Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 42185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 211(@200wpm)___ 169(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 211(@200wpm)___ 169(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Even the way he admitted his darkness to me, his difficult past, feels fake now.
I bet he tells those sob stories to every girl he fucks. I bet he brings them all back into his amazing bedroom full of priceless art, impresses the hell out of them, and then uses them up.
I’m just another in a long line of suckers.
I curl into a ball, ready to disappear. I don’t want to die but I wish I didn’t exist right now. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up in a couple of months when the sting of this isn’t so bad and the embarrassment is faded.
Faded, but not gone. I don’t think it’ll ever be gone.
I spend the morning like that, catatonic on the couch. I just keep thinking about my time with Mason, and I can’t understand what kind of animal would do all those things, say all those things, only to throw me away like trash.
He didn’t even have the decency to fire me himself. He had his friend do it. I wonder if Declan always does Mason’s dirty work.
I can feel my skin crawling. I hide my face away under the blankets but that doesn’t help. I’m a mess, a failure, an idiot. I don’t know why I ever walked into his office and thought that I could be a part of his world.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut from the beginning. I could’ve just worked for him quietly, did everything he asked. I didn’t have to engage him, let him be my Daddy, dive deep into his world.
Get attached to him.
Fall in love with him.
The thought of that stings so bad.
There’s a knock at my door at some point. It pulls me from the abyss I’m dropping deeper into. I groan and ignore it, but the knocking turns into pounding, and someone’s saying my name.
I slowly get up. “What do you want?” I call back angrily. “Go away.”
“Hazel,” the voice calls out again. Slowly, recognition blossoms. “Hazel, please open up.”
I walk to the door and pull it open. Rogers stares back at me.
“You look like crap,” he says, smiling a little.
“What the hell do you want?” I snap. “Did he send you to take back everything he gave me, too?”
Rogers sighs and shakes his head. “Nothing like that. Please, let me inside and we’ll speak.”
“No. I don’t want anything to do with you people anymore.”
“Hazel. You don’t understand the situation. We can’t speak of it out here, so please, let me inside.”
I hesitate, but grudgingly step aside. Rogers walks into my living room, somehow making it seem shabby despite being recently renovated and completely modern. He turns to me as I shut the front door.
“Mason sent me here,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“He wants you to come back, Hazel.”
I stare at him. “Why?” I repeat. “Declan fired me. I’m sure Mason knew all about it.”
“No, he didn’t,” Rogers says softly. “Declan is going off on his own now, and things are about to get chaotic at the company. You’re just an innocent victim of Declan.”
Hope slowly blossoms, but I try to keep it at bay. “What are you saying?”
“Mason didn’t want you to be fired, that was all Declan’s doing. He fired you to hurt Mason, because he knows how important you are to him.”
I cross my arms. “I don’t know if I believe you,” I say.
“Hazel, listen to me.” Rogers steps closer, speaking softly. “I’ve been with Mason for a long time now. He’s a good man, but he’s… flawed. Things have happened in his past that have pushed him into his current position. But you’re starting to wake him up again.”
I frown a little at that. “Wake him up?”
“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Rogers says, laughing. “At least not since the accident. When you’re around, he’s just… brighter. Before, it was all darkness and gloom and doom. He was so disconnected from the world that I’m pretty sure I was the only thing keeping him around at all. Now, though, ever since you came into his life, he cares again. He’s starting to come back.”
“Is this real?” I ask him, feeling stupid all over again, but stupid for another reason.
Stupid for doubting Mason.
“It’s real,” Rogers says softly. “Please, come back to the tower with me. You can speak to Mason yourself.”
I hesitate. It’s only been a few hours, but in that time, I feel like I’ve fallen into a deep hole in the ground. I’m afraid that if I go back with Rogers, and it turns out that Mason doesn’t actually want me, I’ll be destroyed forever.
It’s possible. I can’t pretend like it isn’t.
And yet I want to go with him. I want to go so badly it hurts.
He smiles and holds out his hand. “Trust me, Hazel,” he says. “You’re going to want to come with me.”