“I didn’t go through with it. Sorry.” It’s my turn to sound sheepish. I feel bad for wasting Angela’s time, but there’s nota chance in hell I’m taking that man’s money. My mind briefly flicks back to the hotel room, and I wonder how he reacted when he came out to find me gone.
Angela surprises me by not biting my head off. Instead, she lets out a long-suffering sigh.
“It’s fine, Gianna.” She sounds resigned more than anything. “Some people just aren’t built for this kind of work. I’m only sorry I have to return the money,” she admits, and I feel the loss of her ten percent cut. “What was he like as a client? Maybe I can persuade him to take someone else.” Hope sparks in her voice, and I try not to envision him staring at some other woman like she’s the only woman on Earth while my skin still burns with the heat of his gaze. He may have insulted me, but minus the last two minutes of our time together, he was an incredible lover.
“He was fine,” I say vaguely, omitting the fact he looks like a fallen angel and fucks like the devil. “Just not my type.”
The rowdy bunch of men clocks me as I pass them, and I barely hear Angela over the top of their ensuing wolf-whistles and drunken howls. I ignore them and press the phone into my ear to catch the end of Angela’s question.
“-take you off the list then?”
“Yes,” I agree, biting my lower lip between my teeth. “Thanks for everything. And sorry it didn’t work out.”
“It’s fine. Take care, Gianna.”
A thought pops into my head before she rings off.
“Angela, wait! Why did you tell this client my name?”
There’s a brief pause before Angela answers, confused.
“I didn’t.”
5
Ispend Saturday morning with my nose buried in my kindle.
At the moment I’m trying to get lost in my favourite Dramione fanfic. Usually there’snothinga morally-grey, wild-for-Hermione Draco Malfoy can’t fix. Heck, he practically single-handedly carried me through my trauma from the night I left my husband, but even my most beloved book boyfriend can’t distract me enough from replaying last night’s events in my mind over and over, and over again. Suddenly, instead of white-blonde hair and pale skin, I’m picturing black hair and endless smooth, tanned skin that feels like silk beneath my tongue.
For fuck’s sake.
I toss my kindle to the pillow next to me and go clean my bathroom instead. When my arms are sore from scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush and my heads spinning from bleach fumes, I turn to the kitchen. But no amount of distraction techniques can stop the thoughts from pouring in. My heart rate has sky rocketed about one hundred timestoday. Pretty much every time I think about the hotel adonis’s hands on me, or the way my name sounded in his deep, smooth voice. Which he knew because Angelamusthave let it slip and she just didn’t want to admit it. On the website, I was only listed as ‘G’. There’s no other explanation.
By the time I start descaling my coffee machine, I’ve decided to eradicate the last two minutes of my encounter with the Hotel Hottie from my mind. After a whole day of swinging wildly between being turned on by the steamiest sex of my life and wanting to melt into the cracks of my tiles at how the night ended, I’ve decided I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life, and up until that point it was a perfect night. Exactly what I needed, really.
So PSA, from this moment on, he never offended me and that’s that. I’m never going to see him again so I can think whatever I want.
It’sfive o’clock and my apartment is hospital-grade clean when my best friend Anna calls to tell me we’re going out, which is just as well. I don’t need to be holed up at home thinking about last night. No, I should definitely get drunk instead.
I take my time to apply my makeup and straighten my hair, all the while still marvelling at the fact that I can just decide to go out to a bar with my best friend whenever I feel like it now. After six months, it still hasn’t gotten old.
I never got to experience my wild coming-of-age years like everybody else. Daniel and I met in high school and we started dating shortly before we graduated. We weremarried two years later. Slowly, he began to cut me off from my friends, my studies, from pretty much my whole autonomy. Looking back now I don’t know how I was so complacent about it all. It was so gradual that I’m not sure I realised it was happening until one day it just… was.
Daniel was so careful to disguise his motives, though, which is the kicker.
He didn’t want me to stop hanging out with my best friend Anna because he didn’t likeher, he just didn’t trust other men not to hit on me if I was to go out partying with her.
He didn’t want me to give up my studies or my future, he just wanted me to drop out ofthatcourse because he thought my uni friend Brett was secretly in love with me, and it was disrespectful to Daniel for me to continue seeing him every day.
He didn’t want me to quit working as a barista, justthatparticular job because it was on campus and I would still run into Brett.
There was alwayssomething.
Then by the time I left him I hadn’t worked or done any further studies, because at that stage I was the wife of afootballer,and how would it look if Daniel’s wife was making coffees or doing some other menial job when he was such a big superstar? He made sure I wasn’t able to earn my own money. He restricted my access to funds, so if I wanted something, I had toask him for it.And even then, I had to provide him with receipts.
It was all about control for him. It took him years to get me, and when he did, he wasn’t about to let me go.
So naturally, I had never even entered a nightclub until I left him. Saturday nights were game nights, and I wasexpected to be there supporting him. Or, in the off season when he wasn’t playing, they were for spending with the other WAGS while the boys went out partying. The times Anna would beg me to come out with her always ended in such massive fights between Daniel and me that, eventually, I stopped answering Anna’s calls altogether.
