23 #3
Despite my honesty, despite swallowing my pride and my need to leave with my head held high, Adrik looked at me with narrow, hard, tense eyes.
They didn’t look understanding. They were nothing like what I’d seen when we kissed or spent that night in the treehouse.
I was talking to the hard-to-deal-with, cold, distant Adrik I’d seen when I sat down at that poker table to take on Aegan.
And I was afraid of meeting him again. It dawned on me that I was more afraid that Adrik would hate me forever, without ever knowing the truth, than I was of Aegan’s cruelty or the danger of uncovering the secret of Eli’s death.
“Well, break up with him then,” he said, out of the blue.
He then pointed to the hallway that led to the pool area.
“If you really mean it, then go find him and break up with him. I’ll be waiting for you, and I don’t give a fuck what he, Aleixandre, and the others say. If you do it, I’ll believe you.”
I was stunned. I wanted to say something, but I just couldn’t. A terrible cold feeling shuddered through my body. Had I just heard that? Adrik was asking me to choose?
Yeah, he wanted me to choose between him and Aegan.
“What?” I sighed.
“I’m not going to fight with him over you,” he clarified. His eyes made it clear that this was no joke. “It’s up to you then, but do it now.”
“Adrik, I can’t—” I tried to explain, but he cut me off.
“I would never have kissed you if I’d known you two were still together. Even though I really like you, I’d have controlled myself. But I did, and it meant something.”
He came over to me. I was frozen, yet being so close to him still sent a surge of sensations coursing through me. I even wondered how ridiculous it would be to throw myself at him and forget everything. I wondered where things stood between us. This seemed like . . . the end of something.
I didn’t want him to keep talking. I wished I hadn’t gone to look for him, so we wouldn’t have ended up having this stupid argument.
“That’s unfair,” I said, shaking my head.
“What’s unfair is that something happened between us, and something is still happening, but I can’t do anything because Aegan is your boyfriend,” he said.
He was still radiating sheer anger. But, seeing how distressed I looked, he added, “Jude, I see you standing there, and part of me just wants to turn my back on you, but at the same time, I want us to go off somewhere and make this right.”
I was so pissed off with myself that I felt like I was going to pass out. I hated that there were still more layers of him to peel back. I wanted to tell him that, yeah, we should go off somewhere together, but I just couldn’t . . . Shit, I couldn’t.
“It’s not that easy, Adrik,” I said, trying to be realistic. “There’d be problems since I was with him first and then with you . . .”
“I’ll find a way to sort it out,” he cut me off, trying to make me see things differently. “But you have to choose. I know I’m asking a lot, but I don’t want to be with you behind his back.”
That would’ve been an easy decision if I hadn’t been such an idiot.
I would’ve chosen Adrik in a flash. Despite everything, he was being honest with me, admitting that we both had feelings for each other.
He was more mature, more straightforward when he chose not to play the shady guy.
But what he was really asking was for me to choose between him and my plan.
That’s what Aegan was to me: just a plan.
The problem was that the plan had taken on a life of its own.
Revenge was burning inside me. So, as much as I liked Adrik, and as much as his words hurt me, I hadn’t completely fallen for him yet, and there was no better time to stop myself from falling even more.
He wanted to be with me, but that meant first seeing whether things could work between us.
And what if nothing happened? What if there was no spark between us after sleeping together? There was no guarantee that we would fall in love and live happily ever after.
The only thing I was certain of was the evidence that could bring down Aegan.
Getting my revenge was the only thing I was sure about.
Our feelings for each other were a mistake.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“You can’t or don’t want to?” he asked me.
“I can’t,” I replied, sure of myself. “It’s not me, and it’s not you. You’ll never understand, but I can’t do it.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I’d always seen myself as being pretty strong; I’m not the type to just break down at the drop of a hat. I’m the kind of person who face whatever comes my way head-on, but that’s not how I felt right then. I was in bits.
Last night, Adrik had looked at me like I could be the girl to get to know the real him. But now, I would completely break down if I saw the way he looked at me; he was filled with anger and contempt, like he wanted to destroy me on the spot. Seeing his grayish eyes would weaken me.
So, I just listened to the angry and resentful words he spouted before leaving.
“You’re really good at making people think you’re different.”
Then he walked away and I was left standing there, about to completely fall apart.
I took a deep, steady breath before heading back to the terrace.
I wandered around, in a daze, my mind all over the place and a relentless urge to run eating away at me.
However, I’d made up my mind. Now I had to keep going, even though what was to come would be catastrophic.
When I got back to the pool area, everyone was around the bar, where Owen was making cocktails to toast Aegan’s speech. There was no sign of Adrik. Artie looked like she was having fun talking to Laila. Aegan was boasting to Aleixandre about something he’d done, as usual.
I didn’t know where to go. Nowhere seemed right; these weren’t my people. I didn’t fit in there. I wanted to leave, but I just stood there, looking at Aegan, until he sensed I was staring at him. He gave me a strange look from the bar.
Like I said before, never underestimate Aegan Cash. You don’t know true power until you know him. As he walked confidently toward me. I had the feeling he knew everything, that maybe he’d always known. He looked triumphant.
I didn’t have to courage to find out why.
When he reached me, he looked me up and down.
To be quite honest, I’d no idea how he did it, but Aegan somehow used his voice to pull the strings at Tagus and of the lives of everyone around him.
His moves were hard to predict; his was a methodical, cunning, and seemingly all-powerful mind—which is why I wondered if he’d known Adrik would ask me to choose between them.
Had he known Adrik and I would have an argument?
Whether he knew it or not, he’d won.
I felt so shitty that if lies were all I had left, I’d hold on to them for another while yet.
I walked up to Aegan and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face into his chest. He hugged me back and started stroking my hair. His voice, calm and assured, whispered into my ear.
“Everything’s fine, sweetheart. I always make sure of it.”
Then he kissed my hair, and I clung to him, pretending everything was fine. Pretending that I hadn’t chosen revenge over being with the only guy who’d ever stripped away my armor with a single kiss.
“I need you to pretend you love me,” I whispered.
“I’ll pretend you’re the love of my life.”