She starts pulling the pill bottles out of my hands. “I’m sorry I scared you. Let me just go put these back in the medicine cabinet.”
Reluctantly, I let go, but only after she gave me another long hug, and whispered in my ear, “You’re becoming such a good man, Logan. I’m so proud of you.”
I hugged her back, hard. Maybe we’d make it after all…
Except that the next morning I found her dead in her bathtub, bottles of empty pills strewn on the ground.
Thirty
Present Day
Daphne
When I finally make it back to my apartment yet again, still hauling my stupid suitcases around with me, I’m exhausted. Emotionally. Physically. The world is tilted upside down and all I want is to crash for about a hundred years.
Except that there’s Logan, pacing back and forth in front of my building like a stalking predator. His hair is wild and he’s not even wearing his mask. People are crossing to the other side of the street just to stay away from him.
But all I can think is Beautiful man. Beautiful beast.
I needed him and here he is.
I wave at him as soon as I get out of my taxi. “Logan, help me with my stuff.”
His face darkens as soon as he sees me. But I hold up a hand. “Don’t even start with me. You don’t know the day I’ve had. At least come into my place so we can talk things out.”
I can’t imagine a shouting match on a street corner in front of my townhouse.
Please just let him be reasonable and hear me out for once, I pray as we ascend the steps to my apartment. That’s all I need from him. I’m making so many sacrifices here and I need to see that he can do the same. That he can sacrifice his pride and listen.
He grabs the bags from me roughly and follows, a hulking, furious black cloud huffing behind me as we go up the stairs. He’s silent as I pull out my keys and push open the door to my empty apartment.
If he’s surprised by it’s emptied out state, he doesn’t say a word. Then again, not saying anything is becoming a theme with him. Though, maybe that’s a good thing. If I can say my piece, and if he’ll actually listen—
But as the door slams shut behind him, he barks, “On your knees. Beg for my forgiveness.”
I immediately start shaking my head. “Logan, I didn’t do what they said. Those pictures aren’t—”
“On your knees!” he roars. “Your Master has given you an order!”
Which just pisses me off. I love what he does to my body. I love the way he commands my pleasure and all that I’ve discovered in that space. But that’s not what this is. He’s pissed. He thinks I betrayed him. Again. And he won’t fucking listen.
I peel off my shirt. When he sees the bra I’m wearing—the same one from the pictures—his eyes go as dark as the clouds in the blackest storm.
“Did you enjoy being his whore?”
I fly at him but he catches my wrist before I can slap him. “I hate you,” I hiss in his face. “Nobody hurts me the way you do.”
“And you fucking love it,” he growls, face still furious as he drags me towards him, slapping my ass hard as soon as he can get his hands on me.
I’m instantly wet. He’s right. I’m addicted to him.
He grabs my face and kisses me hard. It’s a dominating, devouring kiss. Staking his claim as he slides a huge hand into my panties and pinches my clit within an inch of its life.
I squeal and twist beneath him, but when he releases his hold, the flood of pleasure that hits me like a wave has me buckling under him so that it’s only him who’s holding me up.
Not for long, though, because soon he’s dragging me towards the couch and shoving my jeans all the way off.
“Please,” I can’t help begging. “I need you inside me.” Maybe if we can connect in this way, then we can start—
“I thought you hated me,” he sneers.
I twist underneath him to face him even as I kick off my pants the rest of the way. I search his eyes, so tumultuous with emotion, and I grab the sides of his face, the ruined and the whole, with my hands.
“Logan, we could have everything, if you would just trust me. Listen to me about what happened. And trust me when I say I didn’t betray you. That I would never betray you. Trust me.”
But it’s like my plea is a bucket of ice water on his head. He wrenches away from me. “I can’t. You’re a liar. You’re all liars.”
I scramble up to a sitting position. All? “Who?”
He looks briefly my way before shaking his head. “Women.”
What the hell? But then he’s grabbing his shirt off the ground and shrugging it on over his head. “I should never have come here. This was a mistake.”
My heart sinks with every step he takes away. He doesn’t even look back once as he leaves, the door closing behind him with a resounding thud.
Thirty-One
Present Day
Logan
It was my mom all over again. I slam out of the building and people back away in fear. Fine with me. They don’t want me? I don’t want them either. I hop in my truck and burn rubber as I pull out of the parking lot.
Trust me. Trust me, she said. When the evidence she was lying was sitting right fucking there.
Obviously Mom was going to kill herself that night, no matter what the fuck I said, or what she promised.
And the pictures of Daphne and Archer in the papers—it was the truth in black and white. Words don’t mean shit.
There’s the truth. And the truth is that no one ever picks me. My mom picked being dead over being with me, so big fucking shock that Daph picked Archer with his money and his fucking perfect face and—
I let out a roar in the cab of the truck as I drive back to the castle. I want to destroy something. I want to rip the whole fucking world apart.
I close my eyes as rage burns in my brain, making me feel like I’m going to self-combust.
Daphne
I sit on the wood floor of my empty townhouse. My nipples ache. I took out the piercings...because why bother? I’m not Logan’s anymore.
I’m not anyone’s.
Sacrifice was supposed to bring reward. Why couldn’t he trust me? I… I love him. Why isn’t that enough? I love him so much, it’s ripping my heart out.
Maybe it was better back when I was asleep. Back when I didn’t know what it felt like to live life in color. When the world was black-and-white and I woke up and went through the motions each day and then went to sleep again and year passed upon year until I eventually moldered away and went back to the earth to become fertilizer for my beloved roses. Circle of fucking life, right? Why did I think I got to be special, but no, I’ve got to be one of the rare few with an epic love of a lifetime. That’s just a fairytale.
My cell phone rings and I answer it on autopilot. I plugged it in as soon as I got here.
“Daphne?” Rachel’s voice is half panic, half hopeful.
I hang up and stare at my phone like it’s something vile. WTF is she thinking, calling me? After what she did?