Knight & Day

Babygirl in Black

-Phoenix-

It's always the same.

The moment I let my guard down, the moment I let myself feel something for a man, I always end up regretting it. I was just starting to believe in the impossible. Just beginning to think there may actually be a future for Tyson and I... but how could that be true? If it wasn't the way his parents were looking at me like I was trash, it was definitely how his most recent bed-wench had accurately assessed our charade, that let me know the truth. There was no future for us.

And there never would be.

Tyson didn't actually want me, let alone want to marry me. He just wanted to avoid his parents' wrath and give them the impression that he did to survive another one of his mother's ambushes. I was nothing more than a decoy. A placeholder. And after last night, a fucking plaything. No matter how much sexual chemistry we had, that meant nothing in terms of whether or not he wanted more. Just because he'd touched me like he had and kissed me like that... it didn't mean he felt anything other than typical male horniness. Hell, his whole reason for even asking me to come to this dinner was so he could avoid—albeit imposed on him—a deep level of commitment. Who was I to assume I might have a chance to change that? For a man, any woman was fuckable but loveable? Whole different part of the brain.

I'd been stupid. Allowing sexual tension and a few nice gestures to get my head all in a twist about the reality of the situation. At the end of the day, money was no object to a billionaire so I'm sure the things he'd done for me were the equivalent of giving a homeless man chump change. I let myself be impressed by shit he'd more than likely done countless times before, including for the disrespectful ho sitting across from him. And probably any other woman he wanted to screw. I mean, Taj did say he was his biggest client. Genevieve's was a woman's boutique so it was needless to say that Tyson wasn't buying out the store for himself. When I thought back to how special I let today's mini shopping spree make me feel, as if it were something he'd done just for me, my embarrassment grew tenfold. I'd fallen right for the okey doke.

It might not have been so bad if he wasn't so good at faking it. He was really starting to make me believe him and his sweet, intentional words. At some point, tonight stopped feeling like a performance and began to feel like a real "meeting the parents" moment with a genuine conversation about our future together. Watching him talk about how much he wanted a life with me and how important to him I was pushed me into feelings I hadn't even known were there. Especially when he'd accurately described my ideal wedding. I couldn't begin to suppress the butterflies I'd felt in that moment. It'd only been a day but I had never felt so seen, so understood, in my entire life. He knew things about me that I hadn't even said with words and it all seemed so meaningful. Like he had some real sense of care for me that extended beyond being a "means to an end" as he'd originally phrased it.

But the fact that he hadn't even mentioned Sonya during the long conversation we'd had to get to know each other, showed me exactly how little I meant to him. I'd shared all my deep, dark secrets with him, including the relationships I'd endured, and he'd basically made out that he hadn't ever felt anything real or deep for a woman. He'd been honest about his plethora of past sex partners, but vehemently insisted that no one currently occupied his bed. According to Sonya, that was a lie and when I'd asked, he didn't have a choice but to admit to it. Didn't take a rocket scientist to know that if he'd just asked her to accompany him to an event last week, he'd fucked her just as recently, and it didn't matter that it was before he and I had done anything, I still should've been made aware. It was the respectful thing to do if he actually cared about me. But he didn't. I knew that for a fact now.

After reapplying my lipstick and fluffing my curls in the mirror, I reviewed my appearance one last time and exited the ladies room to head back to the table. I'd taken a few minutes to process my emotions and ground myself so that I could get back to doing what he'd paid me for. Helping him sell his parents a dream was tonight's purpose and I'd lost sight of that, but now that I was back to thinking clearly again, my objective was just as clear. Make them believe the lie, nothing more and nothing less. Anything else was a waste of energy.