Page 89 of Vicious Arrangement
“Or were you going to just get rid of it without giving me a choice and in the hopes I’d never find out.”
I spread my hands in the air. “One thing needs to be clear, this is my body, not yours.”
“So you do?—”
“No, Noah! Fuck.” I drag in a breath and hold out one hand for my phone, which he fails to give me. “What I mean is this is my body, and I won’t be bullied, but I’d also never in a million years make the decision on the fate of the fetus without talking to you.The fact you seem to not just think I’m going to get rid of it on a whim but I’m also fucking half of New York speaks volumes about our relationship.”
Or lack of one.
I didn’t mean the “my body” line as anything more than I get to decide when to tell him. I get to decide when I’m ready to deal, to share, even if he’s the father. And I’m not talking weeks or months, I’m taking hours and days.
It’s a big thing. And it’s happening to me.
He can say no, and I can walk away and do this on my own.
“You really don’t trust or respect me, do you?” I snap, jumping to get my phone. “You’ve got major trust issues, and I haven’t done a thing to make you think you can’t trust me.”
“I don’t know,” he says sarcastically. “You keep this from me. You’re buddies with my best friend now. How is that trust?”
I stumble back. “I found out yesterday, and I was going to try to catch you to talk. I’d have texted to see if we could talk, but you’d bail, like always. How is that for trust?”
“You said it’s your body.”
I dart forward and snatch my phone. “Because it is, and that doesn’t mean anything other than that. I was going to tell you tonight, if you must know. If you were here, if I heard you come in. If you weren’t out being a fuck boy.”
He has the grace to blush. “Point taken.”
But my anger is running high now. “Regardless of what you found out, going into my phone is an invasion of my privacy and a huge breach of my trust. Because up until now, I trusted you.I gave you room to try to sort things out for yourself, but that never extended to a romp through my phone.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he says, “I found out by accident when a text from Asher came through.”
“You think that explains things?”
He just sighs. “I lost my mind. I thought…”
I know what he thought, and it cuts into me, through the bone.
“You think the fact you thought I was cheating makes this better?” The expression on his face tells me everything and I laugh. It’s bitter and acidic on my tongue. “You’re fucking insane.”
“And what would you do?” His words are bullets.
“Not. That.”
They hit me because in his barren world, the one I thought had fertile ground, the one beyond his money, looks and sexual conquests is just that, barren. In his eyes, I’m another gold digger, which is why he’ll attack first.
Why he never gets involved?
“Well?”
“I wouldn’t think that. Because if it were my choice, my fantasy world, we’d be shocked, but happy, making plans for the future. We’d have married because you wanted me and I wanted you, we’d have married out of love, Noah, not greed. Not coercion.”
Pressure pushes against my eyes, and my throat hurts when I swallow, but I somehow hold the tears back.
“I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought you might have discovered feelings for me. I thought…” My words falter. “I thought wrong, and since you think I’m this monster and you’re the most suspicious, angry, empty man I’ve ever met, I’m going. Fuck you and your fortune, fuck your sky mansion. I’d ask you not to hurt my gramps, but you will because that’s all you are. Made of hate and mistrust and all the wrongs in the world. I’m sorry for your past, Noah, I really am, but it’s something we work through. It’s something you want to move beyond. I’m fucking leaving.”
“Nice fucking speech,” he snaps. “And you can shove your sympathy. I don’t need it. I know who and what I am. And I apologized for looking in your phone. You should lock it. Can you imagine if mine was out and you saw it and Katie texted me?”
Heat flares in my cheeks, and my vision blurs, but I blink the unshed words away.
