He brings me calm.
Reina-Ellis: He didn’t like it.
Cloud003: He didn’t like what?
Reina-Ellis: Me standing on the ledge and threatening to jump.
It hits me then.
Arianna’s death. Oh my God—Arianna died the same way, and I just repeated the scene in front of him.
In my mind, I thought he wouldn’t care, but that look he gave me was the complete opposite of not caring.
He was on the verge of himself.
Reina-Ellis: Shit. I think I hurt him. What do I do?
Cloud003: Why are you asking me?
Cloud003: I don’t appreciate you talking about other men, my slut.
I roll my eyes.
The door bangs open.
I jerk, hugging the phone to my chest as if Asher could see my conversation with Jason. I mean, it’s not cheating. We’re friends.
So why the hell am I hiding the phone?
No, I’m not hiding it. I just don’t want Asher to see what I said about him.
He closes the door, trapping us both in the room as he leans against it. The soft lamplight casts a shadow on his darkened features, almost making them frightening.
Scratch that. They are frightening.
Although I feel lighter now that he knows I’m not Reina, Asher is still one of the villains in my story—if not the most dangerous.
I don’t feel drawn to other villains. I don’t clench my thighs upon seeing them like some high school girl with a crush.
“What…” My voice comes out breathy, and I clear my throat. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t answer and stalks toward me instead. His steps are slow, measured, and filled with so much sexual energy it radiates in the air and wraps a noose around my neck.
I hug the phone tighter to my chest, as if it can save me from Asher’s hold and teleport me out of here.
“What were you doing?” His question drifts like smoke without fire, impenetrable and asphyxiating.
“Nothing.” My voice is defensive and too loud, even to my own ears.
“Is that so?” He’s suddenly standing beside me, and I have to gaze up to look at him.
His heat radiates on my skin in waves and I can’t look away. I can’t do anything except stare like an idiot.
As I’m caught in his trance, he reaches over and snatches my phone away. His brows scrunch as he studies the screen, but there’s no other indication of his mood.
I finally shake myself out of my stupor and yank my phone back.
It’s too late, though. He must’ve seen the name, or worse, the last few lines of my conversation with Jason.
My ears and face flame with shame. Is it supposed to feel this crippling?
“Are you cheating on me, Reina?” His question is like a slap across my face. My cheek is hot and tingling where his imaginary hand struck me.
“N-No.” My lips tremble around the word.
Although I might have cheated before, I don’t now and will never do it again.
Why the hell did I cheat? Was it another way to remain detached and not grow close to Asher? Because I know—I’m sure—I felt something for him in the past.
These intense feelings didn’t spring up out of nowhere. They’ve been magnifying over the years, and when I finally had the freedom of amnesia, I just let them loose.
I let them consume me alive.
He leans over so his entire body is angled toward mine. “Why do I think you did?”
“What about you, then?” I cover my ignorance by jutting out my chin. “Didn’t you cheat on me?”
“No.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe. I don’t have the time or energy to focus on anyone else.”
My heartbeat hammers faster as his words sink in. He just admitted that he only has the time and energy to focus on me.
Even if it’s the most fucked-up type of focus.
“Not even in England?” I murmur.
“Not even in England.”
Well, shit. How does he have the power to make my pulse race this hard and fast? Is it a curse?
Or maybe it’s something stronger I refuse to admit.
“So, are you?” he repeats. “Cheating on me, I mean.”
“No.” I say the word with an odd type of conviction like I never cheated on him, like the thought never even crossed my mind.
“Good, because I don’t react well to others touching what I own.” His finger glides along my cheek, leaving goosebumps in its wake as he traces my lower lip in a sensual caress. “You’re mine, aren’t you, prom queen?”
Prom queen.
My chest flutters in and out of sync.
I don’t know why I love it so much when he calls me that. Could be because it’s neither Reina nor Rai. It’s neither identity theft nor confusion.
It’s just me.
His thumb and forefinger squeeze my chin. “Answer me.”
“I don’t belong to someone who wants to hurt me.”
I might be inexplicably attracted to Asher, but I’ve never, not once, forgotten what he did to me. That fear was wild and raw and I can almost feel how I hung on the roof or how these same fingers choked me with the intent of ending my life.
People think when you have dark thoughts about ending your own life, you’d feel relieved when someone else takes the burden away and finishes it for you.
It’s not true, at least not for me.
That terror I felt back then still pulses beneath my skin, pumping in my bloodstream. Those were some of the rare moments where I thought I didn’t want to die, that I couldn’t leave just like that.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that type of horror.
“Oh, but you do.” Asher’s hand travels down until it wraps around my throat. “You fucking do.”
“But—”
He squeezes, cutting off my air supply and my words. “Shut up, don’t talk about that. Not tonight.”
Not tonight? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Still gripping my neck, his thumb strokes up and down my pulse point as if soothing it, feeling it, making sure it’s there.
There’s something about the way he holds my throat prisoner. Sometimes, it’s harsh, dominant, and meant to prove a point. Other times, like right now, it’s almost…tender, meant to establish a connection.
“You’ll never do shit like that on the balcony again, understood?” He’s not boring his eyes into mine. Instead, his entire attention is on my neck.
What is his problem exactly? He’s acting strangely for someone who’s been actively trying to end my life.
When I don’t answer—partially because he’s barely allowing me air to breathe, let alone talk—he wraps his other hand at the back of my head and forces me to nod, up and down.
“That’s a yes. That’s, I’ll never do it again, Asher. I won’t allow people to see me that way.”
He releases me then, both his hands pulling away from me. A funny type of emptiness prickles on my skin as if I don’t want him gone.
Why the hell do I not want him gone?
He stalks to the foot of the bed and I watch his every move. The word ‘stay’ is at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say it.