Paige
twenty-nine
Iwas used.
Once again, my sole value was simply in my connections and family legacy.
I’m a pawn in a bigger game that doesn’t care about my heart, my feelings, or the wreckage that is left behind once my usefulness is expended.
The worst part is, I willingly fell for everything Hayes offered, without once questioning his motives in helping me flee the arranged marriage of my overbearing parents’ making.
If he hadn’t considered marrying me for the hotels before I brought the idea to his very doorstep, he certainly ran with it after.
I’m so stupid.
My head swims with the realization as I hold on to the island for support, but it’s the shattering of my freely-given heart that causes the most pain. I feel it in my very bones, a splintering, sharp pang that echoes and catches as I breathe. This is heartbreak, and my na?veté brought it on myself.
“How could you?” I ask again, wishing my voice were full of rage and anger, when it’s actually defeated and weak.
“You bought my family’s hotels, took away the only future I’ve known, and dismantled a family legacy over a century old in a matter of days.
For what, exactly? What do you stand to make of it?
What profit margin could you squeeze out of a small chain like Xenios? ”
“Baby, please. Let me explain.”
Hayes pinches his temples with his thumb and forefinger before he stands and moves toward me, but I back away. I don’t like hearing him call me baby when I’m spiraling, my world crumbling below me.
“You never even considered telling me you had this planned? That maybe I would have liked to know your sights were set on owning more than my heart?”
I shut my eyes tight against the welling tears. I will not shed a single one for this imposter who used me just like everyone else has wanted to.
“No, that was probably your plan all along. Get the heiress to fall in love with you so you’d have an easier time convincing her daddy to go through with the deal.”
I turn my back on him and wrack my brain for what I can do now. I spin and brush past him to get to my pants, his hands skimming my arms. I twist my body so he won’t touch me and shove my feet into my jeans with more force than is required.
“You don’t understand. I’ll explain everything. You just have to listen to me.”
“How long have you wanted to buy out the hotels? Did you have plans in place before you met me? How about when you took me back to Atlanta with you, did you think it was all too convenient? You owe me that bit of truth.”
He freezes and considers me like I’m an unpredictable wild animal.
“I… may have had ulterior motives in the beginning.” His halting cadence tells me he's considering not telling me the truth. The lines around his eyes grow deeper with the strain of his admission. Great. “But it wasn’t about taking anything from you. I just wanted to get to know you.”
“Oh, good job convincing me of your hero qualities when you're actually the villain who takes what he wants, when he wants it. I really should have taken you at your word. I’m so naive.”
He told me exactly who he was from the beginning.
I thought he would be different for me. I thought that I could change him in some fundamental way that would make the bad guy good.
I’m a stupid idiot for being that short-sighted and delusional and it took him dismantling something I’ve wanted forever in such a devastating way to finally see him for what he is.
A liar and a thief.
He rakes a hand through his thick hair and scans the space before his eyes lock on the refrigerator. “I have ice cream. Let’s table this discussion and maybe after you’ve had something to eat, and calmed down, you’ll actually listen to me.”
I spin on my heel as I button my pants, my eyes narrowing. He has some nerve.
“You think ice cream is going to fix this lie of a life I signed up for and make me understand your heartless manipulation? I may be a silly debutante, but even I’m not that stupid.”
I grab my phone off the island and shove it roughly into my purse. Seeing the new phone reminds me of every lie he told me about protecting me, about wanting to be better for me.
“You promised, Hayes. This wasn’t supposed to be a business deal.” I hate how my voice breaks, betraying the tears that want to force their way out and down my face.
“This isn't how I meant this to go, Paige! You just have to calm down and listen to reason for a few fucking minutes.”
The look on Hayes’s face is one I have seen a million times before on Mama’s, making me feel like a scolded child. Instead of calming me, his words unlock something in me, an unhinged, feral desire to scream and rage after years of being the calm and obedient little girl.
“Calm down? Listen to reason? How dare you, Hayes!” A foreign growl of frustration rips from my throat as my mind whirls with the insanity of the situation.
Hayes runs his hands through his hair and blows out an exasperated breath.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way. This whole situation is getting away from us and I need you to be here in the moment, with me, so I can explain.”
His beautiful green eyes are hard when they should be pleading, his words are all wrong from how messed up this is getting, and nothing he has said has convinced me that I shouldn’t be as downright angry as I am, so I hold onto it.
He will see what his manipulation created in me and have to lie in the bed he’s made.
“Your audacity is truly monumental. What you did is unforgivable and saying you can explain is the biggest example of your legendary hubris yet.”
A lifetime of making myself small to fit into the mold that was forced on me comes bubbling to the surface.
The old hurts of Mama’s snide remarks and slights, of never being trusted to make decisions for myself, and the barely held resentment for all of it pushes me past my breaking point.
I'm not interested in bending around another person who will tell me to calm down when I have every right to be angry.
“My whole life I’ve been told to listen to what other people think is best without them ever considering I may have my own desires and plans. You were supposed to be different. I can’t believe I thought you were.”
I shake my head and pull on the boots that sit by the door.
“I was clearly mistaken. You’re just like everyone else, but somehow this hurts a whole lot worse.
” My voice cracks as my emotions vacillate from anger to unimaginable pain.
I reach for that anger again, because I do not want to be sucked into the grief that is already swirling at my ankles, ready to surge and take me down.
“Don’t do this, Paige. You’re making a mistake if you walk out that door,” Hayes says flatly, his face so unreadable. I thought I knew every look he could give me, but I guess I was wrong, again.
I pull open the door and leave the flat, fully expecting him to follow me out, grab me into his strong arms, and maybe even grovel on his knees.
Stepping into the hallway feels like I’m entering a new chapter, but I don’t know the plot line.
Could this be the end? My brain is still mired in anger, but my heart squeezes at the thought.
The door shuts behind me with a thud of finality and silence settles over the hallway.
I walk the few halting steps to the elevator, throwing a glance over my shoulder for him while I wait for the car to arrive.
I’m utterly alone, and the silence wraps around me, feeding into my insecurities, and forcing me to admit that I really don’t know Hayes like I thought I did. My life doesn’t feel real.
Of course it doesn’t feel real.
I was just caught up in a few days of make-believe and a big, beautiful lie I bought into like the totally naive and stupid girl I am.
I hesitate when the elevator arrives, casting one last look at the flat door as I step into the black-paneled interior.
I gently press the button for the garage, my heart still waiting for that movie moment where he bursts out of the apartment to stop me from leaving.
My hopes that he might come after me are dashed as the elevator door shuts and begins to descend to the garage without interruption.
“Oh, God.” I cover my mouth with my hand to stifle the gut-wrenching sob that doubles me over.
I’m not sure what hurts worse now, the betrayal, or him not fighting for me when it mattered most. But that’s the thing, maybe it didn’t matter as much to him as getting his coveted business acquisition did. After all, I’m just a part of the game, and I’ve been played.
I reach the garage and stumble to the Cobra, wishing it were something I could hide in. At least it’s dark out and I don’t have to risk running into someone I know on the worst night of my life. I start the car and let it idle. Where do I even go now?
I’m in shock and so angry at Daddy for selling my legacy, and Mama for hatching an even worse plan to marry me off for business, so I can’t go to their home, no matter how easy it would be to fall under Mama’s tightly guiding hand again.
I won’t subject myself to that again now that I’ve put some distance between us.
I drive the Cobra through the dark streets of Savannah, quickly numbing from head to toe in the December chill, and eventually end up at my apartment.
My cold fingers fumble with the key in the lock of my door, and after dropping my keys a few times, I finally manage to get the door unlocked.
It swings open and I look around the familiar space, taking in all of the surfaces and pieces of furniture that Hayes has never seen.
It feels so foreign that he never even stepped foot within these walls after being so caught up in his world for mere weeks.
His world. That’s right, he only wanted to be a part of mine long enough to destroy it.
Even here, in a place that should have my mark all over it, I just see what someone else wanted. Every piece of furniture, trinket, and piece of decor was influenced by Mama, if not picked outright by her. My heart cracks a bit more. I don’t even have a place that feels like my own.
I unzip my boots and toss my bag in the entry, stripping out of the clothes that still smell like Hayes on my way to the bathroom.
The sticky mess on my thighs is a reminder that I gave him everything, not just my trust and my heart.
He took a piece of me that will never be mine again.
Hayes turned my world upside down, forced his way in, and took everything he wanted, all while I thought he would cherish it.
Instead, he stabbed me in the back just when I had fallen for him completely.
I may not have known it, but now I see that this is exactly why I was so closed off to anyone getting close all these years.
It was far easier to guard my heart when I took everyone at face value and expected the worst of people.
The one time I’ve opened up and let a man get close, and given him the benefit of the doubt, this is what happens. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.
I turn the shower to scalding and stare at my vacant expression in the mirror while I wait for steam to fill the bathroom.
I don’t even know the person staring back at me.
She’s pale and listless, weak and destroyed.
I step into the shower and the hot water burns color into my skin as blood rushes back into my numb fingers, but my brain and heart can’t be changed by the welcomed heat.
They stay cold and untouched, locked in a devastation of my own making.
When I climb into bed alone, it all hits me. The tears flow down my cheeks into my hair as heavy sobs twist my chest inside out.
My marriage is a sham.
My legacy is gone.
My parents were willing to sell off what mattered most to me, if not just sell me off completely. I don’t even have the huge, silent, and comforting mass of Cerberus to cling to as I cry.
Heartbreak is the most soul-crushing feeling I have ever experienced.
And, at the very center of all of it, I miss the man who crushed my bones to dust under his shoes as he climbed the ranks of business on my back.
I hate myself most of all.