Chapter 20
?
Liking me is a bad decision.
Mirabelle
Hugging my favorite stuffed animal, I lay stretched out on the queen-size bed in my room and stare at the ceiling. Every time I blink, Damion falls apart before my very eyes.
Forearms braced on either side of me. Body breaking to get closer. Eyes drunk. Hot breath pouring from parted lips.
I bury my face in my stuffed pink pig, Macaroon, certain I am not old enough to experience these sorts of memories or moments.
He was beautiful.
I’m still shivering. The sensation lingers in my body.
I don’t like him. He’s a liar. A manipulator. Cunning. Sly.
Even when he’s under oath to be honest, he’s still crafty. He still left me. I still can’t trust him.
But…the yearning.
I have never been yearned for.
I have never watched someone fight their every instinct, shaking as they clutched their fists and denied themselves the pleasure of touching me. He was collapsing, like a dying star, for want of me.
Turning my head, I stare at my phone on my nightstand and tell myself to absolutely not bring up the horrible photo again.
The article was demeaning. It painted me as some helpless and desperate woman, begging for the attention of a billionaire.
It painted Damion as some twisted, perverted man, delighting in his control over me.
It reduced me into nothing but a toy for him.
Forcing myself to breathe, I stand and shuffle myself away from my phone, across the hall, to Fawn’s room, where she stands on her purple yoga mat, following the choreography mirrored on her laptop screen.
I recognize the moves from a Stray Kids song and wait for her to finish before clearing my throat.
Twisting, she pulls out her earbud. “Oh. Hey.” She looks at Macaroon, who is still coddled in my arms, and smiles. “What’s wrong?”
“Damion likes me.”
“Damion does, huh?” She plops to the ground on her yoga mat and rocks. “How do you know? He’s so discreet about it.”
I roll my eyes as I settle on the floor across from her, fix my skirt, and stare.
“What?” she asks.
“I don’t know what to do about it.”
“A billionaire likes you. Marry him. Make an excellent case for why you deserve alimony. Divorce him.”
I frown.
“Alternatively, date him or something, I guess.”
My nose scrunches. “I don’t want to date him. If I date him, the media will put more garbage up everywhere, and then when it says we’re dating, it won’t be wrong, which will make it seem like everything they’ve said so far hasn’t been wrong, even though it has been very, very wrong.”
“If you can’t handle the media, you’re done. This can’t go anywhere. Damion’s in a position where the media making up things about him is inevitable. If you aren’t okay with that, you don’t do anything ‘about it’. The boy pines; you do your job. That’s it.”
Fawn is always so cut and dry.
But she is rarely ever wrong.
If I can’t handle an inevitable that comes with Damion, I need to tell him firmly that I am not interested. It’d be wrong to drag him along. I just… What if I turn him down, then change my mind? What if the horrible, horrible possibility of me growing to like him comes about?
In spite of the lying and the manipulation and the cunning.
I bury my nose against my pig.
Fawn spreads her legs and begins stretching. “What are you thinking about?”
“I shouldn’t like him. I shouldn’t be worried that I’m going to turn him down and then change my mind. He’s not a good person.”
She fixes her glasses. “He isn’t?”
“He’s a liar.”
“Most people are.”
“He’s also very good at manipulation.” I squeeze Macaroon.
“For all I know, it’s a trick. He’s faking.
He was so keen on us fake dating in response to the media’s stupidity.
” I gasp and lean in. “And when he called his PR manager in front of me? I learned that that guy wants us to put on a show for the media, too! What if Damion mentioned the fake dating because he was trying to do what his PR team wanted but he also knew I wasn’t going to real date him because I hate him? ”
“If I were a billionaire and I wanted someone to do something, I’d be like, ‘Here’s a million dollars.’”
“I’d never sell myself.” I scowl.
“Not even for a million dollars?”
“No.”
Fawn contorts her body in a way that makes me shudder, then she says, “You realize you’re the minority on that? And you realize that either Damion’s intentions aren’t just getting a show out of you or he has paid enough attention to know that you wouldn’t sell yourself out like that?”
“He’s probably smart enough to pay attention to those involved in his evil schemes.”
Fawn lifts herself out of the twist and stares at me. “Right.”
“I can’t trust him. Even though he’s supposed to be being honest right now, I can’t trust him. So I should just shut everything down.”
“But you don’t want to. Because you would have already if you did.”
I whimper. “I feel so stupid. I’m going to get myself hurt. And for why? Because I’m a harlot.”
“What.”
“I’m a harlot! A floozy! A tramp! A minx!” I fall onto my side against the carpet. “I possess no restraint, no will power, no self-control. Men are meat, and I am a starved vixen.”
Fawn snorts, then throws her head back and cackles. She’s wheezing and pushing her glasses up to wipe the tears from her eyes before she contains herself, and humor still laces every last one of her strained words when she regains the ability to speak. “Okay, and?”
“What do you mean okay, and?”
“What’s the problem with being a—” She uses a word that is not any of the words I said, but is also exactly the definition of the point I am trying to get across.
My cheeks heat. “It is wrong. I want more than physical. I don’t want a cheap relationship like that.”
“In your brain, maybe. But the whole struggle you’re having here implies something different.” Evil, she leans forward, holds my gaze, and says, “Get your cutest pj’s on, walk over to his house, and go to his bedroom.”
“What?” I whisper-shriek.
She plants herself against the carpet, doing a full split. “Satisfy the beast.”
“That’s wrong.”
“Who says?”
“I say! Science says! Interactions with people hold weight, Fawn. I thought you knew this. You can’t just touch or kiss or—or—or that other stuff and walk away from it. Chemicals release. Your brain literally changes.”
“Uh-huh. Go change it.”
My arms shake around Macaroon. “N-no. I’m stronger than that.”
“Then shut it all down.”
I…might actually not be stronger than that, then.
She’s right.
She’s right. If I’m holding on knowing it’s not good, I’m holding on for superficial things. And if I’m not going to indulge in those superficial things, then… I need to stop holding on.
My palm burns, reminding me how stable and firm Damion felt beneath it just this afternoon.
I don’t want cheap feelings.
I don’t.
For the sake of the future I want, with a husband I’m committed to and have always been committed to, I…need to be strong.
?
Skin electrified, I look weakly up at Damion, who’s standing topless at his bedroom door. The tattoos on his arms twine and twist and cover his chest, too. Following the leaves and fruits that start around his heart, I swallow.
“Pig,” he murmurs, staring at Macaroon in my arms.
I take a deep breath, then I say, “Sex alters brain chemistry.”
Damion tenses, and swears.
“It’s just a fact.”
He cups his hand to his mouth. “O…kay.”
“Do you ever find yourself at the end of a long road of very intentional, very careful, very bad decisions?” I step forward, and he steps back, providing me entry to his bedroom.
I’ve been in here before, of course. I’ve cleaned it a bunch of times.
In the before days, anyway, when he was just renting.
Or immediately after he had just rented, actually.
He always kept this place locked while he was here.
When I started working just for him, he told me he’d take care of his own bedroom, so the locked while he’s here sort of thing maintained.
I’ve never seen the sterile, rent-ready space filled with personal items like this before. Magazines about exercise. Amare catalogs. A metal pyramid paperweight. A small collection of miniature globes, including a cube one, filled with sea monster depictions in the oceans.
Tracing a sea serpent with my fingernail, I turn toward the silent man who did not answer my question about bad decisions and find him at the dresser in his walk-in closet, rifling through a drawer.
Odd.
Peculiar.
He locates a shirt and slips it on, covering his tattoos. All of them. It’s long-sleeve.
“Damion?” I ask.
Every defined muscle pressing against the thin material constricts. Raw and rough as rock against rock, he says, “Yes…precious?”
My fool heart flutters. “Were you very good at chemistry?”
A swear hisses from him, and though he faces me, he does not leave the closet. “I… Yes. I was.”
“I wasn’t.” I sit on his bed, upon the turned-down sheets, and his eyes close.
His hand shakes as it returns to his mouth.