a broken heart. I hear Baz step up beside me, and my chest quakes on an inhale as I work to pull myself together.
“You can stay in the guest room down the hall from mine.”
An icy pain drizzles through my chest. I know he’s offering me the guest room because he thinks I’ll be more comfortable that way, but it hurts. I tamp that pain down, brushing it aside.
“Is there a reason I can’t stay in one of the other rooms in the resort?”
“Because I want you close enough to fuck when I need you.”
My stomach dips at his words, and it takes me a beat to collect myself. I force a dry note into my tone. “And they say romance is dead. This was a stupid idea,” I mumble under my breath.
“Quite the contrary, I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in a while.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure you also thought this was a good way to win me back.” I don’t know what makes me say it, but I immediately regret it when Baz adopts a new expression. One I’m unfamiliar with. So many new things for us lately. He closes the distance between us, towering over me as he stares down at me.
“What makes you think I want you back?” he asks, caressing the side of my face with a reverence that doesn’t match the cruel tone of his voice. I feel the sting of his words on my skin like a lash from a whip, but I refuse to back down. I refuse to let him see just how much that comment hurts. I need to play the part of a woman who doesn’t care. A woman who is here to get her way, and that’s it.
“You said it before, not me.”
“Make no mistake, baby, there is no us. This is me doing you a favor and getting to fuck you while doing it.”
Pain seeps into my chest. His words slide through my veins and burn. Each syllable a laceration against my flesh.
I turn from him, heading into the guest room, and I’m all too thankful when he doesn’t follow. I’m not sure if I can handle facing him right now. His words hurt. They’re abrasions on my skin, scraping and burning, stabbing at my heart.
With clean lines, dark surfaces, and modern decorations, the guest room is just as nice as the rest of his penthouse. I snuck in here once and looked around, but I never physically slept in here. Not when I had Baz’s bed. When I think about his bed, I get a flash of that night. Those two women come to mind, and I feel my heart harden. I start to grow angry as I remember, and I hang on to that feeling, the pain his words have evoked. That’s the only way I’ll make it out of this alive.
It’s been two days of being here in Baz’s domain, and I feel like I’m walking around on eggshells. The day after he crushed my spirit, stomping on it on his pristine marble floors, he had work to do, so I have the penthouse to myself now. There was another key left for me that gave me access in and out, so I decide to go out to the pool and sit. The weather is starting to cool in LA, but that doesn’t stop tourists from getting in the water and prancing around in bikinis. I sit on one of the loungers and people watch, fully clothed, with no intention of stripping down or getting in the water, not with all the scars marring my body.
When I get back to the penthouse a few hours later, he still isn’t back, but Dan is. If it wasn’t for him, I might’ve starved for the last two days. He’s brought me lunch and dinner, and yesterday, he kept me from going insane while Baz was gone. I wonder what is keeping him. What is so important that he isn’t even trying to touch me?
That is what has me so anxious. I don’t know what to expect from Baz, but I want to be prepared for the moment we sleep together. I need enough time to block my mind and my heart from further hurt. Sex with Baz has always been explosive, and our time apart has more than likely not changed that. That’s what I am the most worried about. I don’t want to fall into him the