by Sam Mariano
For all the sounds coming out of his mouth, he’s not saying much of anything.
“What was your intention?” I demand.
For what seems like a million moments, he doesn’t answer me. He avoids my gaze and I want to tell him he’s a coward, but I’m too afraid he has a Hail Mary up his sleeve. I know it’s absolutely hopeless, but some small part of me wants the next words out of his mouth to be an awful confession, followed up by a change of heart. He didn’t intend for any of this to happen… but it has, and he does have feelings for me, and he’s not about to shut me out. I don’t need things to make sense right now; I just need it to stop feeling like the beautiful thing I want to build with him is already crashing down all around me.
His tone is subdued when he finally speaks, like he’s reading a grocery list. I tell myself he had to remove himself emotionally because what he’s about to say is so horrible, but maybe he’s just a fucking sociopath and I’ve been wearing blinders these few days.
“Rafe liked you, but you lost his interest when you told him you were pregnant. You weren’t going to get it back. It wasn’t your fault, it was nothing you’d done, it wasn’t even because you were wrong for him, it’s because you came bundled with the last thing in the world he wanted to deal with. He needed something to wake him up, to get him to look at you again and see what’s really there. Not to look at you and see a problem, a pregnancy he doesn’t want, but to see you and your value. The fastest and most effective way to do it was to make you something he couldn’t have. To take you off the table, make you something he missed out on. He had to lose you to see you were worth hanging onto, and… well, if you caught my interest, that would catch his attention even if you’d never been his. I don’t get romantically involved with women. If a vegetarian gave it all up to taste a single steak, wouldn’t you wonder what’s so damn great about that piece of meat?”
It takes me a minute to sift through all this information, to distill it until I have a concise summary. I want to believe I’m getting it wrong, or that he’s lying, but right now he’s telling me the realest thing I have ever felt has been complete and utter bullshit right from the start, and I don’t know how to digest that.
“You’ve been playing me. Like my life is a game. Like my feelings are…” I shake my head, unable to even grasp at a word to adequately express my horror. “This was all playacting for you?”
“I wasn’t playacting, Laurel. I just didn’t give you all the facts.”
“You’re a monster,” I state, staring him straight in the eye. “You’re a monster.”
Whatever part of him was still open to me, that still wanted to take the sting out of this, it shutters as soon as I say that. Even his tone is colder as he pulls back the blanket and pushes his legs over his side of the bed. “I fucking kidnapped you, Laurel; did you expect me to be a good guy?”
“There’s not being a good guy and then there’s this,” I tell him, throwing my legs over my side of the bed and climbing off. My legs don’t feel completely up to the job of holding me up, but I shakily make my way across the floor to grab my panties. I flush with mortification as I pick them up now, knowing what I know, still feeling the evidence of our intimacy between my legs.
Oh, my God.
“How could you—I did things with you that—” I shake my head, my stomach rolling. “We almost had sex. You would have fucked me when you didn’t give half a damn? When you were just, what, babysitting me until Rafe came around? What if he never did, huh? You were feeding me all this bullshit, trying to convince me to keep a pregnancy you knew I didn’t want, making me think… making me think stupid fucking thoughts, and you were just manipulating me! You didn’t mean any of it. You pushed me into making huge, important life decisions—” I stop, remembering him saying just yesterday that maybe he was already making my decisions for me.
When I turn to look at him, he has pulled on sweats. I’m glad. As much as I enjoyed the sight of him naked ten minutes ago, just looking at any part of him right now feels like someone is thrusting a flaming sword right through my lungs.
“I’m a fool,” I finally surmise.
“You’re not a fool,” he states, shortly. “You’re young. You’re open. You’re not used to being around people like us.”
I shake my head slowly, those words weighing on me like they never have before. “If this is what being one of you means, I never want to be.”
“That’s fine,” he mutters. “Be better. Be whatever you want. Say what you will about my methods, they worked. Four days ago Rafe never wanted to see you again, now he’s bending over backward to win back your affection. Hate me all you want right now; you’ll be grateful when you’re dancing at your wedding.”
“Fuck you,” I fling back.
Because he’s a miserable fucking bastard, he cocks an eyebrow and gives me a mean little smile. “No, that’s one thing you won’t get to do. Sorry.”
That’s so cruel, it knocks the wind right out of me. I look around for something to throw at him. I find a lamp, so I rip it out of the wall and lob it at him.
“What the fuck?” he mutters, ducking just in time for it to go sailing past him. The damn thing doesn’t even shatter; it just hits the carpeted floor with a dull thud.
I grab the nude heels on my feet one at a time and throw them at him next. I miss him the first time, but as he dodges the flying objects, he also heads toward me. I hit him with the second shoe because he’s at such close range, but he doesn’t even seem fazed. He walks straight at me, catching me by the wrists and forcing me back against the wall.
“Stop that shit right now,” he commands.
“I hate you,” I tell him, narrowing my eyes.
“Good,” he murmurs. “That’ll make it easier.”
I’m so full of hatred and hurt, I can scarcely breathe, but my body hasn’t caught up. Being cornered by him like this, my back against the wall, his strong hands like vices around my wrists… fuck, I still want him. I’m a fool, and I’m furious at myself for it, but I couldn’t turn him away if he wavered right now. If this closeness felt like something to him too, if he changed his mind, backed down from this stupid idea. If he told me to be his right now, I still would.
I’ve already bet my last chip, so I borrow just enough to meet his gaze and tell him, “I don’t want to be his.”
Sin holds my gaze, but his poker face doesn’t budge. “You’ve always been his,” he tells me, quietly. “Why do you think I haven’t fucked you, Laurel? Because it will be easier for him. Because when he grills you about our time together, now you can tell him I was never inside you and you won’t be lying.”
Somehow, that’s the worst thing he’s said to me yet. Doesn’t he know he was already inside me? I just told him. Maybe not physically, but he slithered inside my heart, and now he’s coiled around it, wringing every last drop of happiness from that disgraceful organ. I fight to break his grip, and he lets me because he thinks I’m going to move away from him. I am, but before I do, I slap him right across the face.
His jaw locks and my palm stings, but otherwise he doesn’t respond.
I swallow, take a breath, and move away from him. My heart, my pride, my ability to trust—they’re all in tatters, strewn across his bedroom floor, but it doesn’t matter. Before I humiliate myself by crying in front of him again, I cross the room, step into my panties, and slip my feet into the little white boots he gave me. Perhaps it’s fitting that there’s nothing left that’s mine on my body, but I won’t stay here long enough to collect my things. Whatever poor bitch left her things in the lair of this heartless beast, I’m sure her shoes are the least of what she’s missing after loving this empty, soulless pit.
I pull my phone out of my purse and try not to fall apart as I summon my escape.
I stiffen when I hear Sin’s voice behind me. “What are you doing?”
I sniffle as quietly as I’m able and clear my throat. “Texting Rafe. Telling him to come back to gather up his wi
nnings,” I state, bitingly.
He doesn’t say anything more.
I don’t really expect him to.
This was his end game anyway, wasn’t it? Let him enjoy his victory for a few minutes. Apparently that means more to him than I did.
I shut myself inside the bathroom and try to rid myself of him. I don’t want to still be able to feel his tongue moving inside me, to feel this heaviness he left in my heart. Most importantly, I guess, I don’t want to see these horrible tear tracks on my puffy, red face, the evidence that I’m a girl dumb enough to offer her heart to a monster who never had any interest in it.
I am startled to find him in the hall outside the door waiting for me, but my fight or flight senses are too numb right now, so I don’t show it.
“I’m leaving,” I say, needlessly. “I told Rafe I’d be waiting outside. Don’t follow me.”
Not that he would anyway, but at least he nods instead of telling me that.
Shoving my purse strap on my shoulder, I pull myself up tall and walk down the stairs for the last time. I hear him fiddling with the alarm behind me as I approach the front door, and it makes me unexpectedly sad. The sound of him disarming his alarm means he had already locked up for the night; it means he had no intention for this to happen—not yet, at least. It means I could have had one more night curled up in his arms, oblivious to my own insignificance.
I get the door shut before I start sobbing, but just barely. Since I’m outside now, I don’t have to keep it in; I can let the pain out. There’s no one around to see my breath hitching, to hear me struggle to breathe because I’m crying so hard.
Thank God there are no witnesses to this.
I don’t stop at the end of Sin’s driveway. I keep walking until I’m a couple houses down, and that’s right about when the white sedan coasts to a stop on the road beside me. I use the palms of my hands to scrub away my tears, take a deep breath, and pull my shit together so I can open the back door.
A friendly-looking kid a little older than me peers back, smiling until he sees the state I’m in. A little more awkwardly than he probably would have if not for my being a complete shit show right now, he says, “Uh, Laurel Price?”
I nod my head, clearing my throat and climbing in the car. “Yes, that’s me. Sorry.”
“No problem,” he says, forcing a smile. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, closing the door.
The kid nods and checks his rearview mirror. Even though I shouldn’t, I’m feeling a little paranoid. It’s not like Sin would watch out the window to make sure Rafe picked me up—he had no reason to believe I was lying to him, and since he doesn’t give a fuck about me, he wouldn’t do it out of some sentimental desire to have one last look.
Well, he also doesn’t think it was his last look. He thinks his awful plan worked, that I’ve won Rafe’s attention, and now that Sin has rejected me, I will slink back into Rafe’s arms, seeking the comfort he would happily offer after the lovely day we had.
I don’t think so, asshole.
I’m not a fucking hot potato; you don’t get to pass me around when you’re done with me.
“Can we get moving?” I ask my Uber driver.
He nods, shifting his car out of park and touching the gas so we finally start rolling down the road, away from Sin’s house. “Of course. Heading to the airport, right?”
I reach for my seatbelt, stretching it across my body. As it clicks, I say, “Yes, that’s right.”
It’s quiet for a few minutes, then my driver tries to make small talk. Asks if this was my first time in Vegas. Light-heartedly tells me how he hopes I didn’t get caught up in the fun and gamble more than I could afford.
Smiling without humor, I tell him, “Unfortunately, I did.”
“Aw, man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”
I shrug, looking out the window. “At least I had the experience, I guess.”
“That’s true,” he says, more than willing to look on the bright side with me. It’s not his loss, after all. “There’s really no other place like Vegas, is there?”
“God, I hope not,” I mutter.
He laughs a little uneasily, but thankfully seems to accept that the girl with the tearstains on her cheeks probably doesn’t want him to make small talk, so he shuts his friendly mouth and leaves me alone to reflect. To think about the wonderful time I must have had this week, about the real world I have to go back to now, maybe about the consequences I’ll have to face. Whatever monetary loss he imagines, I am envious of the Laurel who lives in his mind. The one who came to Vegas and only lost a little cash.
Money you can recoup. Money you can earn more of. What I’ve lost here comes from a finite well. I may have only spent a few days in this town, but the experiences I’ve had here will leave an imprint on me that I’ll feel much longer than I would a financial loss. Maybe the rest of my life.
So funny how fifteen minutes ago I thought I might stay here. I was so fooled by the hospitality, so swept up in the game; I thought there was a place for me at the table.
What a fool I’ve been. I should have run away from this place at the very first opportunity. The first moment Sin let his guard down enough to let me out in public, I should have excused myself to the restroom and hauled ass out of this place.
I was seduced by Sin. All the sins, every last offering. Even now, still feeling the pain so acutely, I can remember the high. I can remember all I stood to win, how sure I was that I would have it all—right before the ball landed in the wrong slot and all my chips were raked off the table.
The problem with gambling is that the longer you play, the greater the likelihood you’ll lose. I may not like the feeling of being a temporary player in their high stakes world, I may have fallen for the flash and bet far more than I could afford to lose, but there’s one thing I know.
Even if you’ve lost all you came with, the only way you win is to walk away from the table. The house has deep pockets, and if you keep trying to recoup your losses, you’ll end up so deep in the hole you’ll never be able to dig your way out.
I came, I played, and I lost; now it’s time to cash in, go home, and dig myself out of the hole while I still can.
Rafe, Laurel and Sin’s story continues in Sinning in Vegas, available for pre-order now!
If you can’t wait for more Morelli madness and you haven’t already read the original series, you can start Mateo and Mia’s story in Accidental Witness! Theirs is a wild, epic ride—but what else can you expect when you fall for the villain? ;)
Sinning in Vegas *Pre-order*
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2pUEC2k
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Accidental Witness (Morelli Family, #1)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2hUyVk2
Amazon UK: My Book
Amazon CA: My Book
Amazon AU: My Book
About the Author
Sam Mariano loves to write edgy, twisty reads with complicated characters you’re left thinking about long after you turn the last page. Her favorite thing about indie publishing is the ability to play by your own rules! If she isn’t reading one of the thousands of books on her to-read list, writing her next book, or playing with her adorable preschooler… actually, that’s about all she has time for these days.
Feel free to find Sam on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, or her blog—she loves hearing from readers! She’s also available on Instagram now @sammarianobooks, and you can sign up for her totally-not-spammy newsletter HERE
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