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

22

Tears blind me as the elevator hits the ground floor and I take a moment to compose myself fully. Using the backs of my hands to stem the tears and blot my face without smearing it more. Trying to use the reflection of the chrome doors to clean myself up and wipe my liner and mascara from under my eyes and hide them mess on the black part of my dress. I have always been good at a quick recovery and manage to bring myself to calm and presentable in mere minutes of deep breaths and gulps. Shaking myself, pushing the pain into a deep dark hole that is turning my body icy and my heart numb. Hysteria drying up as logic boots me in the arse.

You should have seen this coming, Camilla. You should have never believed in him.

I make my way through the hall, head down to avoid security taking a good look and glad Jackson isn't milling around here. He has a day off. I slide into the main part of the club which is crowded with staff doing the daily prep for tonight, and I'm aware of the looks and questioning stares I'm getting.

I cannot hide that I'm upset, because frankly, my makeup must be blotchy as hell in this light. I'm always very precise with it, so looking streaky is a major tell. I head for the bar to grab some tissues and avoid looking directly at any of them as I do so. I don't want to go back up and fix my face, I'm hoping I can just pass this off as nothing.

"Ouch ... watch it." Hoe-Anne snaps at me bitchily, that constipated face of hers glaring my way as I collide with her, not paying attention to her walking towards me, and then snarl at the smug, dog's dinner vomited up twice look on her face as I pull back. Ugly souls really do make ugly faces.

The reminder that she was one of his whores hits me ten times more than it ever has, and I look around me suspiciously, suddenly realising that any of the women in this room could have been with him last night. They are all devious backstabbing opportunists who use sex to lure men. It's why we hired them. She could be here laughing at me from afar.

I wrack my brain to think of who was missing as I scan faces and dismiss the rank letch in front of me with a shove out of my way. I have no interest in her and blur out her protest and insult as she trots off away from me. That anger I felt upstairs rips through me a hundred-fold, with an intensity that turns my blood to molten lava. Faces running through my brain of the staff I thought had more sense than to cross me.

I know it wasn't Hoe-Anne as I saw her many times through the night, so it had to be someone on the rota who wasn't needed. I glare passed the skanky po-faced boot walking around glaring my way and look at the girls wandering around with hoovers and dustpans. My head clouding with that red mist once more.

A couple of the toms are here to get their rooms how they like them, and as I watch, I'm overcome with furious jealousy all over again. That kick to my gut once again. The tears completely shrivel into a dark depth of ashy hell and evaporate as that inner demon I possess moves in with a deathly chill, she is a queen at possessing.

The 'me' who has been sleeping for far too long. That wicked, cold bitch who will let no one fuck with her. She raises her calculating head and views the room with the eye of a nuclear vessel who has her radar pinging on all targets. Scowling hatefully at the girls I thought I could rely on.

"Cam ... a word." Alexi's voice cuts into my thoughts, disrupting them with a sharp yank of my brain back to the present and I throw my head over my shoulder to catch sight of him wandering in.

He looks less angry, but as I'm on an Armageddon ten strike mode, I just sneer and turn away from him, walking another few steps to widen the gap and stand in the middle of my club. Making it clear he gets zero chance at talking to me and I want him to leave me alone. I'm figuring out which whore gets her ass handed to her and the two of them can go fuck off together.