Or beating me, for that matter.
When the cab pulled up at the gates, my stomach plummeted to my shoes. I deliberated asking the driver to turn around and getting the hell out of there, but at finding my friend, Donna, waving at me with an enormous grin on her face, I forced myself out of the car.
I could do this.
Ineededto do this.
For one night, I needed to feel something more than the black cloudthatfollowed me around wherever I went. The cloudthatalways appeared whenever Billie wasn’t at home.
From the moment she was born, she brought light to my shattered life. In the months I carried her, my heart had been trapped in a cage of barbed wire, the sharp spikes piercing the organ with every beat. But when Billie came into the world, and I held her in my arms for the first time, the barbs destroying me weren’t as ferocious.
The pain in my chest was replaced by love.
Her arrival gave me a glimmer of hope and a happier future.
But every time she went away to her boarding school for weeks on end, the barbed wire tightened again, and the cloud reappeared, growing heavier and thicker with each new appearance.
I needed to do something to alleviate it before I collapsed under its weight.
I needed to feel alive, even if it was just for one night.
A distraction from the chaos of my mind.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been jealous when Donna bragged about the last party shewent to at dinner a week ago. As she relayed the moment she was railed by a stranger, and had experienced the best orgasm of her life, envy so powerful had slivered through me, and I’d almost snapped the stem of my wine glass.
It wasn’t the factthatshe’d had an orgasm; while I often struggled to reach a climax, I could make myself come with enough effort, but it was howthatstranger had made Donna feel. Someone had taken their time exploring her body, bathing her in attention, and making her feel like she was the only onethatmattered.
And fuck, did I wantthat.
Donna saw the look of need etched all over my face, and after our two other friends, Ava and Michelle, left us to finish our drinks, she invited me to the next party.
As in, tonight’s party.
Donna was the cheer captain in the‘I hate Alec Walker fan club.’She despised myfiancè, to the pointthatshe refused to be in the same room as him. She knew a little of what went on in our relationship, but I was careful with what I shared.
Like how often I was at the receiving end of Alec’s fists.
From the start of my and Alec’s relationship, Donna had begged me to leavehim, especially when I confided in her the first time I’d discovered he’d cheated on me. She’d long since given up trying to get me to walk away from the relationship, understandingthatAlec was the reason Billie was living a lifethatI could never give her.
Instead, she’d turned her attention to convincing me to get my needs fulfilled elsewhere.In her words, two could playthatgame.
With the knowledgethatthe parties Donna attended were selected guests only, and were kept in strict confidence, she wore me down, which was why I was sitting awkwardly in a huge living room, clutching my glass of champagne, and watching various couples talk, flirt, and subtly touch each other.
I had no clue who the house belonged to, but it was stunning. Sparkling cream marblefloors glittered underneath the dazzling lights from the chandeliers, and gorgeous black and white artwork adorned the walls. Several smartly dressed waiters weaved between people carrying trays of champagne and hor d’oeuvers, not speaking a single word to anyone, and ignoring the reason why everyone was at the party.
Sipping my drink, I took in the scene. Donna had left me within ten minutes of our arrivalwhen she spotted the guy she’d hooked up with at last week’s party, and I hadn’t plucked up the courage to talk to anyone.
I was seriously regretting my decision to attend the party, though. Guilt flowed through me like asteady stream, andevenafter two glasses of champagne, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal out of my system. What I was doing was wrong,evenif Alec regularly cheated on me.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right.
Decidingthatbeing here was stupid, I downed the last of my drink and pulled my phoneout of my purse to call a cab when a dark shadow fell over me. My heart leaped into my throat when I met the eyes of a gorgeous man smirking at me.
“I’m guessing this is your first time at a party like this?”he said, his voice smooth as silk.
The nerves I’d been struggling to keep at bay pulsed through me like an electric shock.“What gave me away?”I replied when I managed to find my voice.
He chuckled, his deep timbres making my stomach clench with an anticipation I hadn’t felt in a long time.“You’ve spent the last twenty minutes looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. May I?”
