BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (58)
  1. Full Page Image
  2. Contents
  3. Copyright
  4. Important Note:
  5. ~ Ground Zero ~
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. ~ Absolutely ~
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. ~ Someone To Feed It ~
  17. Chapter Ten
  18. Chapter Eleven
  19. Chapter Twelve
  20. Chapter Thirteen
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. ~ I’ve Got You Now ~
  24. Chapter Sixteen
  25. Chapter Seventeen
  26. Chapter Eighteen
  27. Chapter Nineteen
  28. Chapter Twenty
  29. Chapter Twenty-One
  30. Chapter Twenty-Two
  31. ~ Him ~
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  38. ~ As I Fall ~
  39. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  40. Chapter Thirty
  41. Chapter Thirty-One
  42. Chapter Thirty-Two
  43. Chapter Thirty-Three
  44. Chapter Thirty-Four
  45. Chapter Thirty-Five
  46. Chapter Thirty-Six
  47. ~ The Luckiest Girl In The World ~
  48. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  49. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  50. Two Months Later
  51. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  52. Chapter Forty
  53. Chapter Forty-One
  54. Chapter Forty-Two
  55. Six Months Later
  56. Chapter Forty-Three
  57. Acknowledgments
  58. Also by WS Greer

I want to run out of the house and call Juliana, but I’ve let my friendships fade into the background of my life with Nas, and she probably wouldn’t listen if I called. If she did, it’d only be to say “I told you so.” I fucked it all up because I was happy doing what I was doing with Nas, and that’s when I realize the title.

A Lesson in Ruin.

Is that what he was planning all along—to ruin me and take away my life? Did he get off on watching me back away from my friends while clinging to him? Was he enjoying ruining me just to drop me at the end? It’s all some sort of sick game to him isn’t it? He wanted to play me the same way he played Heather. She said herself that if she spoke about what happened to her she would be ruined. Ruined! He taught her a lesson too, and she can’t speak about it because he made her sign an NDA, just like me. That motherfucker. It’s all a game to him. It was always a game.

“Alina?” A voice booms into the room, and I whirl around with tear-filled eyes and a panic-stricken heart. Nas stands at the door to the office wearing nothing but a robe and a furious scowl on his face. He looks at me, then glances down at the open laptop on his desk. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“What am I doing in here? That’s all you can think to say to me after what you’ve been doing?”

My temper sparks to life in my chest and sets the rest of my body ablaze. I could kill Nas. I could lunge for his throat right now and squeeze until there is no more air left in his body. I could seriously fucking stab him to death right here in this office, splattering all of these books with his blood. I am enraged and broken at the same time. Only a man could make me feel this way, and I’m so fucking sick of it.

Nas stands in the doorway as if he’s blocking me from running through it. His posture is stiff, and I see the moment he realizes exactly what has happened. His eyes shift back down to the laptop, and I move over just enough for him to see the screen. He takes a timid step forward like he doesn’t want it to be real, but one step is all it takes for him to be able to read the screen—the screen describing when he tied me to the Saint Andrew’s Cross and flogged me. My name is written in the depiction over and over again, and Nas sucks in a quiet gasp. The intimidating face he had before melts into a look of panic.