Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
The bell over my boutique door sings the same cheery chime it always does, but it grates on me today. Every sound does.
I paste on the smile customers expect—the storm-proof mask.
“Welcome!” My voice has that lilt I’ve practiced since I was twenty-one and realized women will pay double if you make them feel like queens.
And that’s what I sell here, more than dresses or shoes: the illusion that no matter what the world says, they matter.
It works. Women gush, swipe their cards, and promise to come back.
But the second they leave, my smile cracks like cheap glass.
Because the silence that follows feels louder than their chatter. Louder than the thoughts I can’t mute.
I reorganize racks that don’t need it, run my fingers over silky fabric that should make me proud. I built this place from nothing, made it thrive in the priciest strip of Ravell. My father had nothing to do with it. It should feel like victory.
Instead, it feels like a cage.
The phone buzzes on the counter. My stomach drops before I even flip it over.
Unknown: Red suits you. Makes me want to taste the lightning.
My throat closes. I delete it, block the number, toss the phone aside like that will stop it burning a hole in my hand.
By mid-afternoon, I’ve lied through three sales pitches, burned my tongue on an espresso, and forced laughter with a vendor who wouldn’t know genuine joy if it stripped for him. The mask stays on, flawless.
Inside? My nerves are coiled razor wire.
When I finally close the boutique, my hands are shaking.
I double-check the lock, yank it twice, then scurry down the block like a thief running from the scene.
The streets are slick from rain, neon smearing across the asphalt like spilled paint.
My Fiat waits, loyal and pathetic, under the lone streetlight.
I slide inside, slam the locks down, and breathe through the sting in my throat.
It’s a short drive home, but every shadow feels like it’s reaching for me. By the time I pull up to my building, I’m gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles are bloodless.
Then I see it.
A flicker of movement near the tree across the street. Too big for a branch, too still to be just a drunk cutting through.
My chest hollows out.
He’s here.
I can’t breathe, can’t even move for a second. My eyes sting and I force myself to look away, to shove the car door open and sprint up the stairs. My heels clack like gunshots in the stairwell.
Cold slides into my bones. I fumble the keys, nearly drop them, then bolt inside. I yank the curtains shut until no light leaks through. My breaths are ragged.
I throw myself face-first into the couch pillows and scream. It comes out muffled but raw. Rage, fear, frustration.
And beneath it all—the ache.
For him.
Rook.
God, I hate that even when I’m terrified, even when my skin crawls with dread, his smirk bleeds into my thoughts. The taste of his mouth, the weight of his hands, the way he pulled orgasms from me like he owned them.
One night, and he branded me.
Then nothing.
Not a call. Not a text. Not even a cocky motorcycle rev under my window.
Probably he’s buried in a pile of pussy, laughing at how easy I’d been.
I shove that thought away, but it clings. Like the perfume of another woman on his cut. Like the way he’d probably tell his brothers at BB how the rich girl dropped to her knees and swallowed him whole.
My phone sits on the coffee table, screen dark. I stare at it like it owes me something.
And then, against every ounce of pride I have left, I grab it.
My thumbs hover. My heart is a drumline. Then I type:
Me: Busy?
Three dots appear. Relief floods so sharp, I sag against the cushions. Then the screen lights up with a picture.
Rook. Bare chest gleaming with sweat. A girl riding his dick, head thrown back and a different girl has her thighs clamped around his head, eyes closed like she’s in heaven. Of course she is, he knows how to use that fucking mouth.
My stomach plummets. Heat burns my cheeks.
Rook: He always is.
I drop the phone like it scorches.
Stupid. I feel so fucking stupid.
I curl up on the couch, arms wrapped tight around my knees, trying to hold myself together. But the tears push anyway, burning trails down my cheeks.
He’s not mine. He was never mine.
Just a biker with a cocky grin and a cock that ruined me.
And I let him.
I scream again, hoarse and broken, into the pillows. This time there’s no rage, no sass, no shield.
Just a storm with no one to hear it.