Time slowed, stretching out like a rubber band as the knowledge washed over me. I’d been a toy, manipulated and maneuvered against my knowledge. I’d been tricked. Trapped by Brock. Addison. Goddamn Natasha Felix.

They’d done this to me. Used me. Humiliated me. And for what? Ratings? Sport? To make a fool of me?

In this entire room, there was only one person I could trust. The one person I’d betrayed with a lie meant to save him.

Kash.

I didn’t realize what he was doing until it was too late to stop him, as if I could have halted the freight train that was his massive arm as it coiled and sprang almost too fast to see. His fist hit Brock’s nose with a crunch and a spurt of blood.

Brock crumpled, clutching his face as gore dribbled down his chin and over his hands. “You broke my nose!”

“You broke her heart,” he said with conviction I felt in my marrow. “Fuck you. Fuck you for doing this to her. And fuck you too,” he spat at Natasha.

“You stupid motherfucker,” she said coolly, striding toward him. “Dumb, just like her. You just lost your job. Your business. Whatever you have, you just fucking lost, all because you were too stupid to mind your own business.”

My breath labored, my vision dimming, the shallow sips I dragged into tight lungs not enough. There wasn’t enough air.

You’re hyperventilating, I thought clinically.

I held a painful breath and let it out slow. Commotion went on somewhere outside of me, followed by a scream from the gathering peanut gallery when they saw Brock’s face, which was disgusting. Addison materialized, somehow managing to look both horrified and pleased with the chaos.

“You need to leave,” she said, and I looked to Kash.

But he was looking at me.

And so was Addison.

The gravity of the situation dawned on me slowly. The Felix wedding had come to a grinding halt, the massive guest list gawking and whispering, phones out and recording. Natasha ranting, swinging her champagne around. Brock dabbing at his nose with a napkin. Kash with raw knuckles, face grim. This was not only my fault, but my responsibility. I hadn’t just breached every line of professionalism, I’d sullied the name of the company I’d worked so hard for.

And then there was Kash. Somehow, I thought he might pay the steepest price of all.

But in that moment, he didn’t seem to care. As I nodded at nothing and no one, Kash moved to my side, his hand in the small of my back, applying the gentlest pressure to guide me toward the door. I complied on numb, shaking legs, drifting by his side without knowing where he’d gotten my bag or how we got in the service elevator. Only that we were in it, then out of it, then into the cold winter night.