Ironic that I was the one getting caught up in this. I should have been stronger. Should have known better.

I’m fucking weak. And I let someone in who just wanted to leave me in the end anyway.

I should have known. I shouldn’t have forgotten the true reason she was here, ever since the night I knew she’d been snooping around in my bedroom. She wanted revenge, and now she had it.

I couldn’t fault her. I wouldn’t. But I cursed myself for making this into something it clearly wasn’t.

“It’s over,” I whispered. “Pack up. I’ll have my driver drop you off at home.”

“No, Warren, I need this mon⁠—”

“Go,” I forced out, unable to look at her.

I can’t believe she expected me to treat her that way.

Regardless of the contract, she wasn’t a thing to be used and abused. That’s why we had such strict guidelines.

Guidelines that should have stopped me from getting this wrapped up in her.

With a lingering look, she pushed herself off the couch, the click of her shoes echoing through the empty house as she ascended the stairs.

I should have known better.

34

ADDISON

“I found her waiting outside my house, soaked,” Piper said just beyond the bathroom door. “I think she needs some cheering up.”

The hot water from the shower did good work drowning out most of their conversation, but not all of it. They dropped it down to a whisper, but their words still slipped through the gaps in the door.

“... break up?”

“...bastard… hurt her…”

Showing up at Piper’s house probably wasn’t my best idea, but I didn’t want to go home to an empty house and feel the weight of my loneliness.

The house, one I had been to many times over the last few years, was about the size of Warren’s. It was a hard reminder that we were now in two different worlds.

Maybe coming here was a mistake.

Their voices now echoed in the gold-accented bathroom.

“If that’s true… contract… lost it⁠—”

I placed my hands over my ears, using the hit of each water droplet on my back to center me. I didn’t want to listen anymore. My head was pounding, and my skin was pruning. I knew I should get out, but my body wouldn’t get up, so I stayed stuck on the shower floor as water poured down on me.

He just kicked me out. After everything, Warren kicked me out.

The weight of losing the two million dollars was heavy.

I needed that money, and it had been so close, but I lost sight of it.

But his rejection hurt more than anything else.

I had banked on him wanting me, whenever, wherever, and somehow it had turned into a conversation I didn’t want to have. One I couldn't have.