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“I know. I was too eager. I’ve been waiting so long and couldn’t wait any longer.”
I have to clamp my hand over my mouth in hopes of silencing my gasp. I figured he was on the phone. From where I’m standing, I can’t see much of the room’s interior. Only his arm, his shoulder.
But he’s definitely talking to a woman. And of course, now I want to know who she is. It can’t be Lauren since I just left her. It’s not Aspen, either—she sounds older, more like Lucas’s age.
Of course, idiot. What, did you think you were the only woman in his life?
I watch the side of his fist pound against the desk. Even at a distance, it makes me jump. “You know how complicated this could make things? There was a reason I didn’t want you showing up here unannounced. You’ve made this a lot more difficult than it was already going to be.”
My stomach is churning, and my palms are sweaty, and I really, really wish I could get a look at whoever he’s talking to. There’s only one explanation that makes any sense. She’s a girlfriend. Somebody he doesn’t want people to know about. Maybe they were supposed to meet up somewhere away from Corium, something like that.
“I couldn’t stay away. And I couldn’t keep waiting for you.” Oh, fuck, she sounds so desperate. Like she’s in love with him. Can this get any worse?
“I have work to do here, you know. I can’t afford to let personal things get in the way all the time. This kind of thing has to be worked out carefully. How am I going to explain why you’re here? And how exactly did you get here anyway?”
I’m going to be sick. Just when I thought I had already heard every possible lie come out of his mouth. Then again, is a lie of omission the same as a regular lie? I never came out and asked him if he had a girlfriend. He conveniently never told me.
And why would he? Why do I matter? I don’t. I’m somebody to keep his dick wet and his balls drained while he’s waiting for his girlfriend to show up. I wonder if she knows who he really is. What he’s been doing with me.
More than anything, I wish I had the guts to go in there. Swing the door open and announce myself and insist on a little truth. Does she know what a coward he is? How he was willing to let me die? I wonder if she’d feel so desperate to be with him if she heard about that.
I have to fight to hold myself back. What would it make me look like, going in there, freaking out? That’s not who I want to be. The spurned side piece who loses it once it becomes clear a guy isn’t interested in her anymore. That’s pathetic. I’ve already lost so much, but I’ll be damned if I lose what little bit of pride I have left.
I can’t believe how much it hurts, though. I can’t believe I still had a little shred of hope in my heart, either. Shouldn’t I know better by now? But it’s gone, burned up. One more thing for Lucas to take from me.
One thing is for sure as I tiptoe out of the assistant’s office, then rush back to my room to be alone—he’s not going to get away with this. I won’t throw a fit in front of his woman, whoever she is, but I’m not going to pretend I don’t know she exists. Maybe I’ll rub it in his face a little bit, even. His little secret isn’t a secret anymore. He’s not as good a liar as he thought he was.
Has he somehow been fucking her all this time? What if she comes in every once in a while and wasn’t supposed to be back until after this? The next time he called her or whatever? I can just imagine it. Sneaking her in, sneaking her back out. No wonder it’s been so easy for him to stay away from me these past few weeks. The bastard. The lying, callous bastard. Pretending. Making me think he cared.
And dammit, I should have known better. How many times am I going to let him hurt me?
My fists slice through the air at my sides as I walk, and I imagine driving them into his face again and again. He knows what things have been like for me. He’s seen it. He’s been there. He knows practically everything about me, how I’ve never been able to count on anybody. And still, he lied. He used me, lied, and then threw me away.
Where’s the big surprise there? He couldn’t be bothered to warn me about Xander. What’s a little thing like a secret girlfriend compared to that?
At least I can be alone for a little while. I can cry in private, maybe get it all out of my system before I see him. Maybe I’ll wait until later while he’s in his apartment. I’ll have him send his little girlfriend away and pretend it’s a school-related thing. The way it would be if I hadn’t let him get to me the way I did.
I’m prepared to do my usual checking under the bed routine when I reach my room and open the door.
But I can’t move once I get a look inside. I don’t want to, either. I’m afraid to.
My eyes dart all around the room, landing on one thing after another. The mattress hangs halfway off the bed frame. The pillows ripped open, stuffing everywhere. The broken lamp. The books are torn to pieces, pages strewn from one end of the room to the other.
Clothes, torn to shreds. Everywhere. Even the clothes Celia gave me. All of it pulled out and torn up and thrown around.
But it’s the wall above the headboard that holds my attention once I’ve taken in the sight of everything else. It’s what turns my blood to ice. Two words are scrawled in what looks like blood.
YOU’RE DEAD.
At first, it feels like this is happening to somebody else. This can’t be my room. I see it, but I don’t feel connected to it. My brain won’t let me.
But slowly, a little bit at a time, I’ve come to realize somebody broke into my room and tore it apart. Just because they could, and maybe because they were expected to.
In other words, the sneak attack wasn’t a fluke or an accident. They want to make sure I’m aware of what their intentions were and still are. Just because they couldn’t finish the job the first time around doesn’t mean I can breathe easy.
And knowing there won’t be repercussions for anything they do, things are only going to get worse.
