Page 70 of Cruel Hearts

“Hey,” I say to Nathalie, touching her shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about Ash anymore, okay? I told him I want to keep you.”

“He agreed?” she asks skeptically. “That easily?” She’s been trapped under Ash’s heel for too long to believe he would just let her go. Especially since King’s Crossing’s mayor fancies her.

“I had to pay.” I leave out the rest. She could take pride in the fact she cost so much, or pride in the fact I paid it. Or it could disgust her that her life, her entire being, could be whittled down to dollars and cents.

“Thank you.”

Her lips find mine, her tongue probing my mouth, asking me to let her in just like I always have. Stella’s looking at us—I can feel the weight of her stare.

Charades in charades. The lies are going to break me.

I turn my head, breaking our one-sided kiss. “I don’t feel that way about you anymore,” I murmur.

“You’re using me,” she accuses, jerking away.

“I’m not proud of it, Nat, but I have been since Ash introduced us and you know it. Use me now. For your freedom from the Blacks. Ash would never have let you go without me.”

“I love you,” she whispers.

I brush my lips across her forehead. “I care about you, too, you know that.”

“Not enough.”

She runs up the stairs before I can correct her. Maybe there’s nothing to correct. I do care about her, but not enough to try to turn it into love.

Stella watches me approach the group. “We need to go,” I tell her.

She stares at me with so much hate, if she could kill me, I’d be six feet under. While she was Ash’s slave to save Zarah, I’ve been fucking another woman like I didn’t give a shit she disappeared.

Reluctantly, she kisses both Zarah’s and Lucille’s cheeks. Murmurs things I can’t hear. The affection among the women is obvious, and despite the drugs we have to keep Zarah on for now, I’ve never seen her so close to the surface.

Stella meets me at the elevator, but she won’t look at me. It’s then I realize the hard truth. She’s never coming back tome. There’s nothing I’ll be able to say or do to convince her to love me again. To move on, I might as well marry Nathalie, keep the companionship I’ve grown to depend on. Lose myself in her because I’ll never again have the love of the only woman I’ll ever want.

“Where’s the flash drive? Did you destroy it?”

My heart and mind are lost in a vision of a future I can’t have, and I stare. Her eyes are covered by a sheet of ice allowing no emotion to escape.

“What?”

“The flash drive I gave you at my apartment. The flash drive I risked my life to get to you. The flash drive that you didn’t give a shit about because all you wanted was a quick fuck.Do you still have it?”

I scramble to pinpoint what she’s talking about. Seeing her that morning eclipsed everything we said. Everything we did faded away but me tasting her, feeling her surround me as I slid into her. How her body molded to mine as I took her.

Nothing else mattered.

Again, it’s just more evidence of how stupid I’ve been. How little value I’ve placed in all Stella has done. A glimmer of a memory comes back as she glares. Throwing it into my desk. Not bothering to give it another thought because I didn’t trust her. Didn’t believe her.

“It’s in my desk.”

“You didn’t look at what’s on it?”

My cheeks flame. Jesus. “No.”

“Pull your head out of your ass,” she hisses as the doors to the lift open.

I try not to take offense at her words. Idoneed to start paying attention. Ash is more cunning, devious, than I will ever be. He’ll trample me if I don’t do what Stella says. I have to quit my sappy little-boy behavior. I need to find the spine I grew whenI thought Stella betrayed me and Nigel helped me pull Maddox Industries out of the pit I let it fall into after my parents passed away.

Stella fidgets while I search my desk. Mel doesn’t appear, and Peggy fields calls and acts like everything is normal.

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