The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

21

I spit the question at him venomously, unable to control the outburst of shocked pain that hits me and bubbles forth, and the strained tone in my voice betraying the instant hurt. Like a stab to the chest as those words filter through my brain and I realise that I've been living in a fantasy land and forgetting exactly who this arsehole really is.

A date! A fucking date with a fucking woman, who left part of her wardrobe in his goddamn car.

I'm such a complete and utter blind moron.

It's like all those niggles of mistrust and disbelief just burst all over my head and pour over me like icy cold water. All the reasons I kept telling myself to keep my guard up. Here they are—staring me in the bloody face as they shatter my soul to pieces.

Last night when he fucked off all night with Santagato and then showed up on the club floor already showered and changed. He had a date ... he had a date all night, away from me, with another woman, followed by a shower ... which can only mean ...

Oh, my God.

There is only one reason you shower before presenting yourself to the woman you are meant to be dating. To hide the stench of a cheap whore on your skin.

I feel sick at the thought of him screwing some harpy and then coming and lying in bed with me, giving me all this bullshit about me being who he wants. All that last night, cuddling up, sweet caresses and gentle words. It's all fucking shit, nothing but ashes in my mouth now as I realise; he hasn't cared about pushing for sex because he's still getting it elsewhere. It's all just fake and empty promises and exactly what I should have expected.

"Burn it, I don't give a shit." Alexi sounds angry, but my seething rage built from aching pain is all-consuming and I turn on him fiercely. Blinded to the fact he has someone here with us by the utter incontrollable heartbreak I'm experiencing.

I fucking believed him when he said he loved me. Even when I told myself I didn't ... this is the proof that I did. This pain, this slicing my soul into tiny shards of sharp glass. The splintering of a heart that never fully recovered from the first time.

"Your fucking WHAT? I hiss at him again, gritting my teeth to try to control the spiralling emotions I cannot contain. The hysteria of a crazy lady growing bigger than I can contain and ripping through my skull at a rate of knots.

This is bigger than anything I have ever felt in my life, and I wonder if this is how betrayal really feels when it's someone you love. Unleashing the crazy in me as jealousy devours my soul and turns my heart to stone. It cuts deeper than anything he did before; because this time, I stupidly dared to hope and believe. He ripped the rug out from under me.

Alexi stays fixed and motionless, eyes on his driver and shakes his head subtly. Maintaining that uncaring and controlled manner and concealing that he even gives a shit about my outburst. I no longer care about keeping us a secret, I couldn't give a toss about appearances or who fucking knows about us right now. I'm so volcanic I want the whole world to hear me screaming at this tosspot. I'm physically clawing myself to stop a violent attack on his face.

"You can go," he commands, and the man scurries off like a scared puppy, pulling the door behind him quickly; because he realises, he just started a shit storm in here. He may not know we are a 'thing', but he recognises a woman about to turn murderous psycho time bomb when he sees one.

Alexi doesn't even turn my way with the click of the door meeting frame.

"Don't do that. You know how things work, don't turn this into something it's not." He dismisses me with an even, bored tone and moves to put space between us, completely ignoring the red mist I have hovering over my head. My breathing is so insanely heavy I'm almost hyperventilating, and he just turns up the dial with that reaction. I can't think straight. My head stammering and heart bleeding as I try to grasp a sense of this, stuck to this spot and unable to physically move because I am stone cold stiff with sheer rage.