It had all been for nothing. All of it. Lorelei clearly hated me, and Wes was one ofthem.He’d kept me in the dark when it would’ve been easy to tell me the truth—if he’d actually cared and valued me enough to be honest.No, the trouble was, he wasincapableof honesty. Incapable of caring for me the way I cared about him. The signs had been there from the start.
Yes, I’d fucked up too, but not telling him about Roman’s unwanted advances was nowhere near the same as what he’d done to me.
All I’d ever been was a foolish pawn in a rivalry between two heirs to a social media empire.
I had a feeling that was all Jayne and Archer had ever been too.
When the sparkling cityscape came into view, a part of me was still dazzled, as I always was by the great expanse of its shine. It was unconscious, the city’s magnetic pull.
My friends weren’t the only source of light. The city was here too—eternal and infinite and powerful, a web of intertwining fates constantly shifting, growing, becoming hopelessly tangled.
My heart physically ached in my chest, knowing that when Wes and I looked at the city, we saw the same thing. We looked at the field of light and buildings reaching up toward the sky with earnestness, untarnished by years of frustration and grief and disappointment, refusing to capitulate to the slow creep of disillusionment. When we saw the city, we remained hopeful.
Or at least, I thought we had.
I didn’t know anything for certain about Wes anymore. Maybe I hadn’t ever known him at all.
I finally told Hudson everything. I told him about Roman Graves and the other billionaires in attendance. I explained what had happened with Lorelei and what I’d found out about Wes.
My sinuses ached from crying so hard. I wasn’t only mourning Wes—I was also mourning the friend I’d grown up with, the woman who might as well have been my sister. And I was mourning something I couldn’t quite put into words. I was mourning the woman I’d been becoming. I had just started to taste a certain freedom before it dried up like sand against my tongue.
“I don’t know what to say,” Hudson said when I finished. His brows were drawn in deep concern. The pizza and ice cream he’d procured remained untouched on the coffee table beside us as we both rested against the couch’s arms, facing each other.
“You can start with an updatedI told you soif you want,” I said.
Hudson shook his head. “I wouldn’t gain any satisfaction from that right now.”
“Well, it’s all done. I’ll get over it,” I said with a determined nod that wasn’t quite felt in my body. “I already blocked The Circle’s PicWave account and all their phone numbers.”
“Even Wes’s?” Hudson asked.
I shook my head. “No, not his. Not yet.”
Hudson didn’t criticize. He just nodded in understanding. “I’m so sorry, Nova.” He paused. “You’ve never been in love before, have you?”
I shook my head and stared at my lap. I didn’t say whether I’d been in love with Wes. It didn’t matter anymore.
“Fuck him for ruining that for you,” Hudson said angrily. “I’m still struggling to come to terms with the whole Max Graves of it all, but I have to voice this. You didn’t, like, piss Roman off too badly tonight, did you? Or anyone else with the ability to make you disappear?”
I thought of Roman’s eerie, demonic look when I’d told him I would never be his. Or, rather, when I said I’d soonerdiethan be his.
“Um… no…” I said, unconvincingly.
Hudson’s eyes widened.
“Well, I was distraught!” I defended. “I stood up for myself for pretty much the first time in my entire life.”
“And I applaud that. But I am also very concerned. They know where welive.Hell, they probably know more about us than we do.” He glanced at my phone between us like it was a detonator.
I finally reached for a slice of pizza, needing carbs to help numb what hadn’t been numbed from two hours of crying.
I shook my head. “Roman will get over it too. None of what happened these past months was about me anyway. This isbetween Roman and Wes. I could’ve been anyone at all, and it wouldn’t have mattered.”
Hudson was deep in thought, as if something was bothering him. “I think you should get some rest, Nova.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again, as if deciding better of saying anything more.
The pizza might as well have been cardboard to me. I couldn’t taste anything, as if heartbreak had robbed me of my ability to feel anything but crushing heaviness against my ribs.
I nodded and placed the slice of pizza with one bite missing back down in the box. My ass still stung from my first and last spanking session.
