Page 114 of Contention

The woman is elegant. Pretty. Midnight hair to her lower back, along with pale eyes and an expensive purse on her shoulder than must cost an arm and a leg. She’s got red lips and a tight smile, not too friendly, yet somehow not crossing into absolutely frigid.

Kara hates how this woman looks like she belongs next to Nick. She fits the image of perfection. Of class. Everything that Kara isn’t. Her lungs feel like they are closing up.

Then, Nick’s eyes catch on Kara from across the room, mid conversation.

If Kara’s heart could drop any further into her stomach, it would. Her chest tightens and it feels like the world is tipping sideways for a moment. The air disappears in the room. She blinks her eyes and looks away, feeling ill, feeling like she’s going to be sick all over the perfect pale floor.

Then, a warm hand settles over her own, the body beside her pressing ever closer. Dietrich whispers in her ear, a wicked smirk on his lips as his breath plays on her skin. “I wish I could take a picture to immortalize that fucking look on his face. Priceless.”

He’s not wrong.

When Nick’s electric blue eyes catch on Kara’s face, his jaw clenches and his shoulders stiffen visibly. All the jovial mood seems to drain right out of him, seeing her next to Dietrich, her small hand sitting in the crook of his arm.

He looks positively murderous, but the social circle he’s in has caught on to his odd shift in mood, all of them turning to look in the direction of his intense gaze. The woman beside him places a hand on his shoulder with a confused expression on her face before she also looks over.

Dietrich meets their interested looks with a wide grin, speaking through his teeth to Kara, “Smile, chickadee.”

Like moving a mask, Kara forces a polite, empty smile on her lips in greeting before Dietrich pulls her away to mingle more. They pass by Gale and a few other women. Though Gale smiles at them sweetly with her perfectly painted lips, there’s hidden concern in her gaze. “Aren’t you two just the cutest thing to walk in here?” The women beside Gale fall over themselves in agreement.

“It’s all him, I assure you,” Kara replies with as much cheerfulness as she can muster, even though her face feels ready to peel right off.

Her mind is spinning, the edges of her vision blurring slightly as they pass the group by. It seems Dietrich knows that if they stop and start chatting, Kara might start to crumble, so they glide past endless groups. He utters greetings, his soft, smooth tone like silk on her eardrums even as the sound of everything else disappears in the droning hurricane of her mind.

Nick has belonged to someone else this whole time. Needles of mental agony poke and prod at Kara, her fingers tightening on Dietrich’s elbow. To his credit, he only grits his teeth against the slight pain, saying nothing.

He smells like sunlight peeking through the rain, Kara thinks as a whiff of him reaches her nose,how does he do that?

An older man nods sharply to Dietrich and Kara feels him go still beside her. Without further ado, he lifts her arm from his person, giving her the barest of glances. “You can disappear for a while. I have some business to attend to.”

The bland dismissal is a godsend to Kara at this point. She wants a moment to herself, not attached to his side. Knowing that he can practically feel her agony leaking though her skin, through his suit, is humiliating. They aren’t friends, but he’s spent half this night next to her while her heart breaks.

Kara glances at the stern looking man in the sharp suit, salt and pepper hair slicked back. He looks like he wants to talk about something that Kara wants no part of. It’s easy to separate herself from Dietrich. “Behave,” she mutters to him as she walks away. He brushes the back of his hand against hers in an oddly fond gesture, sending a shiver down her spine.

For a few moments, Kara has a momentary panic of having to be alone in this party of people she doesn’t know. It was nice, oddly enough, having Dieter be in control of everything. Without him, she feels lost. She gravitates to Gale’s circle of women and talks with them briefly, her nerves still frazzled. She’s ever aware that Nick is around and that she’s likely going to run into him.

She doesn’t want to. It’s going to hurt and it already hurts, just seeing him here with someone else. Was everything just a lie? She’s never felt more like a whore.

Excusing herself to go get a mug of tea from the enclosed kitchen, Kara sees Nick leave his group, subtly following after her.

Fuck.

The door opens and closes behind her. Nick follows her into the small kitchen area, no shame to be found. She turns to look at him, outraged, unable to contain herself any longer. She can either cry or be mad; she chooses to be mad. “You utter slime.” Her voice is a low, hushed growl, fueled by humiliation and hurt. “You have a fiancée?A fiancée?! Were you ever going to tell me about that little detail?”

Nick’s face is eerily unreadable. “It’s a family arrangement. Don’t make a big deal over it.”

Silence. Silence as rage and horror continues to build in Kara’s chest as she stares up at him. It hurts, like a knife in the chest. It isn’t like…it isn’t like they are…it isn’t like she actually thought she meant anything to him. Regardless, this stings, making it utterly blatant that what they have is just a convenience for him; she’s just another girl to throw away.

Kara doesn’t want to feel this way. She doesn’t want this pain.Why does it hurt? It isn’t supposed to hurt this way. I’m not supposed to have feelings. I don’t have feelings. My father always said feelings don’t matter.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it?” Kara laughs bitterly, blinking her eyes, fighting tears. She turns away from him. She makes to go out the second door in the kitchen, to get away from him. There’s no fixing this.

“Don’t walk away from me. We’re not finished.” He snarls. “What are you doing here? How did you even find out about this party?”

“I wasinvited, you blitheringfucker!” Kara wants to dig her nails in and peel his flesh away, bit by bit.

His shoulders hunch aggressively, nose flaring. “By who?”

Is he playing a game? He wants her to say it? “You’re not blind; you know exactly who. I came here with him; I’m going to leave with him.” Now, she laughs a very ugly laugh. Kara gestures to her clothes. “Hell, he evendressed me.”

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