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That’s what this was about?
“I didn’t mean—”
“Let me tell you one thing very clearly, Cassidy. If this relationship ends, it’s going to be on my terms. You don’t get to just up and leave after everything I’ve fucking done for you.” He glared down at me, the darkness shadowing his eyes for a second, making me feel like I might actually be talking to the devil himself because I was sure in hell. “And if you try to walk away without me saying we’re done, you better hope I don’t find you.”
But he just had.
CASSIDY
“Get out,” I said sternly, though the instant I did, I wanted to vomit fucking everywhere.“You have no right to be here,” I sneered at Brian as he stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders taking up the opening, though he looked smaller than I remembered.
He wasn’t as tall, his shoulders not as broad, but that look in his eye still made me want to shrink back into a very dark hole.
“You left,” he said simply, taking another step forward. He was wearing his mechanic’s overalls and his hands were dirty and covered in oil like he’d just walked out of work and driven the two or more hours to get here.
My heart leaped into my throat, and suddenly, it was hard to breathe. I wanted to stand my ground, glad to have the counter between us at least, but my body was already beginning to ache from just being near him. The muscle memory, the permanent injuries, they were my reminder of what he did to me and how dangerous he was.
“You gave me no choice,” I answered, inhaling long and deep through my nose. “Our relationshipwasn’tgood. We couldn’t keep doin—”
“That wasn’t your choice to make,” he roared, swinging his arm forward and swiping the cute ornaments and decorative jars on the counter straight off onto the floor. I pulled back, my eyes flickering toward the rear door before returning to his virulent stare, in my head counting the steps it would take me to escape. Wondering whether I could make it before he caught me.
He pushed his shoulders back, standing a little taller. “I left you alone, figured one day you’d come back when you realized nobody would fucking love you like I did,” he seethed, his chest heaving up and down, his anger building. It was as if he allowed it to fill him slowly like a balloon, the fury and rage growing inside him until there was nowhere left to go, and he burst. “But then I saw you and your new fucking boyfriend… sorry,fiancée… on fuckingTMZ, and all those other gossip and Hollywood types of places.Proposal of a lifetime,” he mocked.“Young woman captures billionaire CEO’s heart. Boston’s favorite bad boy now taken.”
Billionaire CEO?
Boston’s bad boy?
Drake?
The movement was so fast I didn’t have time to react. Suddenly, his fingers were wrapped around my wrist, squeezing so tight the sharp pain almost made my knees buckle. He dragged me around the counter, my feet stumbling as I fought against him, but he knew what he was doing. He knew how to cause pain and force me to do what he wanted me to do. He was well-practiced at this point.
“You think you can leave me for your rich new boyfriend?” he spat with pure malice, his free hand grasping my throat tightly as he stared down at me.
I tried to pull away, but his grip only grew tighter and tighter the more I fought against it, my shoes slipping and sliding on the smooth wooden floors as I tried to put even just a few inches between us.
“Let me go,” I hissed, but my objection was met with more pain as he twisted my arm up behind my back with one hand and struck me hard across the cheek with the other before returning it to my throat. The blow instantly sent the room spinning, making it hard to focus on anything else except his scowling face as he leaned in really close. “I’ll never let you go,” he growled softly, his hot breath hitting me hard in the face. It was stale and sickening, the mixture of that and the pain sending a wave of nausea over me.
I could hear his words playing over and over in my head the night before I decided I was done.
You better hope I don’t find you.
You better hope I don’t find you.
He didn’t have to explain why because I knew if I ran and he found me, that was it. I was dead. And that was exactly what it felt like with the way the air seemed as though it was being sucked from the small flower shop, slowly draining my life with it as he continued to squeeze tighter and tighter.
I clawed at his arm, shoved at his chest, kicked and stamped and kneed, but there was nothing.
I couldn’t do this.
After all this time, I couldn’t let him win.
I’d tasted freedom, passion, and surrounded myself with beauty.
I deserved better than this.
So I did something I’d never done before.
I stopped struggling, and I fought back.
