Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Lily
Song- The Other Side, Ruelle.
I wake up because something feels… wrong. It’s still dark outside.
The bed beside me is empty, the sheets still warm where Drago was only minutes ago. My chest tightens, that old familiar anxiety creeping in, so I pull on his shirt and pad quietly toward the door.
I don’t mean to spy. I just want to feel safe again. And that seems to happen when he’s with me. I crack the door open, and that’s when I see it.
Drago is standing in the kitchen, rigid, tense in a way I’ve never seen before. There’s a woman in front of him. She’s blonde, tall, and beautiful. Her body is pressed into his space like she belongs there.
Am I still drunk?
My hand slaps over my mouth, and tears are falling down my face. Part of me, the old Lily, wants to go out there and confront them both. But what would that achieve?
It’s my stupid fault for falling for him this fast. I don’t know his past. Not really. I don’t even have time to process anything they’re saying before she reaches up and kisses him.
Not a soft kiss. Not hesitant. Her mouth crashes into his like she’s done it before. Like she owns the right.
The sound of it hits me harder than the sight.
My breath leaves my body in one sharp, silent rush. Every bit of happiness I felt before this point dissolves when his lips touch hers.
There is history between them. That is obvious. And he’s done this while I’m asleep in the bed that he claimed me in last night.
This man promised me a future. And now, he’s not even pushing her away. He doesn’t deserve my hurt. My anger. Men like this thrive on that.
So instead, I close the door. Quietly. Carefully. Like if I move slowly enough, the moment will rewind.
It doesn’t.
I slide down the door and press my fist to my mouth to keep the sound in. My chest caves, the air thick and useless in my lungs. God, I’m so fucking stupid.
Too good to be true. Of course it was. Of course, a man like him doesn’t just… choose someone like me. Of course, there’s another woman who looks like she knows him better, touches him like she has every right to.
I wipe my face furiously, ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I let myself believe him. That I let him touch me like I was special. That I said things I can’t take back. That I fell hard and fast without a parachute.
I don’t go back out there. I don’t ask who she is. I don’t ask why. I don’t ask him anything. Because I don’t want to hear the truth. He is meant to protect me, and I thought that also meant my heart.
I crawl back into the bed, curling in on myself, his shirt clutched to my chest like a fucking idiot. I cry silently into the pillow, my body shaking, my heart breaking in the quietest way possible.
I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how badly he’s hurt me.
This can just be what it always was… a vacation fling. No different from any of the others I’ve had. I can just pretend he isn’t the first man to ever make me feel alive. The first time I’ve ever felt loved by a man.
I don’t know who the real Drago is. And now… I don’t fucking want to.
He didn’t push her away. That in itself gives me every answer I need. I just am not enough.
As the tears fall down my face, as my lungs start to seize on me, I wish I had my aftershave, something to make me feel safe.
Because the one person who did that for me just became my ruin.