I should have been apartment hunting, but I was side-stepping the reality of my situation, afraid to admit that I messed up.Again.I could stay with Jace, but there would be questions about why I’m moving in, and Adam is so lost right now, drinking constantly and avoiding everyone except Jace like the plague. God forbid I stay with my father. A hotel would be easy enough, but honestly, I wanted to save money. I don’t get access to my trust fund until I’m 30. And the money my mom’s father set aside for Adam, Jace, and me.
What would the newspapers say if they knew that I live like a pauper, but I like it this way? Hiding under the radar of my billionaire family is freeing. I’ll stay at Kingsley’s penthouse until I find a place to live, preferably nowhere near my father.
Jace left an hour ago with some of my stuff to bring it to Kingsley’s house. I should have hired movers, but honestly, this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and I panicked, calling Jace. He was able to load up most of my things in his SUV. I hadn’t anticipated that Reed would be home when I devised my plan, but he showed up just as I was finishing my last box.
“I told you I was sorry.”
Reed’s voice brings me back to the reality of having to face him while I’m trying to move the fuck on. I don’t answer him and continue to take the last odds and ends of my things out of the closet.
“So you’re punishing me by being selfish. You’re the one with the money, not me, dammit!”
Now, I really wish I hadn’t told him who I was after a few months of dating. I should have kept my identity a secret, but he didn’t seem to care that I was wealthy, well, that my father is rich. And when I paid more in rent, I didn’t care. He was working, and I had the means, so why not? But to hear him say that I’m the selfish one really burns. It takes all my control not tochuck the roll of packing tape at my ex. My ex, who is pouting in the corner as I pack. Selfish? Stupid asshole. He’s the selfish one.
I tried to break it off with him months ago, but he threatened to reveal naked photos of me. Photos that I took when we first started having sex last year, when I thought I was in love with him and his passions. When I was naive, I thought he was keeping them to make an art piece of me. He swore no one would know it was me. Luckily, my face isn’t in any of the pictures, but it still could be damaging if the press finds out. They won’t care that it may or may not be me. My father will flip. Jace will have a coronary. Adam will rage.
So I stayed. I stayed, and Reed kept doing his dirt while I busted my ass in medical school and painted on the side. I should have officially broken up with him the moment the doctor told me I had an STD. I should have moved out when I had to take antibiotics for four weeks and had to get retested every month to make sure chlamydia was out of my system. But I was a coward, too caught up in the other parts of my life that were imploding. I was preoccupied with my life choices, my father’s health, and, of course, the impending third year of medical school.
Reed hobbles up to me on his crutches. His face still shows the bruising to his cheek and temple. He was attacked a few days ago, robbed on his way home from the university. He called me from the hospital, and like a sucker, I picked him up, feeling some sympathy for him. The attacker almost bludgeoned him to death. His car has been broken into twice in the last month. His tires were slashed. Engine wires cut. Then I found out last week he’d been put on administrative leave. Videos and pictures of him fucking a female student in his office ended up being anonymously emailed to the head of his department. He raged at me that it was a colleague who hated him who had snuck into his office and planted recording devices. He had no concept that hewas upset over what he saw as a workplace violation, never mind that it was further proof of his cheating. He’s currently on leave, which we both know means he’s one paperwork filing away from being fired.
When I told Kingsley, she laughed hard and called it Kootchie Karma. According to her, Reed’ fucked around and found out’. Kootchie Karma will get you!’ So I took pity on him and continued to pay rent, not wanting him back, but not wanting to add to his stress, even if at least one thing that happened to him was self-imposed. To my surprise, he was delusional enough to think that my staying meant we had another chance, but I don’t want Reed. I want someone else who seems just as emotionally unavailable.
It’s been 180 days since I last saw Stone. Since that look across the pool, it’s just as lethal as it was all those months ago. The feel of him holding my hips steady in that bathroom still gives me goosebumps. The lowered lids. The scruff on his sharp square jaw. The gorgeous piercings in his lip and eyebrow. I’ve never kissed a man with piercings I wanted to that day. So fucking bad.
Then, when I saw him again at Dru’s bachelorette party, I could feel his stare. Those eyes haunted me from across the room. My nipples tighten just like they did the night of Dru’s bachelorette party. The moment I turned and caught him watching me from the doorway filled with six other sexy men. They were all gorgeous, but they faded in comparison to him. He never said a word to me, and I didn’t say anything to him. But I could feel his eyes on me the entire night. If I’d been braver, maybe more drunk, I would have approached him, but I ran. I ran because I wasn’t sure what I would do with a man like that. He is so beyond my comprehension.
Lifting the last box, I walk through the open door to bring it out to the street to join the others waiting at the foot of our stepsin preparation for Jace. He’s annoyed at me, too, telling me that I should have left Reed months ago. I push down the guilt and feelings of always feeling like I’m doing it wrong. That I can’t get it right.
“You’re breaking the lease!”
“The lease is up in two months. I’ll Zelle you the money.” I carefully walk down the stairs, hearing him behind me, the tell-tale thud of his crutches. A nasty thought pops into my head about what it would look like if he fell down the steps. I stifle my giggle. I really shouldn’t be laughing, but it would be funny as hell. Once the boxes are at the bottom, I spin, ready to get the last one and get the fuck out of here. I look up and face Reed.
“Of course you will, Ms. Rich Bitch. Spoiled brat using Daddy’s money to pay her rent.” He slumps down on a step, and I stop cold when I see him pull something from his pocket. It’s my stuffed animal, Orion. The one thing I have from my mother. He angrily moves it between his hands. His bruised face was red with anger. Anger, I recognize.
“Put it down, Reed.”
“You mean this stupid shit? What are you? Five years old?”
The sneer on his face means nothing to me, but the rhythmic clenching of his fingers around the delicate stuffed toy makes my blood freeze. It’s already in bad shape, after countless washings and the many times I cried in its matted fur as a child. He stays with me for nostalgia’s sake, a memory of a woman I never knew. I know it’s childish, but it’s been my comfort.
He rips off Orion’s wing and flings it over my head. I run back up the stairs, yelling as I move toward him. “Stop! What is wrong with you!?” Cruel laughter meets me as he holds it out of my reach. “Give it to me!”
He tears off his leg and talon and throws them over my head. “Fucking little girl.”
I snatch what’s left out of hand and hold it to my chest, feeling tears threaten. My eyes find the broken wing, beak, and leg lying in a pile of sludge and leaves in the gutter next to the sidewalk. Gross. “You’re sick!” I shout and head back down the stairs, picking each piece and putting it in my box. I lift my head and blink. I smell cigarette smoke and something fruity. I look around, wondering if someone is watching me scream like a banshee at the injured man on the front stoop. Shaking my head, I make sure Orion is safe. I’ll have to get it fixed. It may seem childish to him, but the small stuffed animal means a lot to me. I spin to face him. “And actually it’s my money.” Now I know what he thinks of me, I yank my hand away, disgusted at myself for wasting so much time on him because I was afraid to admit I failed yet again at something. “And for your information, you got fired, not me!”
“I haven’t been fired! That bitch is trying to set me up. She came on to me! And not all of us have stored up money to fall back on and I left to write and pursue my passions!”
“So your passions were fucking everything in a skirt? I guess you needed a lot of time to rotate us all didn’t you?”
“Well you weren’t fucking me so what else was I supposed to do? And your pussy wasn’t all that great anyway. Was like fucking a wooden chair. I really had no choice.”
I want to point out that it might hurt his penis to fuck a wooden chair, but what would be the point? His male ego is on ten.
“Maybe your dick didn’t do it for me either, hence the wooden chair effect.” I laugh, realizing it’s true. I didn’t enjoy sex with Reed very much. Maybe at first, when the high of doing it felt like a victory after doing what I’ve been told to do since I was born. I once thought he was so sexy, but looking at him now, I feel only disgust. He’s an asshole. Seems like that’s who I attract.
When he grabs my forearm, I’m in shock, not expecting it from him, seeing as he’s on crutches and looks sickly. But somehow, he manages to hold me tightly in his palm.
“Let me go, Reed, right now.” He squeezes my arm harder, and I yank it back.
