Page 192 of The Sinner: James

“Enough, man,” he says, his eyes scorching me. “She’s had enough. You’re not hurting her. You’re tormenting yourself.”

“I’m not hurting anyone. She’s done an outstanding job for everyone else.”

My eyes sting, and my chest hurts.

He blazes at me.

And a twisted smirk pushes to my lips.

“Okay. Fine by me. Let’s just fuck her, then. That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?”

His eyes throw daggers before he spins around and storms out of the room.

I pace after him and follow him into the bedroom.

He walks into the closet without looking at me and pulls his clothes out.

“You don’t have to leave. I will,” I say, getting my clothes out. “You can fucking have her,” I say, fumbling through racks. “I know you want her. It turns out she wants you too. You shouldn’t forget, though, she’ll want anyone for a good wage.”

His hand comes to my chest, and he crushes me against the wall.

I yank his hand off and push him back, and then he charges again, clutching my neck.

“She still loves you, James,” he growls, frustration beaming in his voice.

I sink my fist into his shoulder and jolt him back, my lips shaking with fury.

“She never loved me. She never said she did, and she never acted like she did,” I say, enraged.

“She didn’t abandon you, James… She’s not your mother. She didn’t leave you because she wanted to. She wanted to learn to live on her own.”

My hand shoots up.

“Stop saying that, for fuck’s sake. She wanted to be independent? Sucking dick for money is not independence,” I push out, my voice bouncing around the walls.

“To her, it is.”

I pivot back to him, my hands peeling off the hangers.

“Have you lost your fucking mind? She is a call girl because she didn’t want my money. It makes no fucking sense.”

He grills me with his stare, his hands clasped on his hips.

“What did you expect her to do, James? Become a rocket scientist overnight? Build a company with twenty bucks? Or perhaps you wanted to find her in one of those coffee shops, wiping the counter clean for enough money to buy lunch. Would that have made you happy? Would that have made your cock hard and your heart tender? You never looked out for her all this time. You didn’t care whether she was dead or alive, hungry or fed, or had a roof over her head. You fucking knew she had no one left. You knew she was on her own. And all you did was wallow in your misery and listen to your fucking bruised ego. You wanted her to learn a lesson? Well, she did. And it’s the same fucking lesson we all learned a long time ago. Of all people, you know that best. You don’t get anywhere in this life unless you do whatever it takes. And that’s exactly what she did to keep her head above the water. You can’t possibly be so blind. All this time, not once have you listened to your heart and tried to understand her reasons for pulling away from you.”

“I don’t have to listen to my fucking heart. That’s not how I got where I am,” I mumble, annoyed, turning my back to him and pulling a shirt off a hanger.

“She’s not a business enterprise, James. She’s a fucking human being. She is where she is partly because of you. You’ve changed her life in so many ways. She lost her family and her friends, and she lost you. She wanted to be on her own so she could be with you for real someday.”

“She could’ve been with me,” I growl, spinning to him again.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he says in a softer voice.

He looks at me with rueful eyes.

“She didn’t want to be your whore, for fuck’s sake. She wanted to be your woman, and she wanted your respect as much as she wanted your love.”

I clench my jaw, my nostrils flaring with anger.

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