Chapter 5 Shannen
Shannen
I didn't hear him leave—not that that means anything, considering he's been slipping in and out of here for years without me knowing.
But my alarm's been screaming at me for eight minutes straight, and I'm still lying here like a coward, my face buried in the pillow, pretending I don't exist and that last night didn't happen.
I tried to convince myself that what I needed was separate from who I needed, but I can’t pretend those are two different things because they’re not. They’re all tangled up in one fucked little knot I tied myself, and I just keep yanking it tighter.
I don’t do denial, and I’m not some na?ve girl who thinks love makes monsters less monstrous.
He’s exactly what he looks like: dangerous, obsessive, and so far past the line, he can’t even see it anymore.
But deep down, he’s still the boy I knew, and that’s the part that screws with me because all of this—the control, the fury, the brutal way he loves—didn’t come out of nowhere.
It was always there.
But I’m not the girl he knew, and that’s the problem.
He unknowingly helped build this version of me, so now I want to fight him harder.
And I want to mean it. Really mean it because everything I said in that hotel room is still true.
Every word I screamed at him, every feeling that tore through me…
it’s still sitting in my chest, exactly the same way.
The anger and pain.
The betrayal and the fallout that live under my skin.
My PTSD from my childhood to the relentless, soul-stripping hell that was school—it’s all still there.
Trust doesn’t just bounce back once it’s gone. And mine isn’t just broken. It’s obliterated. Ground to dust under the weight of what he did, what he didn’t do, and all the ways he failed me when I needed him to be different from every other person who’d hurt me.
God, I’m an idiot.
I knew better, and I still poked the bear.
I should’ve remembered all the reasons why letting him touch me is playing with fire. But then there were his fingers on my skin, his cock grinding against me, and the heat of him everywhere at once, like he’d swallowed the sun and decided to burn every inch of me with it.
The way he came on me and made me taste it—Jesus, I’ve never been that turned on in my entire life.
Lianna told you to stop feeding the flames, and there you were, desperate to feed him your pussy.
The little dark bitch inside me is smirking.
Yesterday, everything still felt raw, but today, I have clarity. I need to cut him off completely. No more games and no more letting him mind-fuck me like some perverted Yoda.
I finally open my eyes and sit up, running my fingers through my hair. As I start to shimmy out of bed, I suddenly remember the cameras.
Don’t acknowledge them. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Just move like you would if you weren’t starring in his private sex documentary.
Although, really, what more can he see? He literally had a flashlight aimed between my legs last night.
I stand up and stretch my body, my arms aching in the best way from where he had me pinned to my sheets, then head to the shower.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s watching me in here too.
Jesus, I really hope he’s not because that would cross another line. Not that we haven’t already lit all the lines on fire, pissed on them, and called it foreplay.
It’s easier said than done to pretend you’re not aware that your every move is being watched. I can feel his eyes on me. It’s like an invisible pressure crawling over my skin, something I can’t see but know is there, like a fucking ghost with a hard-on.
I close my eyes, tilt my head back under the water, and try to let it rinse him out of me—it doesn’t work.
Fuck it. I’m not doing this.
I’m not going to be the woman who stands in the shower, spiraling over a man who’s already proven he doesn’t play by normal rules.
He plays by psycho rules. I just have to pull up my big-girl panties and get on with it until he finally realizes that he and I are never going to work out the way he thinks.
Maybe don’t open your legs for him next time, my inner demon says, smug as fuck.
If she could crawl out of me, she’d be the first one on her knees for Phoenix.
I slip into a pencil skirt and button my shirt, getting myself office-ready and attempting to look like a woman who has her shit together—at least on the outside. Inside, I’m wondering whether he’s hacked into the elevator cameras too.
When I finally step onto the curb, my driver’s already there waiting for me—engine running, heated seats, hot coffee in the console. Yeah, I’m that asshole now. But it’s November, and I think I’ve earned some heat.
I make this journey every day, and I don’t take for granted what my life has become. I’m privileged now, but I scraped this life out of the fucking dirt.
Nothing was handed to me.
Well, that’s not entirely true. What was handed to me every week—literally placed in my small eight-year-old palm—was a sandwich bag full of white powder I didn’t have a name for yet.
Cocaine.
I’d learn that word much later, right alongside others like “overdose” and “withdrawal,” and the difference between blackout drunk and just regular old drunk.
I didn’t grow up with bedtime stories. I didn’t get hugs or kisses on scraped knees, or someone to tell me the monsters under the bed weren’t real.
Because they were real, and they slept in the next room.
What I got was the crinkle of plastic against my sweating palm and my mother’s whiskey-soaked breath against my ear as she whispered, “Hold this ’til I get back.” Then she’d disappear into some gas station bathroom with whatever greasy piece of shit was feeding her for the day.
I didn’t know what she was doing in there.
Not really. Not in a way that would’ve made it make sense.
I actually didn’t know much back then, but I knew I was cold.
I knew the rain was soaking straight through my hoodie, making the fabric heavy and suffocating against my small arms. I knew my fingers were going numb around that plastic bag.
And I knew I wanted her to hurry up—not because I missed her, but because I needed to lock myself back in my shitbox bedroom, shut the world out, and pretend I didn’t exist.
That little girl’s still in there somewhere. I feel her sometimes, when I least expect it—knees pulled to her chest, rain in her hair, certain she’ll die before she ever makes a real friend—she’s just gotten better at hiding.
Once I reach the office, I head up to my floor, and Betty greets me with a huge smile that stretches across her face.
Betty’s in her sixties, with silver hair always pinned back in a neat twist, and the most beautiful laugh lines carved deep around her eyes from decades of actually having things to smile about.
I’ve offered to set her up with a retirement package three times now—the kind of money that would let her live out her days doing whatever the hell she wants—but she turns me down every single time.
“Morning, Shannen. How was your trip?” She beams, handing me my coffee like always.
“It was great, thank you.”
Great, my ass. I’d rather chew glass than ever do that again.
I toss my bag on my desk and glance at the glowing screen. “I haven’t had a chance to look at my schedule for today. Do I have any meetings?”
“None today, but tomorrow morning, you’ve got James Lawson coming in.”
My hand freezes halfway to my mouth. “Tomorrow?”
“He emailed over the weekend. He’s interested in talking to you about the rebrand.”
“Holy shit,” I say, already pulling out the Lawson Hotels file. “Can you make sure no one disturbs me today? I just want to make sure I’ve got everything I need.”
“Of course…” she says with a polite smile before stepping out of my office and closing the door behind her.
I dive in, pulling up mood boards, color palettes, and typography samples because, holy hell, it’s Lawson Hotels.
Three hundred properties across every major city, airport, and resort destination, yet somehow, they’ve built an empire that’s forgotten how to look like one, and I can’t wait to remind them.
After what feels like hours of expanding on my already half-formed pitch, my phone buzzes across the desk.
“Everything okay, Betty?”
“Yeah… I know you said no interruptions, but your boyfriend’s here to see you.”
“My what?” I blink.
“He says he’s your boyfriend?”
I close my eyes.
Inhale through my nose.
Exhale through my mouth.
Count to absolutely fuck this.
“Let me guess, he’s tall, tattooed, and looks like he could ruin your life?”
“Mm-hmm. That’s the one.”
“Buzz him through. I’ll deal with him.”
“Are you sure? I can—”
“Trust me,” I mutter, already minimizing windows and killing the mood board I was mid-flow on. “He won’t leave until I do.”
Seconds later, the door opens. I keep my eyes locked on my phone, the screen suddenly the most fascinating thing in the universe.
Cut him off.
Cut him out.
“I’m invisible now?”
Motherfucker.
“It’s what I was for years,” I answer, still not looking up, pulling us both back into that art room—the day that triggered a chain of events that led us to whatever toxic mess this is.
“Never invisible, baby,” he says, and I can hear him moving closer. “Not to me. Not for a fucking second, no matter how I behaved.”
I say nothing. I’m still scrolling through absolutely nothing on my phone when I hear the chair creak across from me as he sits down. I still haven’t looked at him, but I can smell him. It’s that same earthy, spiced scent that wraps around me like a drug, making it impossible to think straight.
“Great place.”
Silence.
“I’ve never been inside here, you know. But it’s nice.”
More silence.
“I’ve been on the receiving end of your silence for years now, Shannen. Trust me when I say you’re going to get bored with this a hell of a lot quicker than I am.”
Still, I say nothing.