CHAPTER 42
Edward
I shove through the venue doors, ignoring the startled glances of the hotel staff as I stride past.
London’s evening air hits me, slicing through the heat pouring off my skin. My breath scrapes out, chest squeezing tight. Sweat drenches my shirt, sticking it to me, dark patches blooming under the arms, down my back. My own fury leaching out, staining everything.
The city carries on with spectacular indifference. A hen party lurches by, drunk twenty-somethings hooting and whistling as they stumble past. Couples cling together, lost in each other like the night’s theirs to waste.
I claw at this chokehold of a bow tie—useless scrap—and yank it loose, let it dangle.
Right now, I need my empty house, a whiskey stiff enough to bury this night, and the silence I’ve damn well earned.
I am tormented by the vision of her in that dress, sheer, wet, champagne spilled through, another man’s arm wrapped around her in front of cameras, the cruelty in her eyes as she took pleasure in my humiliation.
Just thinking about it makes me want to punch a hole through the bloody wall.
And Sophia—Christ, the hurt in her eyes as I barged past her, not even glancing back. I was too wrecked to do anything but get the hell out.
It was as if Daisy had wanted to wound me in the deepest way possible. As if she’d relished the prospect of my humiliation in front of my professional peers.
And for what bloody justification? Because I had the audacity to attend a work event that I was obligated to be at? Because I upheld my professional responsibilities instead of parading her around in an evening gown?
The betrayal burns like acid in my chest, corroding every tender feeling, every fragile hope I’d permitted myself to nurture between us.
The damn irony.
Wasn’t this what I was after—passion and fire to shake me up? I got that in spades tonight.
Instead, I feel like a complete idiot. Swept up in her chaos with no regard for the inevitable fallout.
The eldest Cavendish—getting dressed down by his much younger lover in the middle of a public event. It’ll be all over the gossip columns before the night is out.
What would Millie think, if she could see me now?
Even after she died, when I was at my lowest, the loneliness didn’t hit like this.
Because loneliness, for all its sting, is a solitary affliction. It’s a burden borne solely by the one who feels it.
It doesn’t make Daisy explode with hurt and anger, doesn’t make Sophia feel betrayed. Doesn’t have my colleagues and associates whispering. It doesn’t cast shame upon the Cavendish name.
To think I’d begun to imagine a future with her. Had started to believe that her chaos might complement my order rather than destroy it. That we could build something real, something lasting, despite our differences.
I should have known better. I should have seen it from the start. We were never meant to work.
What an absolute fool I’ve been.
We may not agree on our tastes in television programs, literary preferences, or artistic inclinations.
But on this, finally, we have reached a mutual understanding.
In our case opposites may attract. But they also destroy.
Some opposites should remain precisely that: opposite and apart.