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“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, spinning on my heel and walking away.
I swerved through the crowd quickly, trying to escape my own head. As if leaving this room would allow me to do so. I made it across the dance floor and nearly to the doors before a hand at my shoulder halted me, pulling me backward.
“What the fuck was that?” Dom asked, his voice harder than I had ever heard it.
“I– I don’t…” I trailed off. I looked up at him, and his eyes swirled with an unreadable expression. “Are we friends, Dom?”
He shook his head in confusion. “Friends? What the hell are you…” He sighed. “Yes, Macie. We’re friends. We just talked about this last week.”
I felt my face heat as I nodded. I stared down at my feet. I knew I was acting out of character– out of place. I think it was self-preservation. If I fuck this all up now, in this way, I can avoid ever telling him just how infatuated I truly am. I can avoid ever telling him how far and how fast I fell for him. I can avoid ever hearing him reject me.
“Mace, what is going on? You’re acting crazy.”
There it is.
The words I’d been waiting to hear this whole time. Wondering when they’d finally come out of him. Wondering when I’d finally push things too far. I lifted my head to his, and he saw the understanding there. He saw my expression and knew exactly what I was thinking.
He shook his head rapidly. “No, Mace. You know I–”
“You’re right,” I stopped him before he could continue. He was exactly right. I was acting crazy. Iamcrazy. I am too much, and I’ve finally shown him what everyone else before him has seen. I’ve done it to myself, knowing I’d push him to this point before I could let myself get too hurt.
“I was a challenge to you, something to play with.” He opened his mouth to retort, but I continued before he could, “You said that yourself.” His mouth clamped shut. “But the game is over, Dom.” I stepped back far enough that his hand dropped from my shoulder. Far enough that he couldn’t grab me again when I walked away. “And I can’t wait around for you to realize that the prize you’ve won isn’t as shiny as you thought she’d be.”
Chapter 25
Hisfacetwistedfromdevastation to frustration, and I knew I’d hammered the final nail into the coffin. He wouldn’t come after me. He realized now that I wasn’t worth that fight. He’d let me go. And hopefully, in a couple of months, things would simmer enough that we could go back to whatever it was that we were before. Tolerating each other in the presence of our friends.
I felt my eyes sting with tears and I turned, walking away before he could see them. I moved faster than I had before, ensuring he wouldn’t keep up with me. I filed out of the ballroom and through the lobby until I reached a secluded corner of it where I was sure he wouldn’t find me. I pulled out my phone to order an Uber, but realizing that it was just after eleven o’clock on New Years Eve, the wait was over an hour.
I sighed, glancing around the hotel until I took notice of the lobby bar. It was separate from the one inside the party, and on the opposite side of the hotel from the ballroom. It was unlikely that Dom would come looking for me, and even if he did, I doubt he’d find me there.
I slipped into a stool at the near empty bar and ordered the only thing I could think of to settle the roaring nausea in my stomach.
The bartender slid the drink across to me quickly as I let my forehead rest in my hands, continuously refreshing the Uber app. I didn’t realize how quickly I’d downed my drink until I heard a masculine, raspy voice call out, “Her second drink is on me.”
I didn’t bother to look at the man next to me. But when the bartender glanced at me with a question in his eye, I shrugged. I could turn him down and still get a free drink out of it.
“You look like you weren’t enjoying the party,” he said. The bartender set another espresso martini in front of me, removing my empty glass. “I wasn’t either.”
I looked at him then. He was dressed well. A classic, gray suit. His hairline was receding, and the light wrinkling around his eyes told me he was in his late-thirties or early-forties. He wasn’t horrible looking, but he wasn’t my type. He also had a wedding band on his left hand.
He slipped that hand onto his lap and out of my sight when he noticed my gaze snag there. I lifted it to meet his eyes, and he smiled at me in a way that I thought may have been an attempt at being seductive. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
I wrapped my fingers around the stem of my glass and pulled it to me, watching the liquid swirl as I plucked an espresso bean from the drink. “I’m not interested in married men.”
Without removing his gaze from mine, he slowly slid his wedding ring off his finger and slipped it into his pocket. “Well,” he smiled, “luckily for you, I’m not married tonight. How ‘bout it, beauty? You wanna have some fun?”
“No thanks.” He was right about one thing, if I was going to be ringing in the New Year heartbroken, alone at a bar, being hit on by a pig, I might as well have some fun.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes as I popped the bean between my lips, baring my teeth as I bit down with a crunch. He opened his mouth to say more but I stopped him. “This is the part where you tell me you were just being nice. Offering me a drink because I’m alone and you feel pity for me. That I’m not even that good looking. How presumptuous of me to assume you’re hitting on me, right?”
“I saw a pretty girl sitting alone and thought I’d offer her a drink. It’s not a fucking crime.”
“Would your wife agree with that?”
His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed before he turned his shoulders away from me. He muttered under his breath, “What a bi—”
“A bitch?” I looked down at my glass and smiled.
