Chapter 6
Gemma
10 min #fi
I stare at the screen.
“What’s the matter?” Zina asks. “Is making money too tough for you? Are you hoping Cassian will toss a few billion your way after the divorce so you can sit on your ass and eat bonbons all day
forever?”
I am not expecting that. Not by any means. Let Cassian keep his billions, his ruthless reputation, and all his terrifying power. I just want to cut ties with the entire underworld so my heart can heal.
Going to work for Adrian is not cutting ties to Smokewind or to the mafia…but it might give me a way to get revenge. Do I want that
more?
I’m suddenly exhausted. If things were normal, I would be
surprising Cassian with our anniversary dinner right now.
Instead, I’m here, my phone is off, and I’ll never celebrate another
thing with him again.
I set her laptop on the kitchen table and stand. “Let me sleep on it,” I say. “I’ll have your answer tomorrow.”
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Zina Jumps up and helps me get the extra bedroom in her apartment set up. I’m so tired, I fall asleep in no time, even though
It’s barely seven o’clock at night.
But that just gives me the entire night to have nightmares.
I dream of such terrible things, sometimes…when I’m not having other dreams of Cassian. Often, I can’t even say what they’re
about. They hold people and places I’ve never seen.
They almost always involve Cassian and horrible things happening to him.
Even as much pain as he’s caused me, what happens to him in
those dreams terrifies me.
But tonight, the dreams are about the past. The
father Way my
died…and my mother losing her mind right in front of me. Her cutting herself and trying to down a whole bottle of pills…
I scream and wake up in a cold sweat. My heart pounds in my chest. I reach for Cassian–feeling like he should be there, even though he never has been.
I just want to touch his warm strength. I want to feel safe.
He isn’t there. It takes me a full minute to remember that I’m at
Zina’s, and that Cassian and I are getting divorced. That I want to
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get divorced, because he loves Reyna, and he’ll never love me.
I look at the clock. It’s barely past eight PM. I groan, because I know I probably won’t get the sleep tonight that I need.
I lay back down anyway, roll over, and tell myself that it’s useless
to cry.
TWO WEEKS LATER
I’m jolted awake by a furious pounding on the door. I yawn and get
- up.
These last two weeks have passed in a fog that I’m just now
coming out of.
If I hoped Cassian would come find me, that hope shattered after
the first few days.
Now I just want to figure out my life again.
When I walk out into the kitchen, I can see Zina’s purse is gone.
She keeps weird hours and goes out at night all the time. I assume
she’s forgotten her keys, so I go to the door and pull it open, even
though I’m not wearing anything but a black camisole nightgown.
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It isn’t Zina. It’s Cassian.
He showed up after all.
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“Cassian?” My spine straightens, my drowsiness vanishes, and as much as I hate myself for it, a rush of hope surges through me. Is he here to fight for me? “Why are you here?”
The air shifts, carrying his amazing, wild scent to me. Like a
summer night in a pine forest. Except…it’s mixed with something
else.
Is that…perfume?
“Leave Blackwell Industries out of your little emotional outbursts,” Cassian snarls. “Telling people I have a secret wife? Is that funny to you?”
“You do have a wife,” I say bitterly.
Until you sign those papers. Then I realize what he’s saying, and
I want to smack myself in the forehead. And smack him, just in
general.
“Holy shit, Cassian. You waited two weeks to come at me about
this?”
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So. That’s why he’s here, because he’s pissed about my prank,
and he’s been stewing about it this whole time. He probably just now came from the office, smelling like that. I would bet a billion
dollars it’s Reyna’s perfume I smell.
My heart shatters again, and it hurts worse than ever before.
That’s all hope is good for, creating more and more pain every
time it’s broken.
He didn’t even mention the divorce papers, which makes leaving them behind for him suddenly seem like a childish gesture.
I take a deep breath and try to make myself be cold when I meet his eyes. “I’m still your wife–legally. I’m entitled to half our marital
properties until a judge tells me I’m not. That includes Blackwell
Industries. If you don’t want me to involve it in…what did you call
it? My ‘emotional outbursts?..then sign the ”
Before I can finish, Cassian grabs me roughly by the waist and pulls my body against his.
B
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