by Marian Tee
****
After his visit at the hospital last night, Nik had deliberately stayed away from Daria and instead worked the entire night until exhaustion gave way to sleep.
Today had not been much different, only the need to see Daria had become impossible to resist, a burning desire that flamed constantly in the back of his mind.
He had only taken one look at the feverish hope in Miranda’s eyes to know there was no way he could continue with the engagement.
She was a good woman, a strong one. Marriage to her would have been a smart decision – but only if she didn’t love him and, worse, didn’t think that he could eventually love her back.
The knowledge that he would have to break Miranda’s heart again left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he had hoped that Daria would at least provide him with a few hours of mindless bliss.
That was the plan, at least, but the look on Daria’s beautiful face told him he had another fight in his hands. A fight that, in his opinion, he didn’t fucking deserve coming from a liar like her.
“You’re going out?” he asked shortly. She looked like it, with her hair combed back in a sleek, high ponytail, her face perfectly made up, and her black long-sleeved dress hugging every curve of her body.
Daria lifted her chin even as both her mind and heart warned her against what she was about to do. It’s stupid, her mind protested. You’re going to hurt herself, her heart cried out.
“I’m leaving.” She stepped to the side to dramatically reveal the empty suitcase behind her. “You chose to ignore me last night—”
“Give me a break,” Nik said coldly. “You really think I’d have prioritized you over what happened?”
She could feel her heart starting to stutter and crash at the pain of his words, but she managed to keep her chin up as she answered fiercely, “I expected you to at least text me back—”
Nik couldn’t believe he was having this type of conversation with Daria. “You do remember you’re just my mistress, don’t you? That you’re a cunt I pay to fuck?” Someone gasped behind him, and he swore, remembering too late that at this time of the day, the hallway was crowded with people coming in and out of the other offices and units in Daria’s floor.
Daria whitened at the realization that other people had heard Nik refer to her in such a way. “I hate you.” But what she hated more was that she didn’t really mean it. She was mad, she was hurt, but how could she hate someone she loved? She loved him so much she even understood why he kept being cruel to her.
She loved him, but she had to make him realize now that he had to choose eventually.
Nik’s jaw hardened at the way Daria paled. He knew he owed her an apology, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. He was sorry, but if he said the words, he had a feeling he might as well admit that he loved her – still loved her even though he knew she was…she was everything Miranda had said she was.
Someone who didn’t have any damn excuse to whore herself except for her love for money.
Nik was stunned when Daria suddenly pushed past him, suitcase in hand. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Daria whirled around to face him. “What do you think?” she demanded. “I’m leaving you.” So beg, she thought desperately. Now’s the time to realize that you can’t bear for me to leave. Now’s the time to tell me you’re sorry, you forgive me, you love me.
But Nik didn’t do any of those things. A grim look settled on his face instead and he said icily, “I’m tired, Daria. Enough with this. Come back here and we’ll talk.”
Now was a good time to be smart for once. Nik was offering her a gracious way to be done with her charade.
But she couldn’t.
She wanted a grand gesture from him – God’s gift to her, the only man she had loved. Just once in her life, she wanted to know how it felt to be treated like she was more than just a body men obsessed over.
She wanted to know how it was to have a man love her and be proud of it, Daria thought.
Slowly, Daria shook her head. “I’m going to leave you.”
Nik just gazed at her.
“I mean it.” Her voice rose a little. Beg me not to leave. Tell me you love me.
“I’m going to leave, you can’t stop me.” She took a step back to make her point, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Her heart begged her to put an end to this, her mind telling her she was just making a cake of herself.
But Daria just couldn’t stop. “You won’t stop me. I really mean it.” She took another step back, but this time she almost lost her footing, having backed into a young man who had stepped out of his office at the same time.
“Whoa.” Strong arms held her up. “You…” The guy blinked at Daria’s face. For several seconds, he simply stared at her before he caught himself. “You, umm, okay?”
Swearing under his breath as he saw the scene unfolding – he knew that look on the other guy’s face, knew it because there really wasn’t a time Daria didn’t blow him away at how vibrantly beautiful she was – and Nik found himself moving swiftly, snatching Daria away from the other guy.
When the other guy started to speak, he said coldly, “Back off if you don’t want to get fired.”
The guy visibly debated for a second before apparently deciding that Nik wouldn’t speak of such a threat if he weren’t capable of carrying it out. After giving Daria a look of apology, he quickly went back to his office, errands forgotten.
Nik’s gaze returned to her. “Now, will you stop acting like a kid—”
His calm tone infuriating and mortifying her at the same time, Daria wrenched her arm away from Nik’s hold. “You can’t frighten everyone here.”
Nik’s voice turned grim. “I’m warning you. Stop it with the theatrics.”
Then beg me, she thought.
But he didn’t, and her heart hardened and broke at the same time.
Dragging her suitcase with her, she stomped towards the first man she saw, a tall, burly-looking man in a suit, determined to show Nik that another man could want her enough to go against the almighty Nik Alexandropoulos. “Sir—”
Behind her, Nik drawled, “That’s my bodyguard.”
Without a word, she moved past his guard and all other men in suits. They had attracted a crowd by now, but she forced herself to ignore it as she approached the first man in denims she saw. “Sir—”
“That’s also my bodyguard, incognito.”
Realizing Nik could also be bluffing, she asked the man, “He’s telling the truth?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Teeth gnashing, she whirled around, screaming at Nik, “I’m really leaving you!”
Someone in the background snickered, and Nik’s temper snapped. Closing the distance between them in a few angry strides, he caught her arm and said tightly under his voice, “We will talk about this like adults—”
She tried pulling away. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m leaving—”
“Goddammit, Daria. Did you really think you could fool me? That’s empty!” He grabbed the suitcase from her, clicked it open to prove his point, and threw it on the floor.
When he faced Daria again, her entire face was white but her eyes were bright with tears. He knew he was hurting her again now, but he could no longer stop himself. “I knew the moment you opened the door, Daria. You were bluffing. You’re not the type to carry just one suitcase, and certainly you wouldn’t be able to lift that suitcase with one hand if it really had stuff inside it.”
With each word Nik spoke, Daria could feel herself shrinking smaller and smaller. When he was done, she said bitterly, “Thanks for making me feel like an idiot—”
“You brought it on yourself,” he snapped. “So stop it with the lies for once—”
How could she when it was so much easier to lie? There and then, she remembered her friends’ warnings, the way they pleaded her to simply tell the truth, and everything became clear now.
Lies allowed her to protect h
erself while the truth exposed her to more pain.
But if she really loved Nik, shouldn’t she find the courage to speak the truth – to keep speaking it until he believed her?
She made herself look at Nik, and this time she didn’t try to hide anything from him. “Nik,” she whispered. She didn’t give a damn anymore about the crowd. She only cared about making Nik see the truth.
“Please believe me when I say I only lied once—” She had imagined him reacting in various ways to her words, but she never thought she would see such contempt in his eyes, and she had to swallow back a sob at the sight of it.
“How the fuck can you have the gall to say that?” Nik gritted out. “How can you look like that and be a fucking liar—” And how the fuck couldn’t he stop loving her even with her unable to stop lying?
Daria valiantly fought against crying at the way Nik was gazing at her. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You don’t deserve to cry just yet. She tried again, her voice shaking. “Nik, j-just let me explain. I m-mean it. I only lied to you once—”
“That’s another fucking lie right there, dammit!” His lip curled. “Do you think I don’t know about what you told Miranda?”
Daria shook her head. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about—”
Disgusted at the way lie after lie kept coming out of her mouth, he turned away. He was sick and tired of the way Daria kept turning their lives into a public spectacle, even more tired and sicker at the way he seemed powerless against her.
“I’m not doing this here,” he bit out. “Either you come back to the apartment—”
“Daria, babe, is that you?”
Nik’s head snapped up, and he saw one of the men who had come out of the elevator heading towards Daria. Nik recognized the man instantly from the background report he had ordered on Daria.
It was Daria’s most recent lover, the one who came right before Nik.
“I don’t fucking believe this,” Nik muttered. “Do you have a guy in every fucking state?” First, there was Victor the pussy in Teleios, and now the ex-MMA fighter here in the city. This was how life was going to be, Nik thought savagely, as long as he couldn’t exorcise Daria from his heart.
Flinching at the way Nik was looking at her, Daria started to speak when Colton suddenly appeared at her side. She fell silent, shock and shame mingling inside her as she remembered the last minutes she had spent with him.
Just remembering made her mute with self-hatred, and she couldn’t believe she had sunk that low. No wonder, she thought dully, the sight of her could make Nik feel sick.
Colton appeared oblivious to the undercurrents between Nik and Daria, his smile purely lascivious as he studied her. “Gotta say, babe, you broke my heart when you left me like that.”
“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered, terrified that Colton would describe exactly what they had done. He always had a penchant to kiss and tell.
“Was it because my size frightened you?”
Daria struggled to keep her voice even. “No.” God, how dirty she was. So damn dirty for someone to think that he could treat her this way. No wonder, no wonder Nik couldn’t make himself trust her.
Her skin crawled as Colton reached for her, and she stepped back, unaware of the way her body stiffened as if it was ready to be attacked.
But before he could touch her, Nik had placed himself between them, pushing Daria behind him. “I don’t believe she wants to talk to you,” Nik said coldly.
Daria was stunned that Nik would get himself involved. But she also knew how he hated scenes like this, and she tugged on the back of his jacket, pleading, “Nik, I can handle this—”
In front of them, Colton was red-faced. “Who the hell do you think you are, man? That’s my ex-girlfriend—”
“And she’s my mistress.”
Colton stared. “What the fuck?” His jaw took on an aggressive slant. “That means she’s better off with me.” He moved as if to shove Nik off, but he had only lifted his hands when Nik’s security team came down on him in full force, preventing him from reaching Nik.
Even as Colton shouted invectives at him, Nik acted as if he didn’t hear a thing, turning to Daria and asking levelly, “Now, may we please go back to the apartment?”
She could only nod, her heart hammering against her chest. She knew that Nik’s ominously quiet tone meant he was doing everything to keep his rage in check.
And she was right.
As soon as they were back inside her apartment, she said quickly, desperately, “Nik, I’m sorry—” Her voice broke off as Nik whirled around to face her, the furious disgust in his eyes making her flinch.
“Sorry for what?” he demanded icily. “You don’t have to say sorry. Unlike some other people, I can admit when I make a mistake.”
And the way he looked at her, Daria thought numbly, it was obvious to see that she was the mistake.
Wetting her lips, she tried to reason with him. “That man—”
“Is Colton, the one you had a relationship with before me,” he finished harshly, and he released a humorless laugh at the shock on Daria’s face. “I know everything about you. Every god-awful thing, and that’s why I despise myself for still wanting you, knowing how you are.” He remembered the report he had read on her, remembered all the insanely crude assertions her ex-lovers had made about Daria’s sexual expertise, and he knew that there wasn’t anything in the world powerful enough to delete them from his memory.
“Why do you have to be such a goddamn whore?” Nik asked hoarsely. “Tell me,” he roared.
Daria wanted to sink to her knees at the pain in Nik’s voice. “Nik, please…” She couldn’t hate him for saying such words. How could she when she saw in his eyes that he loved her even while saying them?
“Is it a sickness?” he charged violently. “Is it because of how you were raised? Like mother, like daughter—”
She slapped him hard. “Don’t.” She loved him, she would have accepted whatever he said about her because she had lied, but she couldn’t let him get away with that. “Don’t you dare say anything about my mother. Don’t you—”
But cruelty, fed by pain and despair, had already taken a hold of Nik, and there was no stopping the other vicious words that poured out of him. “Why the fuck not?” he demanded. “Because the truth hurts?”
“You don’t have a right—”
“Your mother WAS a whore! You can’t pretend you don’t know the things she does—”
“She did those things for love,” Daria cried out.
“Love? Is that the new fucking word for what cunts do?”
“Bastard!” She tried to slap him again, but this time he caught her arm and used it to haul her towards him. Her body slammed against his, and cupping her chin, he forced her face up and crushed her mouth under his.
She struggled as hard as she could, but Nik’s lips were as punishing as they were seductive. Her body started to betray her even as her heart continued to bleed at Nik’s words.
He pushed her away as soon as she started to kiss him back. As she gazed at him with hurt confusion, he said harshly, “I could get you on your knees and sucking on my cock right now, and you’ll do that because you love me. You have fifty-five fucking billion reasons to love me, don’t you?”
The words hurt, but more than that, they were words she didn’t deserve. Daria waited for the anger to consume her, but there was none. She felt so empty, so tired. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why do you keep being cruel?”
“Because you’re a cunt and I’m tired of hearing your lies.” He remembered Miranda’s words about Daria saying she had her following him like a dog, and goddammit, wasn’t that the fucking truth?
Even now, even after seeing another one of her damn lovers look at her like she was a slut for the taking, he wanted her back. Even now, he loved her more than he hated her, and that was the fucking reason why he had to do this now.
He had done it with Iolanthe, and Daria wasn’t even
a fraction as nice as the other girl. He had survived that and given time, he would survive this, too. He would learn to forget. He would learn how not to feel again.
Nik walked towards the suitcase one of his bodyguards had brought in from the hallway earlier. “You said you wanted to leave, right?” He kicked the suitcase towards the door. “So leave.”
Daria couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But you know that’s empty—”
Nik opened the door for her. “Go.”
She shook her head wildly. “Didn’t you hear me?” Her voice shook. “I said it’s empty! You know I was pretending!”
But Nik only looked at her with expressionless dark eyes.
It was over, it was really over, she thought.
But she couldn’t make herself accept it.
“Nik, please.” And before she knew it, she was saying the words that she knew she should never say. “Nik, I love—”
Hatred blazed in his eyes. “If I want someone to love me,” he snarled, “I have a fucking fiancée to do that. So get it in your head – you’re just a cunt, and I don’t even want that now so will you fucking GO before I get security to toss you out?”
There was no gracious way out now. The only gracious thing she could do was not to cry. She walked past Nik and all she could think of was she shouldn’t cry because even now, even after all he had done and said, she still didn’t think she deserved to cry.
She heard Nik slam the door shut behind her. Don’t cry.
She felt everyone’s eyes on her and knew that they all heard Nik’s last words. Don’t cry.
She chose the fire exit over the elevator, and as she ran down flight after flight of stairs, all she could think about was how she deserved this. She loved to flirt, and that was bad. She fell in love too quickly, and that was bad. She lied to Nik out of fear, and that was bad.
She was bad, so she didn’t deserve to cry.
She reached the lobby, only realizing then that she didn’t have anything on her. She called collect to Yanna, knowing it would be useless to call Magnolia. “Yanna, it’s me.”
