“Your actions did all the talking!” I roar. “You motherfucking cheating bastard!” I hate how my voice cracks as emotion comes crashing down around me.
“You are overreacting, and you need to calm down. You can’t act like this in public, Ashley. You have a part to play now, or have you forgotten?”
His words incense me, and I lift my knee, ready to drive it into his balls, but he reacts fast, grabbing me by the throat and spinning us around. He presses me flat against the wall, keeping his hand around my throat as he pins me in place. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“You expect me tounderstand?” I shout. “Fuck you! There is nothing to understand! How long have you been cheating on me?” I wriggle against him, trying to break free, but he is strong, and I am wedged against the wall.
The hand on my throat tightens, and I gasp for air. “This is what I have to do, Ash!” he snaps. “This is my Luminary responsibility! Why the fuck do you think Bree is out there fucking men and women day and night?”
All the blood in my veins turns to ice. “What?” I croak, barely able to force words out through my constricted airway. My head is muddled in confusion as I try to decipher his words because he can’t mean what I think he means.
He releases me and steps back, correctly reading my body language. I turn around, rubbing my sore neck. “You do not seriously expect me to believe you are in there fuckingMeredithbecause it’s yourjob?” I hiss.
“Itismy job, Ash. You and Julia are the party heirs. Bree, Baz, and I are the player heirs.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “We prey on the weak too, luring males and females into indulging their lustful and envious desires. We entice married people to cheat, like the older, married professor waiting for me in bed, or the priest Bree is currently blowing in the campus chapel a few blocks away. We coax perverts to act on their fantasies, enable twisted pricks to entrap kids, and exploit others they plan to hurt and degrade so we can stop it and stop them from trying again.”
“There are other ways to trap those kinds of people,” I say in a low tone.
“That isn’t the Luminary way. They like to be hands-on.” A hint of a sly smile curves the corners of his lips, and reality dawns.
“You like this.”
He closes the distance between us, piercing me with a sultry stare as he twirls a lock of my hair around his finger. “Who wouldn’t like fucking for a living?”
I shove him away, appalled at his gloating grin, smug expression, and utter lack of remorse. “Me,” I say, “I don’t like it.” Another horrifying thought lands in my mind. “Is this why you were too busy to see me these past two weeks? Because you were busy fucking other men and women?”
“Just women. I don’t fuck men. It’s not allowed.”
“Of course, it isn’t. It’s okay for Bree to fuck both sexes but not the men.”
“Bree likes pussy,” he says, glancing down the hallway. “Are we done here ’cause I’ve got to get back before Meredith has a crisis of conscience.”
Tears prick my eyes. “How many women have you had sex with since we last slept together, Jase?”
He considers it for a few tense beats. “Twelve, thirteen.” He shrugs. “I don’t exactly keep count.”
The glue holding my fragile heart together breaks apart, and I can almost feel the physical cracks as they rip my heart wide-open. “You unimaginable bastard.”
“It means nothing, Ash. It’s only sex.” His eyes plead for understanding I don’t have. “None of those women have my heart. You’re the only one with a claim to that.”
“Did you even use protection?” I ask as fresh horror engulfs me. I’ve been letting him fuck me bare in an attempt to get pregnant, and all this time he’s been fucking other women. I clutch the wall as another layer rips off my heart.
“Of course, I did. I would never risk you like that. I’m clean. We get tested every month.”
I guess it’s necessary when you fuck so many women.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“I won’t share you with others.”
He shakes his head, his eyes narrowing. “Of course, you won’t. It’s okay for me to share you with Chad, and I see how badly you’re panting after that prick Ares, but you won’t even consider doing the same for me.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it!” I shove his chest again, irritated when he doesn’t even flinch. “Don’t you dare try to compare what we have with what you are doing.”
“I don’t have a choice, Ash!” he yells back before he gets a hold of himself. I watch him shut down before me. “This is my responsibility. This will always be my responsibility. I have no choice.”
His words heap more horror on the pile as it sinks in. Even if we were to marry, he would always be fucking other women for hisjob. There is no way I can handle that.
“If you can’t deal with my job, then we’re done.” He stares at me, and I stare back at him, desperately trying to paper over the cracks in my heart. There’s a vast ocean between us now. I’m on one side, he’s on the other, and there is no way to close the gap because he has the boat and I have the oars, and no matter how we try to resolve our dilemma, it doesn’t add up. Because it’s unresolvable, and there is no choice to be made.
