Playing with Fire: A Standalone Dark Romance

Chapter Twenty-one

I fucked up.

Sebastian warned me, but I still fucked up.

Shit.

She’s been sitting in the sunroom since this afternoon and now it’s dark beyond the windows, the moon casting a silver glow across the frosted estate. I stand in the doorway, watching her as she sits beneath a blanket and watches out the window. I don’t know what she’s looking at but whatever it is, has her complete attention. She didn’t even stir when I announced my presence twenty minutes ago.

With a sigh, I go to her, sitting in the chair opposite as I rest my elbows on my knees and wait for her to give me those big brown eyes.

When five minutes turns to ten and then fifteen, I realize she isn’t going to and I’m going to need to get her attention.

“I’m sorry,” I say thickly, “I did not handle that with care.”

Her lashes flutter a little but still, she continues to watch out the window until finally her lips part and she speaks.

“He was my boyfriend.” She says it so quietly I have to lean closer to be able to hear her. “We’d been together for nearly a year at the time. I was still in college, and we were at a party. I was drunk.”

The hair on my arms stands on end, something unsettling dropping into my stomach.

“I was a virgin when I met him, and I made him wait. I didn’t want to just lose it to anyone, so I made him wait and he did.”

I open my mouth to speak though I don’t know what to say, so it closes again.

“On the day of the party I told him I would give it to him that night. It was just after midnight when he took me into one of the rooms in the frat house. I didn’t know he had a camera set up. We had done other things but never went the full way, but I was pretty confident. I got on my knees and gave him a blowjob. He was recording the whole thing.”

Fury rolls through me and my fingers curl into the palms of my hands, nails biting in with how tightly I fist them.

“It went on for a couple hours and when it was done, he took me home and I passed out. When I woke up the next day, I’d forgotten the whole thing.”

I want his name. I want him dead. Now.

I almost demand it from her, but she continues speaking.

“About three months later I caught him cheating on me, so I broke up with him and I thought nothing of it until my birthday a few weeks later. Willow had arranged for us to go to a club. She’d hired out the upstairs to throw a party for me and when I arrived all my friends were there, some of them being from when I was still with him. Even after we broke up, we stayed friends, and he tried but I didn’t want anything to do with him.”

I swallow knowing what is coming.

“I walked in and immediately I saw the big screen and it started to play a recording. It was an hour and a half long. And in it is me, completely naked, he’s fucking me, and everyone is watching it. I couldn’t stop it; I didn’t know how.” She pauses, swallowing, blinking rapidly as if trying to clear the images I know are playing inside her head. “And then he came out and everyone was standing there and staring at me. They were just watching.” She sucks in a ragged breath, “I broke. It broke something in me.”

“Olivia,” I whisper her name, hoping to bring her back to the room instead of wherever she’s gone inside her head.

“Everyone saw and they did nothing. They just stared and it felt like the whole world stopped moving at that point, like time stopped. And when you look at it, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not even that bad, right? It’s just a little sex tape.”

My teeth grind as she tries to brush it under the rug, of course it’s a big fucking deal. It’s a big fucking deal because some jackass humiliated her in front of all her friends, it’s a big deal because they stood there while she had to watch herself in the most intimate setting with someone she trusted.

“Willow managed to stop it,” She finally says, bringing her dark eyes to me, lacking that light that usually sparks within them, “She got everyone out, but some people had recorded the whole thing. They uploaded them onto porn sites and my ex had done it too. It took six months to get it all taken down and we buried him in court but I’m sure there are still versions of it online. The internet is forever after all.” She sighs, looking away again, back out the window. “I guess the whole thing knocked my confidence and I struggle in crowds a little because of it. Like everyone in there has seen it and I can feel it boiling up inside of me. The humiliation. The betrayal.”

“I’m sorry, Olivia,” The words are sharp unintentionally while my mind comes up with ways to end the fucker’s life. “What was his name?”

She quirks a brow and scoffs a laugh, “Bradley Vermont the Third.” She cringes to herself, “Even his name sounds pretentious.”

“I’ll find who got the images,” I promise her.

She shrugs, “I don’t care.”

I smell the lie for what it is. She pretends she doesn’t care but this distant version of herself says otherwise.

But it made sense now, how she froze up after the wedding, when she almost shrank into herself while everyone watched. It only made me want to fuck them all up, rip out their eyes for staring and doing nothing.

She doesn’t say another word to me and doesn’t look in my direction, pretending I’m not here so I take the hint and leave her alone, ordering one of the staff to take her a drink and some food in the sunroom.

I’m dialing Sebastian the moment I’m locked in the drawing room.

“Malakai,” He answers.

“Find me Bradley Vermont,” I spit his name, “The Third.”

“With a name like that, it won’t be hard. Any other details?”

“He’s the one who filmed Olivia.” I swallow down the acid on my tongue. “I want him dead.”

Silence greets me from the other end of the phone. “I’ll handle it.” Sebastian eventually says.

“Make it look like an accident.” I order, “No questions. And I want tech online, any traces of the video I want removed.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Sebastian says, I can hear him walking, his steps echoing which tells me he’s in the underground parking lot of his apartment building.

“Make it possible,” I demand, “I don’t give a fuck how, just do it.”

“On it.” Is his only reply.

I hang up and let out a harsh breath, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. This stinks of the council, their tantrum targeting my wife. What else will they attempt to do? What did they hope to achieve with these images?

Another meeting needed to happen, because clearly, I am not being loud enough in my demand to leave my wife out of this damn business.

With the council meeting invitation sent, I head to bed but not before I check the sunroom. It’s empty save a still full glass of wine and an untouched plate of food, the blanket she was using draped over the arm of the chair.

I switch off the lights and walk quietly through the house, up to the bedroom which is dimly lit by the light spilling out from the bathroom.

And there she is, fast asleep in my bed with that damn wall of pillows dividing the bed. She’s facing the windows, her hair braided and lying across the pillow. She doesn’t stir when I climb on my side of the pillow barricade after showering and once again, when I wake the following morning, she is no longer in the bed.