She stares at me. The moments last ages and seconds. An eternity passes between us within the span of a single breath. Then her fingers pull away, and she ducks under my arm. Pace swift but notbolting, she says, “Good day,” and abandons me there, crumbling, against the wall.
Chapter 20
?
Liking me is a bad decision.
Mirabelle
Hugging my favorite stuffed animal, I lay stretched out on the queen-size bed in my room and stare at the ceiling. Every time I blink, Damion falls apart before my very eyes.
Forearms braced on either side of me. Body breaking to get closer. Eyes drunk. Hot breath pouring from parted lips.
I bury my face in my stuffed pink pig, Macaroon, certain I am not old enough to experience these sorts of memories or moments.
He wasbeautiful.
I’m still shivering. The sensation lingers in my body.
Idon’tlike him. He’s a liar. A manipulator. Cunning. Sly.
Even when he’s under oath to be honest, he’sstillcrafty. He still left me. I still can’t trust him.
But…the yearning.
I have never been yearned for.
I have never watched someone fight their every instinct, shaking as they clutched their fists and denied themselves the pleasure of touching me. He was collapsing, like a dying star, for want ofme.
Turning my head, I stare at my phone on my nightstand and tell myself to absolutelynotbring up the horrible photo again. The article was demeaning. It painted me as some helpless and desperate woman, begging for the attention of a billionaire. It painted Damion as some twisted, perverted man, delighting in his control over me.
It reduced me into nothing but a toy for him.
Forcing myself to breathe, I stand and shuffle myself away from my phone, across the hall, to Fawn’s room, where she stands on her purple yoga mat, following the choreography mirrored on her laptop screen. I recognize the moves from a Stray Kids song and wait for her to finish before clearing my throat.
Twisting, she pulls out her earbud. “Oh. Hey.” She looks at Macaroon, who is still coddled in my arms, and smiles. “What’s wrong?”
“Damion likes me.”
“Damiondoes, huh?” She plops to the ground on her yoga mat and rocks. “How do you know? He’ssodiscreet about it.”
I roll my eyes as I settle on the floor across from her, fix my skirt, and stare.
“What?” she asks.
“I don’t know what to do about it.”
“A billionaire likes you. Marry him. Make an excellent case for why you deserve alimony. Divorce him.”
I frown.
“Alternatively, date him or something, I guess.”
My nose scrunches. “I don’t want to date him. If I date him, the media will put more garbage up everywhere, and then when it says we’re dating, it won’t bewrong, which will make it seem like everything they’ve said so far hasn’t been wrong, even though it has been very, verywrong.”
“If you can’t handle the media, you’re done. This can’t go anywhere. Damion’s in a position where the media making up things about him is inevitable. If you aren’t okay with that, you don’t do anything ‘about it’. The boy pines; you do your job. That’s it.”
Fawn is always so cut and dry.
