I wouldn't mind her writing these things down, I seriously wouldn't. It's not the fact that she wrote about all of this, but the way she did it. She puts herself in the background, the writer disappearing almost completely while she focuses on me, shaping the entire text like an expository article that is meant to destroy my public image.
"What are you doing?"
Her voice cuts into my wildly running thoughts and I almost explode with rage when I turn to see her standing there, her eyes wide and an accusing look on her face as she's wrapping herself in an oversized towel.
I'm standing there like an idiot, and couldn't feel more exposed, physically or emotionally. She flinches away from me when I dart toward her, ripping the towel off of her body and wrapping it around my waist instead. It's the only thing I can think of to make her feel at least somewhat as lost and exposed as I'm feeling right now.
"What the fuck is that?" I yell at her, pointing to her laptop.
Her face grimaces with pain and she raises her hands as if to protect herself from an imminent attack.
"Please, Jared, calm d-"
"I'm not going to fucking calm down!"
I charge against her, ignoring the girlish shriek she lets out when I grab her by the shoulders and push her against the wall.
"Please, no-!"
"Are you fucking writing about me?" I exclaim. "Who are you working for? Who ordered you to write this?"
"No one!" she bellows at me. "It's not what you think! I was never going to-"
"Don't lie to me!" I cut her off, ignoring the pained grimace on her face when I shake her with an almost surreal and furious strength. "This must have been commissioned by someone!"
"No, it wasn't!" she insists, looking at me with fear in her eyes.
I bite my lips, trying so fucking hard to calm myself and not let the rage win over. We've been there. She has told me about her fear of encountering another uncontrollable thug, and I promised that I'm no such thing. Ever.
But she...
"You planned all of this from the beginning, didn't you?" I hiss, trembling with bitter exasperation. It's all there. The pain. The feeling of horrible betrayal. I vowed to never let it happen again. I saw the danger in her. From the beginning.
Yet here we are.
"It was all a set-up from the beginning, wasn't it? You, at the agency, allegedly running into me, making me fall for you, playing me, extracting intimate information..."
She's shaking her head the entire time I list all the things she's done to me, denying every single one of them, the tears pouring down her face. Fake tears, I'm sure. She's good at this, I have to give her that.
"Please, Jared, you have to trust me," she begs, her voice weak and as untrustworthy as they come. "You have to believe me. I didn't-"
"It was that guy, wasn't it?" I interrupt, as I suddenly remember her weird encounter at tonight’s event. The guy who came up to her, the press guy she spoke to and was reluctant to share any details of their conversation with me. She wasn't shocked because he said something to scare her, she was shocked because he approached her when she was in plain sight of me.
"How much?" I hiss through gritted teeth.
She stares at me, her face frozen in a horrified and tortured expression.
"He... I'm not going to do it," she whispers, and my heart sinks. "I was going to tell him no, and..."
Her voice breaks off as she sees my reaction to her words. I let go of her, bringing distance between us and glaring at her with utmost disgust.
So it's true. She just admitted it. She was offered money to sell her story about me, just as I suspected.
And now she's trying to calm me down by making me believe that she was going to say no? After all that work she's put into her work?
I shake my head and realize that I have to get out of here. I can't stay in the same room with her for one more second.
"Jared, please listen to me!"
Her pleas follow after me, but they're not holding me back. I head for the living room, hastily picking up the clothes I've left scattered on the floor when I fell for yet another one of her devilish seductions.
"Will you please listen to me?" she yells, standing at the top of the stairs. "Jared, you're misunderstanding-"
"Shut up!"
Even I am shocked at the volume of my voice, echoing through the living room in gloomy shock waves.
She freezes, watching in terror as I finish getting dressed, not wasting another second to look at her before I flee from this fucking nightmare.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ann
He's not back.
I roam through the living room area, the kitchen, the hallway, knocking and eavesdropping at his door to see if I can hear him rummaging inside the room. I fell asleep at some point last night, the tears still not dried up from my excessive crying. I only slept for a few hours and haven't heard a thing since he left the penthouse last night, but I wanted be sure. There's an off chance that he came home during that window of time I spent sleeping, curled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around me, because I didn't want to miss his possible return.
I didn't try to call him right away, but waited a few minutes to let him calm down, to maybe get some fresh air and take a few breaths before he was ready to face me again. Because I sure as hell know what this is like, what it's like to be a victim of your own emotions, to be overtaken by blind rage that makes it impossible to think straight, to act normally, or to listen to the person who's causing you the pain.
I get it.
I get him.
Of course, he's hurt. He had just told me his story! The memory of it was still fresh when he chose that very moment to snoop around my stuff and satisfy his curiosity about my writing. He's asked me about it a few times, but I always played it down, telling him that it little more than diary writing and a way for me to spend my time, just like other people watch TV in their spare time.
I lied to him, that much is for certain. I hid things from him. And even though I never actually planned to sell him out, or even was following an elaborate long-term plan such as the one he's suspecting right now, he has every right to be mad, furious, suspicious.
But God damn it, why won't he talk to me? I thought he’d just leave the penthouse for a little while, taking in some fresh air and then coming back upstairs, giving me an opportunity to explain. I thought all he needed was a chance to get ready to listen.
More than twelve hours have passed since he raised his voice against me in a blood-chilling way. I didn't say a word, I didn't move. I gave him the room I thought he needed and deserved. But now that he's been out God knows where, leaving me to wonder by myself all night long and still ignoring my calls this morning, I'm not only beginning to worry, I'm actually mad at him.
Why is he acting this way? Why won't he even give me the slightest chance to explain? Is he really that hurt? That blind? Does he really believe all the things he said?
I'm standing at the panoramic window in the living room, watching as the city wakes up dozens of stories below me. I can still feel the impact his belt left on me and am sore around my throat. My hand wanders up to my neck, carefully caressing the sensitive skin, wondering if this was the last time I'll ever feel his hand wrapped around my throat. I don't want to believe that, but the thought is persistent, because if nothing else, it would make perfect sense.