Page 95 of Wicked Proposal
“Wait,” I call after him. “That’s it?”
Slowly, he turns. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“We just had the craziest, most unhinged sexathon ever, and that’s all you’ve got to say to me?”
His gaze turns sharp. I try to ignore how much it hurts—or how familiar it feels.
“It seems,” Yulian starts, as glacial as I’ve ever heard him, “you’re under the mistaken impression last night meant something.”
Hurts, hurts, hurts.
Fucking hurts all the way to my heart.
“Didn’t it?” I rasp, too raw to be anything less than vulnerable right now.
But Yulian doesn’t grant me the courtesy of handling me with care. He’s ice and steel, flat and unfeeling. Whatever was in his eyes last night isn’t there now. Maybe I just dreamed it up.
“No,” he says, cold and final. “It didn’t. It never does.”
It never does.Those words sink their claws into me, right into the scars I’ve done my damnedest to cover up. To heal ugly and fast, anything so they’d just stop bleeding.
I’m no stranger to being used. To being treated as a warm body, a servant, a thing.
But somehow, I thought Yulian…
Thought what?my rational mind mocks.That he’d be better? That he wouldn’t be just like any other bad boy billionaire who’s ever made you suffer?
That he’d bedifferent?
“Right,” I answer tightly, pushing past the lump in my throat. “How silly of me.”
Then I slam the door and lock it.
I take the fastest shower of my life, blinking back the tears under the spray. But once I’m done, I hesitate to open it again. I don’t want to see Yulian—not like this.
When I peek my head out, no one’s there.
He left.I don’t know why the realization leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Isn’t it better this way? That I don’t have to face him again so soon?
You wanted him to stay.
“Shut up,” I say out loud. “Just—shut up.”
I find women’s clothes in the dresser. With a flash of outrage, I realize where I’ve landed: Yulian’s fuckpad. His man cave. His playroom, though with an astonishing lack of whips and leather handcuffs.
Right. He probably keeps the good stuff at home. Why waste his Bad Dragon haul on the help?
I pick out a dress and underwear—still with their price tag, thank God—and hurtle down at the speed of light. I don’t head for the Maybach, though.
Instead, I flag down a good, old-fashioned cab and disappear into Manhattan traffic.
I pay the driver extra to ignore all traffic laws. Some physics laws, too, judging by the way we’re zooming through the city.
I try to reach Kallie the whole drive over, but her phone’s off.
Please, let him be okay.For the rest of the drive, I swing wildly between the five stages of grief.
It’s not that late after all.Denial.
