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“I love you, sir. I’m in love with you. You know I am. We work. We fit. We’re good together.” She begs him to understand. “She is not even your type,” she whines when he doesn’t acknowledge her truth. “Why did you agree? You could have said no.”
“Why does she keep calling him sir?” Paisley asks.
“Because it makes his dick hard.”
“Huh?” She looks at me completely confused.
“Enough!” Demetri thunders, effectively cutting off Paisley’s question. I hear the shift of fabric.
“Talia told me, sir. She overheard Antonio speaking. She only confirmed what I had figured out. I know your marriage to Haven is a farce. I know it’s an arranged marriage. As a matter of fact, I saw you sign the contract the night you were in club Abyss. I saw you go into Johnathan’s office. I went after you to give you a piece of my mind for flaunting her in my face and tell you I was carrying your child, but when I got there, I saw you and Cillian. I heard you two talking. I heard everything. I just didn’t understand it. I watched you sign the contract, Demetri. How sad is it that her brother had to find her a husband? It’s pathetic. She’s pathetic.”
I feel the lump in my throat swell.
“If you know what is good for you, you’ll stay out of my business.”
“We are your business. Tell me I’m wrong.”
The first tear rolls down my face. He didn’t deny it. My heart thumps so hard with pain I feel it in every part of my body. He asked me to marry him twice. No, he demanded I marry him the first time. The second time was the wager he propositioned me with last night. He manipulated me through sex that first night. I saw the regret in his eyes. Or what I thought was regret. At this point, I don’t know if Demetri is capable of feeling that emotion. Then, last night, he made me bet him that Ghost would lose his fight. He walked away after that. I saw him go speak to the fighters. Ghost lost. He fixed the fight so Ghost and I would both lose.
I breathe heavily, my chest constricting. She’s right. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.
“What if you hate me in a year?”
“I’ll still be stuck with you.”
How dare I think I could get a man like Demetri.
Did my brother not think I could find my own husband? Did he not think I was smart enough? Pretty enough? Worthy enough to marry a man who would be faithful to me?
Everything was a game. A calculating business venture.
Every word said to me was a lie, building blocks to a wedding for reasons unknown to me. By both Demetri and Cillian. Every touch felt by Demetri was felt with disingenuous hands. Every sensation he gave my body was manipulated to structure a genuine connection.
Oh God…
My stomach twists with sickness.
My hand goes to the pain swirling like a demonized serpent in my belly. I’m nauseated, about the throw up. My body shakes at the gravity of the truth, it’s debilitating. That night in club Abyss after I knelt in front of him and swallowed everything he gave me, his phone rang. He left me there on my knees. It was the night he demanded I marry him. I told him it wasn’t right. I told him we didn’t fit. He made me believe… He made me feel… I told him not to play games with me and yet he did without a care.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“I was given orders.”
“There will be major blowback. You know that right? You’ll have a target on your back.”
“I already have many.”
“This is different. I’ve got your back though.”
“As I will always have yours,” I hear Demetri reaffirm.
“At least the incentive is gorgeous.”
I hear Demetri hum his agreeance. “That it is.”
My head hurts. My thoughts unraveling. My stomach churns. Then it hits me. So hard it’s like a sledgehammer. A wrecking ball of betrayal. He made me purge my thoughts, my inner desires, my hidden inadequacies. My body dysmorphia. My eating disorder. My faults. My failures. My… Oh, God. I can’t even say it. My… sister.
The first cry hits me as a choked sob. I hold my hand over my mouth, covering the sound of my pain.
