Read episode 16 here: http://bit.ly/allureserial
You could tell yourself something over and over, that didn’t mean it would end up being true. Intentions could sometimes turn out to be eerily prophetic—or they could be a harbinger of utter failure.
How many people set out with determination only to end up crashing and burning in the end?
I could tell myself I’d find a way to keep my girlfriend all I wanted, that still remained to be seen.
Expecting her to deal with one psychotic ex-lover? That was one thing.
Expecting her to deal with multiple? That’s where shit would get way too complicated.
And it was coming for us. I just didn’t know it until it was too late.
Demitra never brought up the supermarket incident weeks ago, where one of them cornered me in an aisle to question me about the rumors going around about me. The same ones that were indeed true.
Was I taken? Beyond a doubt.
How did the wagging tongues find out? Easy. I stopped fucking all the women I used to fuck on a constant basis.
God, what a toxic world we lived in.
“Look at him,” Luke said next to me, nodding toward Demitra’s laughing, at-ease father across the room. “Acting like his wife isn’t about to take everything from him in the divorce.”
Stephen and his behavior was the last thing I wanted to focus on; I was still busy trying to catch sight of his daughter.
Who couldn’t attend this gala with me, and had to arrive separately from me.
Fucking idiot. I should’ve just outed us here. Convinced her to walk in on my arm. “That’s exactly why he’s acting like everything is okay.” I spotted a brunette at one of the many entrances, but knew almost instantly it wasn’t her. “He’s trying to solidify his connections for the rebuilding phase.”
Lucas scoffed, that sardonic smirk he was known for etched on his face—to anyone on the outside, he looked like his usual, contemptuous self. The man that only graced these events because he had to, not because he gave a damn about anyone present.
Sadly for him, I knew him. I knew him way too well. And the few times I did glance over at him, it wasn’t lost on me how his hazel gaze bounced over the people in attendance.
Another hunter searching desperately for his prey.
Prey that I’d given up warning him away from.
I was exhausted with my own problems.
If he couldn’t keep his hands off Angelina, there was nothing I could do. Let Calum fight that battle. I had to focus on my own.
“There’ll be no rebuilding phase for him. At least no time soon. It’s not the cheating, you know? Fucking common. But that pre-nup . . . Hell, even I’d be faithful if I didn’t have shit to my name and my fiancé made me sign a savage, iron-clad pre-nup like that. I’m telling you, by the time we get back, this is going to be all over the gossip columns. Demitra’s mother is ruthless when needed. That’s a stubborn, dead-man walking right there, unless he has a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment and signs that divorce.”
Did not need the reminder of Antonia’s ruthlessness, when I was convinced her daughter could be capable of the same.
Definitely didn’t need to entertain the idea of Stephen’s scandal becoming news . . . Followed by Demi and I going public with our relationship.
The scrutiny Demi would be under was unfair. The pressure. The scathing opinions of people that shouldn’t matter one fucking bit, but that held prominent positions in our social circles simply because of who they were.
Or who they were married to.
How many of those wives had I fucked on the side, before they got married to their husbands?
How many of them did I do with Monica during our wild bullshit?
A cold shudder almost ripped down my spine as I tried to count—as I imagined Demitra having to swallow that poisonous knowledge.