Page 70 of Fool's Gold

Every project saw her trying to top herself, and I always looked forward to seeing what five hundred dollars’ worth of glitter might buy.

Seeing only an empty vase tugs at a place in my heart, still raw after all this time.

Bennett should have been here, clapping me on the shoulder for a job well done and popping open a bottle of champagne for what his daughter accomplished.

If he only knew the things I’d done to her, the things she’d begged for—

Empire’s voice lifts in a bubble of laughter from the left. I force one foot in front of the other and pause in the doorway, leaning heavily, the house holding me up.

“It’s going to have to be a great restaurant to coax me out. I’m pooped! I’m not even sure I’ll want breakfast.” She’s flopped on her back on the couch with her legs on the armrest, crossed at the ankles.

She traded Alicia’s skimpy wardrobe for one of her own, and from this angle, her pert nipples poke against the fabric of the camisole.

I don’t blame her for ditching the bra, but fuck me, those nipples have my mouth watering.

“Okay, not tomorrow, then. Or is it today?” She stops and laughs again. “Oh, okay, you’ll give me a day to rest.” She sniffs, and her next round of giggling turns into a snort. “You’re a saint, Jacob.”

The name lances me through like a flaming sword and cauterizes me even as it slices me in two. Empire’s on the phone with that fuck right now. Did he call her, or did she race to let him know she finished and she no longer has to deal with her tyrant overlord forcing her to redo her lines? She’s free to be his girlfriend in earnest now.

Does it matter?

Rage turns my blood into acid and scalds me all the way down the hallway. The walls warp and blur, everything in front of me turning insubstantial. My palm maintains contact, guiding me toward the office.

She’s on the phone with him, and she’s laughing.

It’s what I want. If I repeat it enough, I’ll believe it. The dim voice inside my head is drowned out by the roar of agony, and the second I step foot inside the office, I’m swinging. I grab the lamp from the nearest side table and smash it down on the table’s surface, cracking the wood.

I can’t keep myself together. Even with the logical part of me, minuscule and shrunken and hardly alive, I lose it.

It’s not my space. It’s Bennett’s, the decor untouched from when he used to spread his scripts across the desk, and we would discuss every angle deep into the night. The agony of his loss, something I still haven’t processed, adds to my anger.

I’ll never speak to my friend again. I’ll never be with the one woman I love, the one I had no right to touch in the first place.

I deserve it. I’ve made my personal hell a reality, and I deserve to drown in the squalor.

Grinding my teeth, I grab the books from the shelves and shove them off in a wave. They slam, one right after the other, taking the knickknacks and picture frames with them.

My body moves, destroying everything I touch, while inside, I’m howling. Raging against the fucked-up bullshit my life has become.

Become. I scoff and grab one of Bennett’s old awards and send it flying toward the framed painting above his desk. The glass cracks in the corner where the frame splits apart.

My life has always been next to worthless, a series of terrible things heaped on top of me. When I managed to gain some status, I thought I’d made it. Even when the one thing I desperately wanted remained out of my reach.

I’d gained prestige, power, money.

I’d gotten away from Stanic and his gang.

Now I’m right back where I began, only to be tormented by Empire finding her happiness. Safe, exactly as I’ve always wanted her to be.

Stanic can’t touch her.

I’ve done everything he and that ice bitch of a right-hand woman demanded of me. I should be happy.

With a growl, I bend to grab the award, gripping it and rearing back to toss it through the French doors. A hastily covered gasp is the only thing that can—and does—stop me.

Slowly I turn around to see Empire standing in the doorway, shocked and horrified at what I’ve done to her father’s office.

She’s got the phone pressed to her ear.

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