Chapter 22

Demi

I pinched myself. It had to be a dream, Barrett standing red-faced in the middle of my apartment, spewing furious hatred at me for lying to him. I’d been pleasantly surprised when he arrived early, especially since I was just about to text him my address before I heard the knock on the door. My surprise, however, quickly turned to shock at his reaction.

Barrett was ranting at me, not giving me the chance to get a word in edgewise. The guard that I’d kept in place around people for so long, but hadn’t had up with him, slid into place. At first, I’d thought maybe he was worried about my neighborhood for my safety. But this wasn’t that.

He was judging me and calling me a liar to boot. A cold, disbelieving laugh echoed around the room when he brought up the diner.

“Enough.” My voice was low, but he heard me. Those eyes, the ones I could stare into for hours and get lost in, were icy and hard when they met mine. “Yes, I worked at the diner because I needed the money.”

Barrett scoffed and shook his head, his eyes like lasers on mine. “That’s what I thought.”

He started going for the door, but I stepped in his way. His shoulders locked but he stood still.

“I never told you otherwise, Barrett. I didn’t lie to you.”

“You call this not lying?” He motioned around my apartment again. “You made me believe that you had money. That you weren’t only after my money.”

“I’m not!” I was shaking like a leaf, but I couldn’t give up. I had to make him understand. “It’s never been about your money, Barrett. I mean, yeah, I took the modeling job to help my parents with their medical bills. But us, what’s happening between us, that has nothing to do with money.”

There. That explained things. I expected him to open his arms to me and to defrost. To have some empathy when he pieced together the situation. Instead, he only got more closed off.

“You betrayed me, Demi,” he thundered, his posture hard as a rock as his teeth ground together.

“What? How is wanting to help my parents betraying you?” I was genuinely confused at this point. His reaction made no sense.

“I trusted you. I let you in. And all this time, you were doing nothing but playing the long con.” His tone made shudders run through my body, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice over my head.

“The what?” I breathed.

Things were starting to make sense somewhere in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t figure it out just yet. Not when he was looking at me like I was Hitler wrapped up in Stalin cheering for a terrorist.

“What did you think, huh? Did you think you could trick me into marrying you? That I would give you access to the money to revive you family’s fortunes?” His voice was dangerously low as he glowered at me. “Surprise, Demi. That was never going to fucking happen. I refuse to be played by gold diggers like you.”

I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d slapped me. No, not even that. If he’d punched me. “What?”

“You heard me. Your little plan failed. Did you really think you would get away with it?” His brows knitted together, and his fists clenched at his sides, veins protruding from his hands and forearms. “Do you really think I’m that fucking stupid?”

“No, of course not, I—”

“You’re what?” he taunted. “What could you possibly say that you think will mess with my head? I caught up to your little game, and I’m not getting sucked back in by any more lies.”

“I’m not lying!” I protested, reaching for his hands. If he would just let me touch him, if he would just calm down, I could explain things to him. We could work through it, then he could explain to me why he was as angry as a hornet who’d been stung himself.

Barrett, however, would have none of it. He stepped out of my reach, a look of disgust on his face. “Don’t touch me, Demi. Never touch me again. I was a fool to let you do it in the first place.”

“Barrett, if you’ll just sit, I can—”

“No, don’t you get it? You’re done making a fool of me. I mean, is your father even in hospital?” My heart froze at his words, that he would even think that after everything we’d shared. “Or was that a part of your plan to trick me?”

“Are you seriously asking me that right now?”

He couldn’t be. Not after everything, yet he nodded.

“Yes, I’m seriously asking you that. Did you think the whole making me sympathize with you thing was going to draw me in deeper? That it would make me want to protect you or care for you or something?”

“No, I would never—”

“You know, I don’t want to hear it, actually. I’m sure you’ve got a thousand explanations planned, and a lie for every question I could ask.” He sneered at me. “You know what? I was right when I said you were something different. I was just wrong about the context. You’re the most beautiful and most treacherous gold digger I’ve ever fucking met. You’ve really perfected the game.”

Then, he stepped around me and stormed out, refusing to listen to one single word I had to say.

He barreled through my door, practically running away from me. He didn’t look back as he made for his black SUV parked in front of my building. Rushing after him, I called out his name but he ignored me.

Barrett yanked open the door, and I heard him firing off a command to the driver seated next to him. “Go, just fucking go. Get me the hell away from her.”

The door slammed shut as the tires of the SUV spun in the driver’s haste to do exactly as Barrett had told him to.

Standing in the middle of the street, I gaped after his fast-retreating car, feeling as if a piece of my heart was being ripped from my chest with every inch of distance that he put between us. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the events of the last few minutes.

What the hell just happened?

My mind was in a haze as I walked back to my apartment, making sure to lock the security gate and door behind me on autopilot. Barrett was gone, and something told me that he wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t going to get halfway back to his life and then turn around to let me explain.

The man I was irrevocably and completely in love with had stormed out of my life without so much as one single look back, taking my heart with him. Devastating loss bled from every fiber of my being as the reality of my situation started sinking in.

Bone-crushing grief swept through me so acutely that I collapsed onto my couch as I realized that he was gone. The memory of the searing pain in his eyes before he stormed out did me in. Sobs wracked my body as I replayed my memories of him.

The surprise in his eyes when he’d first looked into mine that day at the diner. His cocky confidence when he made me the offer that I didn’t want, and the way he hadn’t taken no for an answer.

The first time I’d realized there was more to him that night at dinner when he started talking about Nancie. His gentle encouragement at my first shoot, molding me into the cover page model that I’d become. The way he’d calmed down from my touch over dinner with Scott, and all the sweet moments with Nancie.

I refused to let myself think of the times we’d been intimate, but my mind went there anyway. Not only to the sensations he’d caused in my body, but the way he’d looked at me while he’d been doing it. The way he way he made me feel worshiped and adored, like he’d never seen anyone more beautiful, despite the fact that he was surrounded by perfection.

It was all too much for me. I cried until the sun had long since set, until even my neighborhood became quiet. It wasn’t until passing headlights lit up my tiny living room that I realized I hadn’t even bothered to turn on any lights.

I didn’t bother to, either. Navigating my apartment in the dark wasn’t hard. My bed was calling to me, though I had no doubt that I wouldn’t be getting a single wink of sleep. Not with the gaping hole of excruciating pain in my chest that burned all the way to my soul.