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He lets out two heavy breaths with his eyes on my face before he responds. “Of course I did. It was for me, wasn’t it?”
A chill runs down my spine.
It wasn’t for you.
“Sure…I guess. But why aren’t you mad?”
“Because I knew you’d come back to me. I knew he couldn’t keep you.” His eyes are dark and hooded as he stares at me with a menacing expression. Brett is so handsome but loses all of his good looks with his cocky and detached attitude. For years, I’ve been trying to burrow myself in his heart the same way I did with Adam and look where that got me.
“But…I’m still with him. We just had a little fight.”
“You’re in here now, aren’t you?”
A sob lodges itself in my throat. “I’m in here now because I got in a fight with him. Because I need emotional support. Is this some kind of competition to you?”
I try to hop off the desk when he presses against me to hold me in place. What have I done? I’ve cornered myself in a room with a man who has every right to be furious with me. Brett would never really hurt me, but he would also never pass up the opportunity to make me hurt if he thought I deserved it.
He grabs the back of my neck and I let out a yelp from fear and a hint of pain. Then he crashes his mouth against mine, and I let him kiss me because it’s all I know. Not because I want to but because Ihaveto. This relationship is all I know.
As he pulls away, his dark eyes focus on mine. “For over a month now, I’ve had to endure those videos, Sage. Seeing you two together. Seeing him fucking you like that. It killed me.”
“Brett…” I plead as I lean away from his grip.
“But you’re back, Sage. You’re back with me, and I just need to hear you say you’re mine.”
“Brett…” I repeat, my voice growing tense at the tightening of his hand.
“Guys like Adam Goode get everything. The perfect family. The perfect home. Money, fame, even the perfect women. I can’tstandthe thought of you with him. So please, baby…” His forehead is against mine and I can feel him trembling, as if he’s teetering on the edge, ready to explode without warning.
When he lets go of my neck, I feel a moment of relief.
Then I’m blindsided. His palm comes crashing against the side of my face, nearly knocking me off the desk. I’m too stunned to even gasp or cry or react. I just hold my hand to my cheek and stare at him in shock.
“I thought you liked it rough. I saw the video where he hit you.”
“That wasconsensual!” I cry out as my chest shudders with a sob.
Terror and frustration mingle through my mind as panic sets in. Is this a joke to him? Brett would never truly hurt me, but does he really think I want it likethis? Because of how he’s seen me in those videos?
When his hand holds my hair at the scalp, something in me snaps. I swing my hand hard until it lands with a resounding smack against his face, and he freezes, staring at me with the same shock I wore a moment ago. As if I’m somehow the offender.
For a moment, I’m afraid I’ve only angered him more and we’re about to have an all-out brawl, one I will surely lose on account of size and strength alone, but fuck it. If I die fighting, I die fighting.
To my relief, he doesn’t hit me back. Instead, he steps away.
“So that pretty boy can slap you around, but I can’t?”
“It’s not like that, and you know it.”
He’s staring at me with hurt and anger written in the hard, contoured shape of his eyes and nose. “No, I don’t think I do know, Sage. The truth is, I don’t understand anything anymore. You weremygirl. Then you just left, and a week later, you’re making waves with that guy? The guy who’s gotten everything handed to him. Everything we had to work for, fight for, claw our way out of poverty for, he never had to do shit for. You letthatguy have his way with you.”
Tears stream from my eyes like a faucet. I’m a sobbing mess as I let it all out. “You never cared about me, and you still don’t. How could you watch those videos and never call? Never text? Because I’m nothing to you, and I know that now.”
He doesn’t say a word as I wipe at the tears sliding over my aching cheek.
“You think Adam Goode only gets perfect women?” I say through my chest-racking sobs. “Well, for a moment, he hadme, and I’m perfect too, but neither of you seems to think that. You turned your back on me, Brett. Then he turned his back on me. You can both go to hell.”
When I climb off the desk, he reaches for me, but I slap his hand away. “And for the record, I don’t let him slap me around for his pleasure. I do it formine. Because it’sconsensual. And I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.”
