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“No. I bought up all the assets I could because if it wasn’t me doing it, someone else would have. Would you rather some stranger have stepped in and seized everything?”
“Yes, actually. Anything would be better than what you’ve done to me.”
“I understand your anger—”
“Don’t patronize me,” she interrupts. “Don’t stand there and act like you have any idea how I feel.”
“You feel like I did!” I shout, for the first time raising my voice back at her. “That punch to the gut feeling you have right now… yeah, I’ve been living with that feeling for years.”
I see her features soften for a second—maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part—but then the look of anger quickly returns. “So, explain this to me,” she begins in a much colder, yet calmer, tone. “Why would you make me borrow money from you just for me to give the money back to you? What did you gain from that?”
“Your bare ass before me, you on your knees, and your begging and pleading,” I confess, feeling no urge to hide the truth any longer. “It was to see you pay for what you did. It was to make you need me. For you to realize that you had no one to turn to but me. For you to see just how foolish you were and recognize the situation you put yourself in. Frankly,”—I put my hands in my pockets and reposition my weight—“it was to teach you a lesson you’d never forget.”
She’s still for several moments, her face completely expressionless. The awkward silence is almost too much to bear, until she finally huffs and walks to the elevators with her head held high. As she passes me, she pauses just long enough to meet my eyes and say, “Trust me, I’ll never forget.”
When the elevator doors open, she looks at me one last time and opens her mouth to say something, but then quickly closes it.
I see everything she wanted to say in her eyes.
Pain. Betrayal. Humiliation. All the same feelings I felt and wanted her to experience.
My goal achieved.
Except her pain, betrayal, and humiliation are ripping my soul to shreds. And the way she looked at me… the way she wouldn’t dare let me see a tear shed…
What the fuck have I done?
I stand here on the thirteenth floor. My thirteenth floor that I worked so damn hard to regain. Alone.
I storm to my office and see my desk drawer open. It’s clear how Katja found out about everything. But does it really matter how she found out? She knows all.
I should have told her myself. I should have found a way to word it properly, because it was only a matter of time until she found out anyway. She’s smart, savvy, and well… my guard has been down.
I suppose love can do that to a guy.
Love is a goddamn distraction, and I was—still am—head over heels in love with Katja Belov. Not that it does me any good to realize that now. I had a chance at love and just watched it slip from my grasp.
I glance down at the contract for our business partnership on my desk and realize how close I came to having it all. The hotel, the girl, the happily ever after I never thought I’d have in my life.
But the villain in the story doesn’t get the happily ever after.
I should know better than to think I could.
Taking hold of the contract that Katja and I were ready to sign, I storm up to the penthouse. Though we may not get our happy ending to this story, we sure as hell deserve some kind of ending. Or at least Katja deserves an ending.
When I reach the penthouse, I ready myself to see her packing my belongings, or possibly shredding them to pieces with a butcher knife. What I don’t expect is to walk in and find her sitting in a chair facing the floor-to-ceiling windows with a glass of wine in her hand. She doesn’t turn to face me when I enter. She doesn’t scream for me to go fuck myself or demand I leave—which she has every right to do.
No. She simply stares at the skyline in silence, which somehow seems even worse to me.
I walk over to where she’s sitting, towering over her, fighting back the urge to take her into my arms and refuse to let her go no matter how much she resists me. But that wouldn’t be fair to her. And frankly… I’m done taking. I’m done forcing.
Katja doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t even acknowledge that I’m standing right next to her. It’s as if I’m a ghost from her past and she can no longer see me.
But who the fuck am I? A vengeful motherfucker, that’s who I am.
“Katja,” I say softly.
“Don’t,” she snaps, still staring straight ahead. “I don’t want to discuss this any further.”
