I consider his question, but the answer is simple.
“Theres no difference in my mind. I can’t want him without needing to own him.”
He laughs again, quieter.
“You’re going to tear the world apart over a sculptor with sad eyes.”
“I will destroy anyone in my way. There will be no other outcome.”
Marcus opens the door for me, and as I walk past him, he stops me.
“You know one day he might hate you,” he says softly, and I stop and turn my head slightly.
“Good.” Marcus frowns.
“Hatred is attention,” I say. “And attention is addictive. By that point he will only want to live off my attention.”
“Huh. Interesting point. I’ll be in touch, Ethan.”
I walk away and leave the clubhouse without looking back.
The early evening air is sharp and crisp. When I get into the car, Sarah’s face drifts into my mind. She is smiling too wide, touching what is not hers, speaking his name like she deserves the sound of it.
My hands tighten into a fist on my lap, imagining how it would feel to snap her neck. Soon, she will be irrelevant.
And Leo….Leo will finally be quiet enough to hear himself belong to me. It’s time to ramp up this game and remind Leo of how much he enjoyed our night together. So I text him to meet me at my penthouse.
CHAPTER 21 - LEO
Ethan texted me to meet him at his penthouse, and I’ve come over here without a second thought. I need to speak to him and luckily Sarah is working late tonight as they have some book club event at the coffee shop. We need to sort this mess out with the contract and his constant interference in my life. When I left the work party, I went straight back home to re-read the contract. I had to go over it at least three times to believe what I was reading. What a fucking idiot I’ve been. But it’s my own fault for only scanning through the main parts. Too concerned about the sex part, I didn’t even bother to read over the amendments on the following pages.
Arriving at Ethan’s penthouse, it doesn’t feel like it did the first night I came here for the meal from hell. Since spending the night as Ethan’s fuck toy, the home has taken on a different light. It’s a place of raw truth, where all your secrets come out, a torture chamber where you can’t help but be manipulated into telling the truth.
An older lady lets me in on her way out, a brief encounter of a hello and a goodbye, so I make myself at home in the living area where the glass walls stretch from floor to ceiling, the city laid out beneath them like a nervous system, veins of light pulsing through the dark. Everything here is so clean and organized. There isn’t a single object that doesn’t look chosen for a reason I don’t understand.
I stand closer to the windows and get lost in the hectic city, my coat still on, pulse knocking against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
“You’re late,” Ethan says, making me jump as I didn’t notice him in the room. He’s the silent assassin, whose only purpose is to destroy your world only to mold it into his own.
He’s seated at the long dining table near the windows, sleeves rolled to his forearms, playing cards laid out in neat, perfect stacks. The lights above him are low, controlled, setting a heavy mood. He looks carved out of shadow and money.
“You said eight,” I reply.
“It’s eight-oh-three.”
I scoff as I move over to where he is sitting.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“You said that last time, too.”
He gestures to the chair across from him.
“Sit.”
“I didn’t come to…”
“Sit, Leo.”
