby's answer wasn't entirely truthful, and Emily had detected that.

"Are you sure? You look so thin, and there are dark circles under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?"

"I said I'm fine. I've had a lot going on with classes and exams and was up late studying."

The edge in Shelby's voice was enough to cause Emily to drop the subject for the moment, but the doubtful look that flashed across Emily's face told Shelby that she wasn't fooling her. It wasn't something Shelby wanted to talk about since, in spite of her efforts, Darren continued to grow more distant by the day.

Then came spring break, when Shelby and Darren were supposed to head to Palm Beach together. They had already bought plane tickets and booked a hotel room. Two days before they were supposed to leave, Darren told her he couldn't go since Jana needed him at a week-long mini tour she was doing. He made up something vague when Shelby asked him why he had to go, and she suspected it had nothing to do with the concerts. Jana needed him in her bed. That was something Shelby confirmed when she went through Darren's text messages that night as he slept in their bedroom.

She didn't let it drop this time. Instead, Shelby marched into their bedroom and woke Darren up. He didn't so much as flinch when she confronted him about the texts and emails she had seen. Nope. He just closed his eyes and mumbled that he needed to sleep, and said they would talk about it in the morning.

Sleep was the last thing on Shelby's mind. Her lungs felt as though they were closing, and her pulse began to race. As she gasped for air, she heard Darren tell her to stop being ridiculous and dramatic and to come to bed.

She didn't listen. After leaving the room, she texted Emily a panicked, jumbled message that probably hadn't made sense at all. Emily told her she would come get her and she could stay at her place. When Shelby told Darren she was going to Emily's for the night, he gave no sign he had even heard her or that he cared.

Darren didn't answer any of her calls or texts the next day. Emily hadn't wanted her to go back to the apartment she shared with him, but Shelby had insisted she needed to grab a few more things if she was going to stay another night at Emily's place. What she really wanted was to talk things through with Darren, but he wasn't there. One of their suitcases was gone, and Shelby knew he'd gone to be with Jana. When he finally did come home two weeks later, he mostly ignored Shelby. Anything she asked him was met with one-word answers or silence while she watched him pack up his things. He wouldn't tell her where he was going, and only said he wanted his name taken off of their apartment lease.

Shelby later heard from friends that Darren immediately moved in with Jana. He'd forgotten their almost four-year-long relationship in an instant, as if Shelby had never mattered to him at all.

Getting over their relationship hadn't been quite so easy for Shelby. She should have been relieved to be free of someone who could lie and cheat so easily, and who could cast her aside without another thought, but it was months before she felt like herself again. Over half a year went by before she risked going on a date with someone new, and it hadn't gone well. Every time she agreed to go out with someone or felt herself attracted to someone, the guy always ended up being completely wrong for her. Either he was a player, or he was only interested in her until she fell for him.

Rock bottom for her had been a couple of months ago when she'd started seeing Darren again. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Wasn't that the saying? Shelby shouldn't have been surprised when old patterns from their first time together began to repeat. This time she realized just how destructive her choices were and broke up with him before he could break her heart.

Then dinner at Raine's house had happened, and she had met Aiden.

She had come close to canceling their date. At least fifteen times since agreeing to have dinner, Shelby had started typing a text with an excuse for why she couldn't make it. Every time, the memory of Aiden's smile and how buoyant she had felt right after saying yes had made her stop.

So much for self-reflection and time on my own, Shelby thought, sitting up on her bed. She swung her legs over the side and stood up, then headed for her closet to find something to wear.

She plucked a printed halter dress off of a hanger and carried it over to the mirror in her room. As she held it up, examining how the colors looked against her skin, her words to Aiden ran through her mind again.

Dinner would be nice.

She would find out if that was true in a couple of hours, when Aiden would be here to pick her up for their evening out together. It was too late to back out now.