by Lily Harlem
“I didn’t think whores kissed on the lips,” he said again through gritted teeth. He tipped his chin and his neck moved from under my palms.
His words screamed like a knife in my ears and I shook my head to rid it of the painful ringing. I hadn’t heard right. I couldn’t have heard right. I dropped my hands to his chest. Heat from his body radiated through his thin t-shirt. I tried to swallow but my tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth. I felt as though cotton wool had been shoved down my throat and a cobra had wrapped around my ribs.
He reached up and curled his fingers around my hands, peeled them from his chest and took a step back. His features turned blank and his eyes glazed over.
“I’m not a whore!” I said as my arms fell limply to my sides.
He snapped off the condom, tucked in his cock and twisted his jean buttons closed. “I heard everything,” he said, stepping into the kitchen area. “Light might not travel around corners, but sound damn well does.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My chest was crushing my heart, my lungs were about to burst. My head pounded as if a balloon had inflated right in the very center of my brain.
“I heard you and Fergal talking,” he sneered as he kicked open the kitchen bin and dropped the full condom inside. He walked to the sink and washed his hands. “When you were sorting out the payment details of your ‘successful’ trip to the island.” His face twisted. “I heard the whole fucking conversation, Brooke.”
“But—”
“At least now I know where I stand.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned me from my bare toes to my tousled hair. “Fergal paid you to come and spend the week with me. And a fucking good wage it was too. Struggling nurse, my ass. You got it all figured out haven’t you? Make a few bucks with your body and then laugh all the way to the bank.”
I wasn’t laughing. I was dying inside. This wasn’t my destiny, our destiny. Once two souls became entwined that was it. How could this be happening? How could it be going so wrong?
I crossed my arms over my naked breasts. He dried his hands and walked toward me.
“You don’t understand,” I pleaded, my vision blurring as I looked at him.
“Oh, I understand perfectly. Everything became very clear when I came out of the changing room to find you.” His lips twisted into an ugly snarl. “You let me fuck you, under Fergal’s instructions, you let me fuck you to get me back in the swing of my game, it was all just a business deal. Last week I was simply your job.”
“But you know that’s not what happened, Logan, you were there too.” I stepped forward but he retreated as if I had some deadly airborne disease so I ceased all movement. “Please, it was real, it was so much more than sex. You know it was.”
“Bullshit,” he spat. “That’s all it was for you.” He turned and strode toward the door. “All your crap about auras and fate, yin and yang, I don’t believe a word of it. You’re a hooker, a liar and I wish I’d never met you. I’d have been better off with a fucking rink bunny, at least I’d know what I was damn well getting.”
“Logan, wait, you don’t mean that. Please, say you don’t mean those words.”
With his fingers wrapped around the door handle he turned to me, his face stern and stiff. Where was the gentle, caring guy I’d fallen in love with? This was an imposter and I wanted my man back.
“I mean every word,” he said. “I’m sick of being treated like a dumb jock, it’s happened once too fucking often.”
“Logan.” This had gone too far. Desperate measures were required. “Logan, I…I’ve fallen in love with you.”
An awkward silence filled the air.
“You really expect me to believe that?” he huffed.
“It’s not something I say lightly.”
His eyes settled on my breasts, squashed behind my hands, then dropped lower to the damp juncture of my thighs. “And I fell in lust with you,” he said in a quiet but hard voice.
“No, there was more, I know there was. The way you touched me, kissed me and held me while you slept. You felt it, too, you even said you did.”
“Get fucking real, Brooke. You were fucking me because you were getting paid to. I was fucking you because you were there, available and really damn hot for it.”
“No,” I stepped toward him but my knees felt watery and weak and it turned into a stagger. “No, that’s all wrong, you’re making a mistake.”
He held up a flattened palm. “There’s no mistake. I know what I heard.”
“But, Logan,” I said on a sob. Tears brimmed on my lower lids. “But what about what we just did? Surely it meant something to you.” Standing naked before a giant of a man who was looking at me with ice-cold eyes was becoming more excruciating by the millisecond. I knew I couldn’t dig into much more of my pride, it was just about on empty. “It meant something to me. It meant a lot to me,” I pleaded. “And I know it did to you too.”
He pulled open the door and put one foot over the threshold. “It meant fuck all to me, Brooke.”
“So, why?” My knees threatened to fold, my spine had turned to dust. Breathing was getting harder as my airway constricted and I fought not to vomit. “Why come here at all if you feel nothing, if I mean nothing?” I asked on a painful wheeze, clutching a clenched fist to my sternum.
The muscle in his jaw flexed and his eyes narrowed. “Because.” He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because I just wanted to make sure Fergal got his money’s worth.”
The door slammed shut.
The frame rattled.
The apartment roared with silence.
My knees gave up the fight and I fell into a crumpled heap by the door, broken and wilted like my tipped roses. Naked and with a shattered heart, I pressed my pounding forehead onto the cold tiles and willed myself to wake up. This was the worst nightmare ever. With each second that passed, the hole in my heart was growing. The vacuum that was my soul was being shredded like tender flesh over coral.
Where had my delicious glow of love and respect gone? The intense belief that I had found the other half of my being, the positive to my negative. My life had been thrown in the air like Chinese sticks and they’d landed all wrong. Tangled and crossed, splintered and unreadable.
I gave in to gut-wrenching sobs. Let the well of hot, salty tears overflow my lower lids. I barely noticed the wetness on my cheeks as my time with Logan flashed before me. Walking on the beach hand in hand. Standing beneath the stars. Him touching me with caresses full of love, me touching his beautiful, powerful body. The way his mellow laugh rumbled through my bones and the sharp way my breath hitched when he settled his lust-filled eyes on me.
I couldn’t go on. This pain was just too real. Worse than any physical harm, worse than a million anemones. His voice—words of love and words of hate—echoed in my mind, chasing away sanity, replacing it with madness, anger and burning unjustness. How could he really, in his heart of hearts, think that of me? Where had the respect gone, the consideration, the bond that had sealed us together so intensely in bed only two nights ago? I couldn’t imagine us being apart as I’d fallen asleep in his arms. He’d held me as if I was the most precious thing on this earth.
And now.
Now he thought I was a whore and worse than that, he’d fucked me without any tenderness or consideration, as if I was one.
Chapter Twelve
I moved through the next few weeks a zombie, barely registering the passing of time. The cataclysmic event that had torn apart my life had left me worse than broken. I was empty and hollow. My insides were like a gaping black hole, void of any kind of light.
The entrance exam came and went. I did okay. The questions were not as demanding as I’d thought they were going to be and I reached the interview stage. But I was at the mercy of the heavens. Whatever the stars wanted to dole out for me I’d just have to take it. If nursing wasn’t meant for me then there was nothing I could do to change that fact.
My relationship with Logan had felt as though
it was meant to be. It had been so perfect, so right, yet it had all gone wrong. It had all been my fault. From the very moment I’d agreed to go to the villa I’d knocked my karma off course and now karmic retribution had bitten me on the ass, big-time.
I dragged my no doubt completely blotchy aura and myself to The Grill each day. The first thing I’d done was tear up the photo of Logan and me in the water. Max had it pinned to the notice board in his office alongside his ticket to an Orlando Vipers game signed by Ramrod. I didn’t need to say anything to him. He looked at my empty eyes, my pale face and my tight lips and patted my arm like a kindly uncle. It was enough to make my lower lids fill and my throat constrict, even though I didn’t think it was possible to shed any more tears over Logan.
Giselle cooked fancy dinners that I pushed around my plate each evening. My senses had dulled, even my taste buds. Nothing had flavor, it all tasted the same. She paid off my credit card bill as she’d promised she would if I didn’t get paid. My pride wanted to stop her, but I had little choice and she was too adamant for me to be bothered to put up a fight.
I lay in bed at night, work-weary from hours on my feet but unable to sleep. Logan’s face hovered before me every time I shut my lids. His crystal clear blue eyes and long lashes. His dark brows, one scarred not just from hockey but also from the fight he’d had with Brick. I visualized his wide mouth tipping in amusement, pressing kisses to my skin and telling me he loved me.
When eventually I did grab snatches of sleep, I dreamed of him. It was always the same. He was standing on the sand, bare-chested in the sunshine, beer in one hand and shades over his eyes. The dream began with me trying to get him to notice me in front of him. I smiled, waved and eventually shouted his name. But he looked right through me, ignoring me despite my efforts. My temper swelled, fury consumed me, and by the end of the nightmare I was pounding clenched fists against his chest. Screaming and crying, begging him to listen, to see what was before him. But his face didn’t even register my words, his body didn’t flinch, and eventually he turned and walked into the sea. I always woke with wet cheeks and the covers thrown off. Twice Giselle had come into my room in the early hours to see if I was all right when she’d heard me crying out. But she’d gotten used to my new nightly routine, and now she left me to my torment.
I didn’t know which emotion was the worst so I tried to block them all. It was the only way to get out of bed in the morning. The sadness was so desolate, so vacant that I felt like a planet knocked off course for all eternity. It gouged out a part of me that had never even had a chance to fully grow. The fury was the opposite, it was hot and wild and left my skin prickling when I thought of his words and the last time he laid his hands on me. My body felt as though it was not my own, it had been used by a lover in a way that wasn’t loving. Penetrated by a man as full of anger and revenge as he had been full of sweetness and love. It had felt so good, so intense, but seconds after the climax the plug had been pulled on my euphoria and now I’d ever be able to trust anyone again.
“Brooke, have you taken those double cheeseburgers to table ten yet?” Max asked, wiping greasy hands down his apron.
“Just doing it,” I said, slipping a pencil behind my ear and reaching for the two overloaded plates.
“You need to get a move on, the place is filling up.” Max dropped more fries into fat and the air in front of him hissed and spat. “After-work rush.”
I glanced out the window at the full parking lot, sidled around another waitress and headed to table ten. I deposited the food with a strained smile and dashed to table six to take an order from a young family.
“Three nuggets and fries, a double bacon burger with two eggs over easy and a medium steak with salad and fries,” I called to the kitchen as I hastily scrawled the order.
I reached for a tray with a lone Bud on it.
“Table eighteen,” Max said.
“Not mine,” I said, reaching for a cloth to go and wipe down a recently vacated table that was mine.
“Just do it,” Max said gruffly.
I tutted and straightened my skirt. I was always picking up Shirley’s work and she never shared tips. I grabbed the Bud, without the tray, and walked to the far end of the restaurant. At table eighteen, with his back to me, sat a guy in a deep purple t-shirt with a baseball cap pulled low and big legs sticking out from under the table.
I took out a coaster from my pinny pocket, dropped it in front of him, and placed the dew-covered bottle on top of it. “You ordered a Bud?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He curled big fingers around the beer and looked up at me.
I froze.
My mind registered what my eyes were seeing but it took a moment for the neurons to fire. When they did my heart melted at the same time as my blood boiled. “What…What the hell are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you.”
“Well, I damn well don’t need to see you.” I snatched back the beer. “You’re not getting served here. Go.”
“Sit, we need to talk.”
“Not a chance.” I glanced over at Max, who was busy ordering the junior chef about. “Apart from the fact I’m rushed off my feet, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Logan.”
“Brooke,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please.”
“No, now get out.” I went to point to the door but as I raised my arm he snapped out his hand and his fingers harnessed my wrist.
“If you don’t sit your ass on the seat opposite me,” he said in a low growl, “right now, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder, march out of here and put you in my truck. Then I’m gonna lock the door and say what I want to say and you will listen.” He swept his tongue over his bottom lip. “Now it’s your choice, you can show the whole place the color of your panties as you no doubt scream and holler over my shoulder or you can sit quietly and civilly and listen to me.” The pressure on my wrist tightened. “Now what’s it gonna be?”
I jerked my arm, trying to rid his fingers. His touch was sending electric currents up to my shoulder, across my chest and straight into my vulnerable heart. The thought that he could dart straight back in there made my blood pressure rocket with fury. As did the thought that he might actually throw me over his shoulder and flash my underwear to the whole place. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You wanna try me?” His eyes flashed dangerously as his fingers squeezed my tendons and bones even tighter.
I glared at his steely, challenging face and knew I had no choice. He was seconds from hauling me into the air like the caveman he was.
I slammed down his beer again and slipped onto the red plastic seat opposite. He finally let go of my arm and reached for his Bud.
“Be quick,” I said, averting my eyes from the face of the man who’d made me love him and then broken my heart.
“It will take as long as it takes,” he said, resting back as if he had all the time in the world.
“No, it won’t,” I glanced at my watch. “You’ve got one minute, starting now.”
“That’s not long.”
“Long enough to drink and go.”
“But not long enough for me to apologize to you.”
I gave a small huff. “Words are not enough to undo what you did, Logan. It cut too deep.”
“I know and I’m really sorry.” He leaned forward and reached for my hand again. I snapped it away. I couldn’t let him touch me, it weakened the ridiculously fragile armor I’d built around myself.
“You’re right, sorry isn’t enough,” he said, taking a sip of beer. “Words are pathetic, so let me make it up to you in other ways.”
My treacherous body was flushing at his proximity, my nose repeatedly pulling in deep breaths of his delicious aftershave and my gaze, like a magnet, was drifting to his face again. Absorbing the angles of his cheeks in the shadow of his cap, the small creases darting from the corners of his eyes to his temples and the way a small drip of froth sat on his top lip. “You’ve hurt me too much,” I said,
crossing my arms over my chest and curling my fingers into the thin cotton of my blouse. “It’s too late for us.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice, anxious not to be overheard by other customers, or worse still, the waitstaff. “You called me a whore, Logan, remember? You called me a whore.”
He pressed his lips together and snatched in a breath.
“And…” I whispered. “And you treated me like a whore too.” I swallowed tightly. “You touched me like I meant nothing to you when I thought you were being loving and passionate, that we were making love as two equals.”
A maddening silence fell between us. He took a draught of his beer as my body trembled, memories from that night flashing through my mind.
“I was mad at you,” he said, jutting out his stubbled jaw. “Real mad.”
“But you wouldn’t even let me explain.”
“I understand everything now.”
“How, how do you understand now, but you didn’t back then?” I unfolded my arms.
“I went to your apartment.” He took off his cap, ran a hand through his hair then pulled the peak back down low over his brow. “I spoke to Giselle.”
“You went to see Giselle? When?” I placed my fingers on the red-checked tablecloth.
“Today, this afternoon, when I was looking for you.” He reached for my hand again but I snapped it away. His arm and chest flinched as though I’d struck him. It was the way I’d wanted him to flinch in my angry dreams.
“I didn’t care about the circumstances,” he said in a tight voice, “or the situation, I just needed to see you. Because what you said, right before I left that night—”
Prickles of irritation swept through my scalp. “So you thought I’d slept with you for money right up until this morning. Until only few hours ago you still thought I’d done all of that on some sort of business deal?”
“Yes…no…yes.” He shook his head and pulled in a deep breath. “Until this morning, yes, I still thought you’d slept with me for the money. But your roommate filled me in on the details and told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever called you a whore again I’d regret it big-time.” He rubbed his fingers over his chin. “She’s very protective of you, isn’t she?”
