**WATTPAD HQ EDITOR'S PICK Nov/Dec 2021**
BOOK ONE in the STEAMY FORBIDDEN ROMANCE series
Coralie Watson, a British thirty-year-old living in San Francisco, has a tormented past with men. Physical and mental abuse, abandonment issues, incompatibili...
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♫ Guess I was just another pit stop 'Til you made up your mind You just wasted my time ♪ (The Weeknd—Call Out My Name)
With no clock to gauge the time, Coralie wasn't sure how long she stayed cloistered in the bathroom.
She turned on the shower and let the steam rise and coat the mirror so she couldn't see herself crying.
After what felt like ages, staring at the doorknob, waiting for Ryan to hurry in and capture her in his arms and apologize, she shrugged. She deflated, as if he'd pricked her with a pin and all her happiness, all her wonderful memories of Paris were trickling out, pooling at her feet.
The door didn't open, Ryan didn't come after her, Ryan didn't care. So she stripped from her pajamas and sat in the tub, letting the scorching water blend with her salty tears.
You knew better.
The three words kept repeating in her mind. They pounded on the walls of her brain, whispering and screaming until she had to cover her ears to ease the suffering they caused.
Rocking back and forth, her wet curls caking to her temples, her teeth clattering, she whined, holding her knees to her chest.
Whenever her eyes closed, she pictured Ryan lounging behind her. He'd pull her into him, parting her hair to place a soft kiss on her cheek, mumbling sweet nothings to assuage her disappointment.
But that wouldn't happen; not now that he'd clarified his intentions. Not now that he'd shunned her, dismissed her as nothing but a temporary reprieve from the home life.
She was a saucy adventure, the sassy broad he'd always had a crush on, an excuse to play out fantasies Gemma might have refused to indulge. Coralie was a game, a toy, a phase; and her gut had warned her of that weeks and weeks ago, when they'd started having sex via a webcam. She'd chosen to ignore her brain, and alone in the bathtub, drowning in her woes, she recognized how wrong she'd been.
You knew better.
Once her hands were so plummy she could no longer keep them clenched, and her calves red from the scalding water, she heaved herself up and squeezed the faucet shut. She reached for a towel, wrapped it around her, and meandered to the sink.
Wiping down the mirror, she glimpsed herself. Remains of last night's mascara cascaded to her chin. Smeared lipstick she'd had no energy to scrub off remained on her lips. She gawked at the messy eyebrows she hadn't troubled to tame.
"Of course you were temporary." She scoffed, mopping up the moisture beneath her nose. "Look at you. You're a disaster."
She towel-dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and threw all her toiletries into their corresponding satchels, to prepare for her flight later that night.
She hesitated to exit the bathroom. How to confront Ryan now, after marching off and slamming the door in his face like a temper-throwing teenager? Had he heard her crying? Had he paced before the bathroom, wondering whether to interfere, to barge in, to seek forgiveness? Or had he muffled the sound of her distress with his headphones while digging into his work, giving her time to blow off steam?
