His brow furrowed, but it wasn't the venomous glare he'd been directing my way all damn day. This expression was just confused. Concerned, even.
"What happened, Brooke?" His voice was so gentle it hurt my damn heart. "I was worried about you. Those bruises I saw—"
"I blocked your number," I blurted out, cutting him off. "I knew I needed a clean break but would be too fucking weak to just say no whenever you told me you were in town, so this time I took the choice away from myself. I blocked your number, then deleted our message threads and..." I trailed off with a shrug.
"And never looked back, huh?" his tone was edged with bitterness, and his whole body seemed to vibrate with tension. It didn't help that he'donlyput sweatpants on, so I could see every movement of his chiseled chest and abs. Holy hell, he was ripped. Like a dark Adonis.
His accusation stung, though. He hadnoidea how hard it'd been for me to walk away. None. To him, I was just a casual fuck buddy, an easy lay with no strings attached whenever he was in town. But to me? Fucking hell. Every night I spent with Dylan Grant saw me spiraling harder into something scarily close tolove—which was totally off the table when it came to him.
"I'm sure you have plenty of girls in other cities to keep your bed warm." I swallowed heavily over the acid in that statement. I hated it. I hated seeing him in tabloids with pretty, perfect models on his arm. But worse than that, I hated seeing pictures of the Delta Five together. Always,always, it was Beck and Riley, front and center—the ultimate power couple—andalwaysthere was a sadness in Dylan's eyes.
He didn't respond to my jealous comment, and for a long, painful moment we just sat there in silence, our eyes locked on one another.
Then he said something I didn't expect. "What if I told you I don’t?"
I blinked a couple of times, breaking free of his intense stare while I tried to comprehend that question. "Don’t... what? Have other girls?" He nodded, and I shook my head. "Well, then I'd call you a liar. I don't live under a rock, Dylan. Just because I blocked your number doesn't mean I didn't see you in the tabloids. Your parade of supermodels is pretty notorious, you know?"
My cheeks burned with embarrassment as I said that. What the fuck had he even been doing with me in the first place? I was so... normal and boring. Everything Dylan Grantwasn't.
He didn't reply immediately. He just took a deep breath, his chest swelling, then let it out slowly.
"Well, I guess you know everything about me then," he said in a cold, emotionless voice. He pushed up from the couch and moved across the room to the bathroom. He paused there in the doorway a moment, and I thought he was going to say something more. But then he just shook his head and slammed the door between us.
Moments later I heard the shower start up, and a hot tear rolled down my face. What the fuck had just happened?
13
Ithought I had time to indulge in self-pity. Not that Dylan usually showered for hours, but he also wasn't super quick. So I let those tears roll down my cheeks, releasing a sliver of the pain I'd been holding tight inside since I'd walked away from him six weeks ago and not even bothering to lift my hand and wipe them away.
An unnatural exhaustion pressed into me; someone not even nineteen years old shouldn’t feel this defeated. Fuck Blake. And fuck Dylan and his drama.
"Fuck's sake!"
I hadn't heard him leave the bathroom—the damn shower was still running, for shit’s sake—but a furious-as-hell Dylan was definitely standing in front of me. I was honestly shocked out of my pity party as I stared wide-eyed at him. "What? Aren't you showering?"
He crouched in front of me. "I wasn't done, Brooke."
Again, I was shocked into a stunned confusion. “With your shower?” I asked hesitantly, trying to understand.
"When you walked out the fucking door, I wasn't done."
Jesus, was my heart still beating in my chest, or had it jumped right out and hurled itself to the floor? "We were a fling, right?" I managed to choke out. "I was just that random chick you used when you were in town."
Maybe this guy needed a bit of a reminder before he pushed this new agenda of his too far.
"No."
Popping to my feet, I managed to startle him enough that he leaned back a little, and in my fury, I liked that reaction. "You never messaged me once except for sex," I shouted at him. "We went weeks sometimes without a single fucking word between us. You never asked me one personal question. Not one." My fury grew with each sentence I spoke. "You are a CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world, and yet you never took one fucking second to even look into who I was. If you had, you sure as shit would have known I gave you a fake ID. You didn't care enough to look, Dylan, and that says everything about what we were."
I was breathing deeply, sucking in as much air as I could, while my pulse raced. I'd never let loose like that, not in years, and if I ever said even one of those things to Blake, he would beat the fuck out of me where I stood.
Oh my God.What did I just do?
My instinct was to cringe away, and I did, closing my eyes as I waited for a heavy fist to land. My mind screamed at me to run, but running was a waste of energy. The beating always came, no matter what I did to delay it.
"Brooke!"
I had the sense that Dylan had been trying to get through to me for many seconds, but in my panic, I'd blocked out everything except the cacophony of fear in my head. My eyes shot open as he said my name again, and I found him right before me, hands on my cheeks as he cupped my face. "I'm so sorry," I gasped out. "Don't hurt me."
