Page 52 of Breaking Blaze

Sick roiled in her guts, sparking a shocked gasp she couldn’t stop.

Both heads spun to look at her.

A crafty, bitchy smile on Brigit’s face was nothing compared to the guilty expression on Blaze’s face. He’d been caught red-handed. Sally and AJ were mistaken. Fooled. There was nothing wrong with Blaze, he’d just changed up his MO to banging chicks in his office after hours. No need for a bar when he can just hit up his list of ‘dones’ and get any piece of ass he wanted.

“Anna?” Blaze exclaimed, jumping from his desk chair so fast the chair slammed into the wall behind it. “Wh—what are you doing here?”

Anna sneered, betrayal and grief for the loss of that last bit of hope surged within her.

“Apparently, I am interrupting something,” she snapped. “I guess I really was just another one-night stand, huh, Blaze? Just someone to fuck and throw away.” Her words stripped away layers of her heart and soul, flaying her.

Blaze’s beautiful face transmuted into something fierce and dark.

“The fuck you say, woman?” he growled.

Casting a belligerent glance at the woman still perched like a whore parrot on Blaze’s desk, Anna drawled, “I guess I really was a fool, thinking that someone like me could ever get the great White Hot Blaze to actually stop his manwhoring ways. I guess the plain, fat, boring in the sack Anna Cass should have known better.”

Brigit, the bitch, snickered. “You really should have,” she purred.

Blaze’s gaze snapped to her, his eyes on fire.

“Get the fuck out of here, bitch,” he snarled.

Jerking, Brigit shot to her feet. “But, I thought—”

“You thought that you could get me drunk enough for me to stick my dick in you again, and you thought wrong.” With that, Blaze snatched the red-caped bottle of Maker’s Mark limited release off his desk from where Anna hadn’t noticed it, and threw it at Brigit who caught it with fumbling arms.

Her face gone red, Brigit hissed, “Fuck both of you.”

She was gone in a blast of stringent perfume and rage before Anna could make heads or tails of what Blaze had said.

He hadn’t invited Brigit there to fuck her?

There bubbled that last bit of hope, crawling its way out of the muck of despair into the light of—

Then, she remembered coming into the room to find them kissing.

Yeah…he hadn’t totally rejected Brigit, had he? Apparently, he was interested enough to touch her diseased mouth with his mouth, a mouth she craved even now.

A liar’s mouth.

Again, the anger rose, heating her blood and her skin.

Drawing in every last ounce of strength remaining, Anna met Blaze’s blistering blue eyes.

“So, this is why you’ve been ignoring me? You got what you wanted and realized you could have better?” God, that hurt to say.

Blaze cursed, moving around his desk to walk toward her. She raised an arm to stop his progress. “Dammit, Anna. This was not what it looked like.”

Anna raised an eyebrow and growled. “Right. I didn’t see you kissing Brigit in your empty office, after hours, while blatantly ignoring every text and phone call from the woman, not three days ago, you fucked and ditched. To me, it looks like you gave poor old Anna Cass a pity fuck, woke up ashamed, and decided it was better to ghost the lovesick idiot than tell her to her face that she means nothing to you!” Every sentence grew in volume until she was yelling, her arms raised, her heart hammering, hot tears streaming down her face.

At the stricken look on Blaze’s face, a sob escaped.

Blaze reached out, dragging her into his chest. She fought, her fist slamming against him as he held on tight. He didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch, just held her until the energy to fight ebbed away, leaving behind a woman made up of tears and broken pieces.

His chest rumbled with words Anna couldn’t hear, soothing words.

She bit back her own words, too tired to speak.

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