Page 174 of The Scandal You Started
Rayna’s heart plummeted in devastation at how perfect he looked inTregencyattire, before rising back up in a wave of frustration.
She glared at him. “You said you were leaving tomorrow.”
“I lied,” he rasped, giving away that he wasn’t as unaffected as he was trying to act.
“Why did you lie?”
“Because I do not wish to bear a minute longer in your presence if I cannot have you.”
His words were sharp knives stabbed through the left rungs of her rib cage, but the burn brought with it more anger.
“Tough shit,” she ground out, storming towards the platform. “You don’t get to sneak off while I’m sleeping and leave me with nothing but a note. You don’t just get to leave me when you said we had two days, you fucking asshole!” She looked to Riverand Victor, her mouth bunching in a pained grimace. “And how could you two help him do it?”
“Do not blame them,” Dominic said, edging forward. “I told them I had said goodbye.”
“Well, you didn’t. So get down from there.”
He gave the faintest shake of his head. “No, Rayna. I must leave.”
“You’re not leaving today, Dominic.”
“I am. I have to.”
“Get down from there now,” she snapped.
He jabbed his hat and gloves towards her floor. “This is what you wanted, Miss Faez!”
Rayna reeled back like he slapped her, her skin staining with hurt. A regretful dip appeared above Dominic’s bloodshot eyes, but it was too late. The damage had been done.
“Miss Faez?” she echoed with a croak.
“Leave,” he whispered the plea. “Do not make this any harder.Please.”
She slunk away from his hulking presence, made bigger by the added height of the POTeM platform. “So what? That’s it? You’re gonna tell me to leave without even saying goodbye?”
He stared at her, crestfallen and heartbroken, his jaw shifting and tightening like he was shaping silent words and then biting them back. Keeping them from her.
She huffed a weak, humourless laugh, staggering another pace back before she forced her spine to straighten. “Guess this is it then,” she uttered. “Have a nice life…Lord Norland.”
Rayna thought she heard Dominic let out a stifled noise, but she turned her back to him and marched towards the door—without a single glance back.
The air seemed cooler out in the corridor against her burning skin as she walked aimlessly away from the POTeM room. Her vision was tunnelled, blurred and grey around the edges, notfocusing on anything. The eerie zing in her ears seemed louder as her mind scrambled, unable to discern any singular thought or emotion.
She was dissociating from her own body. From the world.
Maybe that was why it seemed to slow around her. Until she wasn’t sure she was walking as she stared at the long, empty corridor ahead of her.
He’s leaving. Dominic’s leaving. You’re never going to see him again,a voice in her head repeated. But it didn’t stir any immediate panic or pain within her.
He’s leaving, Rayna. He’s going to leave. You’re going to let him leave.
A loud beep suddenly echoed around her, and she flinched. It was enough to break the trance she’d been falling under, and her eyes stilled in realisation.
That sound…it was the POTeM room doors being sealed. That meant…that meant…
Dominic was about to go back. He was leaving. Really leaving.
She was never going to see him again. He wouldn’t remember her.
