Page 94 of Resist

Get it together, Vaughn.

“How did you know where I was?”

“Isn’t there a saying? What is it? A drug dealer never samples the drugs? Yeah, that’s it. It seems to me you’re sampling, Vee.”

“Fuck. You,” I grit out again as the hurt robs me of all else.

His chuckle fills the line. It’s cruel and condescending. “It seems I already have.”

“I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

“Mmm.”

“I didn’t. You can believe what you want to believe.”

“Do you know what it felt like waking up to an empty bed? Worrying about you? Wondering if whatever happened to you that first time happened again? Calling up Stuart to trace the GPS in your phone so I could make sure you were alive, only to find out you were in Atlantic City. Then you turned it off, and who knows where you went or what you were trying to hide.”

The concern in his voice—real and sincere—eats at me and dares me to want him when I’m so damn scared to. I don’t need people. I don’t want people. I was so much better in my black-and-white world with Lucy being my only color. I knew how to cope with those limitations.

And now? Now with tears springing to my eyes and emotion swelling in my chest because someone other than Samantha cares about me when it was only her for so very long, I’m afraid to believe it’s true.

“You know what? It’s better this way, Ryker. You claimed what you thought was yours to conquer. Your contract is null and void. My part is fulfilled.” I can’t even muster up any emotion in my voice. “We’re done here.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t like the other night. Don’t tell me there isn’t something there worth exploring. Don’t—”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re a goddamn liar,” he thunders.

“You should be used to those by now, then.”

“So that’s all this was to you? Business as usual for you?”

“Yep.” It’s the only word I can force myself to say.

“If that’s all this was to you, then that’s how we’ll treat this.”

And once the words are out there, a little part of me dies. What did I want him to say? What did I want him to do? Fight for me?

Of course I did.

Of course I wanted to feel like all of those feelings he awakened inside me were genuine.

“Vaughn.” Something about the way he says my name pulls at me, pulls at the parts of me already dying inside as I try to do the right thing here for him.

“It’s just better this way.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.”

And then I end the call and turn my phone off as I slide down the front of my cabinets until my ass is on the floor. I make no move to wipe away the tears streaming down my cheeks.

I don’t even acknowledge that Ryker is the first man to ever really hurt me while at the same time make me feel so alive I’m afraid of what it feels like to really live.