Page 68 of Worth the Trouble

One man leaves me feeling empty, and the other makes me ravenous for more.

We eat in silence, apart from Vaughn’s flirty banter with the waitress. He watches me from across the table, daring me to challenge him. Daring me to fight back so he can put me in my place.

I don’t. Instead, opting to push my food around while I try to ignore whatever seeds of doubt Vaughn has watered in my head.

When we finish our meal, Vaughn sticks to my side and walks me out of the restaurant, likely feeling he won whatever battle he waged tonight. Maybe he did because as much as I’d like to tell him to go screw himself, he holds more power over me and my career than my mother ever did.

He pauses as my car comes to a stop for me outside the restaurant, and I feel uneasy from the cool night. The paparazzi buzz around, watching him as he holds the door open. He might not have Rome’s fame, but he has a sickening amount of money and beds enough heiresses that they care about who he is.

“Think about what I said, Lili.” He looks down at me, knowing I won’t react when I’m surrounded by all these people. “Have your fun if that’s what you need to do. But once this show is over, you’ll be leaving Denver, and it won’t be with him.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

He smirks.Evil. Devilish. “But I do.”

I try to see something in his eyes past the void of the man I once thought he was. I try to escape his stare like a sinkhole that’s sucking me downward. I try to breathe with what little life he’s left in my lungs.

It feels like no use.

I try to slip by him and put this whole evening in the past. If I don’t leave now, I’m not sure what will become of what little this man left.

My parents are controlling, my dance company is demeaning, but Vaughn Davis surpasses them all.

But as I step toward the car door, his hand on my arm stops me from getting in. And before I can process what’s happening, he grabs my chin and plants his mouth on mine, to the excitement of what feels like a hundred cameras around us.

He holds my chin painfully tight so I can’t break away, and his kiss tastes sour. He’s poison flooding my veins. And when he’s had enough, he breaks away.

“See you soon.” He grins, holding my face an inch from his before letting me go in an effort to remind me I’m nothing without him.

I climb into the car, but even as the door closes and it drives away, I know I’m sinking.

Sand all around.

Earth pulling me down.

And there’s no getting out.

22

Rome

Fuck‘emandleave‘em.

The mantra I live by.

Something I’ve had zero issues with in my twenty-eight years on this earth. That is, until Lili went on a date with her ex-boyfriend five minutes after I fucked her and proceeded to ghost me for the past three days.

I really shouldn’t give a fuck. I should be dick-deep in another chick after breaking my stupid celibacy streak. So why is it that all I can do is think about her?

How she opened me up and took a walk around inside my chest. How she messed me up with her footprints and left.

I look at my phone again—at the picture that was sent to me from an unknown number—Lili with some guy’s mouth on hers. But all I see is red.

I know who it is; I’ve spent an unhealthy number of hours looking into this asshole, Vaughn Davis, planning the many ways I can rip him to pieces.

When Lili said she was going to dinner with an ex-boyfriend, she left out the part about how she dated him for two years. Or that he was a total piece of shit to her, as evidenced by the fact that in that time he was caught with multiple women.

Guy fucks anything that walks, apparently.

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