Page 195 of Scandalous Games

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me thrice… Well, I’m not giving him another chance.

“Why are you really here, Dash?”

His friendly mask cracks, letting me peer into the man who walked out of my life after wrecking me in the aftermath of his storm.

“I told you, kitten. I go where you go.”

Chapter Sixty-seven

DASH

Bianca was put on this earth to be mine.

To breathe life into my cold, dead heart.

Only this time, I’m not letting her go without a fight. I might have walked out on her that day but I never intended to be gone forever. And if I have to spend an eternity begging her to take me back and give me one last chance to prove we belong together, I’ll do it with a smile on my face.

Our past may have been built on lies and secrecy but our future will not be tainted by their ghosts. She knows all my deepest sins, my ugliest scars, and darkest fears, so, if she still hasn’t kicked me out yet despite knowing it all, it gives me hope that maybe I stand a chance.

It might be small but when you’ve survived through a dark never ending tunnel, it might as well be as bright as the sun. I’m going to grab and hold on to whatever she’ll give me.

Because living without her isn’t a possibility.

I thought I knew what the darkest times for me would be like, but I truly understood its meaning in these past six months that I had to spend alone. Without her. My world. My kitten.My wife.

A goddamn paper isn’t going to decide our fate. In my heart, she became mine the moment she propositioned me to be her fake husband.

“I’m not letting you back in my life again,” she spits out angrily and crosses her arms. “Certainly not for a job you don’t need. I’m going to give it to someone who actually deserves it.”

I can’t keep the smile from my face because her anger is better than the shell of a girl I turned her into when I left. It would have killed me if I was the reason who made her lose her fire. But I’m glad that’s not the case, because the defiance always perched on her cute nose.

Of course, I’m not surprised because she may doubt herself but she is the strongest woman I know. The most beautiful.

The moment I had found out she moved to another city and all her stuff was gone from our apartment and hers, it was like a permanent dark cloud had appeared over my head, locking me in darkness. All I knew was she was gone and I didn’t know where she went.

The knowledge of not being able to see her, possibly forever, was too hard to bear and I had slipped into a hellish phase. My nights were spent in a drunken stupor because it was the only way I could sleep without waking up in a nightmare.

I survived living with a lonely family.

I survived reliving Niall’s accident.

Through the guilt.

But the mere idea of losing the one good thing that ever happened to me and knowing I sabotaged it because of my mistake was too much and it pushed me over the edge. Had Justin not found me and been there to talk some sense into me, I don’t know what I would have done. It took me a month to get my life in order.

I had so much to repent for and a lot of healing before I could be the man Bianca deserved.

A few days after Niall’s accident, I had confessed everything to his mom. Because after all the efforts she made to include me in the family, I couldn’t lie to her. I told her about his breakup minus the cheating part, our fight and that I sabotaged his relationship by sleeping with her which led to him chasing after her that night. She had kicked me out and told to never return in her life.

Over the years after my career took off, I secretly helped by taking care of Niall’s medical finances and bringing the best doctors to help him. However, none could fix his condition. The damage was too severe and it was highly unlikely he would ever wake up.

This truth was the hardest one to accept.

Some nights, I still blame myself and probably always will.

I should’ve known my stepmother will put two and two together with my involvement in the charity. I regret not keeping my part anonymous but my name alone helped bring others to give to the charity. It was easy enough to find she had sneaked into the gala by saying she was my stepmother after she found Bianca was going to there through media.