Chapter 71 Chapter Seventy
ARA
When I woke up, Thayne was gone.
The sheets beside me were cold, the pillow still dented where his head had been.
The room smelled like sex and whiskey and him.
My thighs ached, and my lips were swollen. My body felt used in the best and worst way.
I sat up slowly, wincing at the soreness between my legs.
I pressed my palms to my eyes until I saw stars.
Thayne had fucked me like the world was ending.
Like I was the only thing keeping him alive.
Like I belonged to him in ways that went deeper than memory.
And then, in his sleep, he’d whispered my real name.
Arayna.
Not ‘little lamb’.
My name.
For one heartbeat I’d let myself hope. I’d let myself believe the man who’d roared my name while he came inside me three times had remembered.
But the bed was empty now. And the silence felt like punishment. I wrapped the sheet around my naked body and padded to the bathroom.
My reflection made me flinch. My hair was wild, my lips swollen and bruised, my neck marked with his teeth. My eyes were red from crying and coming and crying again.
I looked like I’d been claimed. I looked like I’d been wrecked. I looked like his.
The door opened behind me, and I turned, heart in my throat, expecting Thayne.
It was Madison.
She stood behind the door, wearing a silk robe the colour of fresh cream, hair perfect, face perfect, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.
Her eyes took me in slowly, from my tangled hair to the sheet clutched to my chest, to the bruises blooming on my thighs.
Then her gaze flicked to the bed, the ruined clothes, the empty whiskey bottle on the nightstand.
Her smile widened.
“Good morning, Ara,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet. “Sleep well?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
She stepped inside, closing the door softly behind her.
Her heels clicked across the floor like countdown ticks.
She stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell her perfume, the same one that now lived in my nightmares.
“You really are persistent, aren’t you?” she murmured, tilting her head. “Climbing back into his bed the second I turn my back. Screwing him while he’s drunk and vulnerable. Classy.”
My cheeks burned. I lifted my chin. “Get out.”
Madison laughed, a soft and musical sound that burned instead of soothed.
“Oh, honey. This is my house now.”
She reached out and flicked the sheet where it gaped at my chest. “And that,” she nodded toward the bed, “was a mistake.”
She leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.
“He woke up an hour ago. And asked me who the woman in his bed was. Can you guess what I told him?” She asked, smiling wide.
I pressed the sheets tightly to my chest, not willing to show my reaction.
“I told him you were a clingy one-night stand who wouldn’t leave. I told him you were homeless, and that he'd agreed to let you and your brat sisters stay because you were kicked out by your landlord. I also told him he asked you to move out last week and you refused to.”
My stomach bottomed out.
She paused, letting it all sink in.
“And he believed me.” She finished.
The air left my lungs in one painful rush.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Madison straightened, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her robe.
“He looked disgusted, Ara. Actually disgusted. Said he couldn’t believe he’d let someone like you anywhere near him.”
She tilted her head, mock sympathy dripping from every syllable.
“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pack your sad little bag, take your sisters, and disappear before he comes out of that shower. Because if he sees you again, he’s going to have security throw you out like the trash you are.”
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper.
“And just in case you get any ideas about telling him the truth? Every photo, every video, every trace of you two together is already gone. I made sure of it. There’s no proof you were ever anything more than a charity case he forgot the second he woke up.”
She reached out and patted my cheek, hard enough to sting.
“Run along now, slum girl.”
Then she turned and walked out, humming under her breath, the door clicking shut behind her like the final nail in my coffin.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind Madison, something inside me snapped, clean, sharp, final.
There were no tears. I didn't have any energy to cry over someone like Madison.
There was only cold, clear certainty.
I had minutes, maybe less, before Thayne stepped out of that shower.
Minutes before Madison’s poison finished its work and he looked at me like I was a stranger who’d crawled into his bed uninvited.
I wasn’t going to give her that victory.
I dropped the sheet and ran.
Bare feet on cold marble, bruises blooming on my hips and thighs, hair wild down my back, I didn’t care.
I stumbled, but I didn’t fall.
My bare feet slapped the marble as I bolted toward Thayne’s private meeting suite, Madison’s words were still ringing in my ears, every syllable a fresh cut, but I didn’t have time to bleed.
I needed that photocopy of the contract form Thayne had forced me to sign the day after I arrived at the penthouse.
The one with both our signatures. The one that proved I wasn’t a liar, that I wasn’t a charity case or some homeless bootycall who’d tricked her way into his bed.
That was my only weapon against Madison at this point.
I rounded the corner too fast, my shoulder slamming into the wall.
Pain exploded down my arm, hot and bright, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
Not now.
Not when everything was slipping through my fingers like smoke.
The suite door was cracked open, a thin slice of light cutting across the dark hallway.
Madison stepped out.
She shut the door behind her with that soft, deliberate click that sounded like a coffin closing. Then she turned, saw me, and smiled.
Not the polite little curve she wore for cameras.
It was real smile. Wide, sharp, victorious.
The kind of smile a shark gives right before it bites.
My stomach dropped so hard I almost doubled over.
She lifted one hand, slow and theatrical, and smoothed her perfect hair.
The other hand held a thick brown envelope which dangled from her fingers like a trophy.
“Well,” she said, voice dripping honey over broken glass. “That was easier than I thought.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had sealed itself shut.
She took one step toward me, then another, heels clicking like a countdown.
Then she opened the envelope and pulled out the contract.
The original copy. The one I’d come here to find.
She held it up between two fingers, letting me see every page.
My heartbeat was so loud I was sure she could hear it.
And then, before I could even breathe, she tore it. Once.
Twice.
Again and again, slowly, deliberately, her eyes locked on mine the entire time.
Paper fluttered to the floor like snow between us. She didn’t stop until it was nothing but confetti at her feet.
My knees almost gave out.
Madison tilted her head, her smile never wavering.
“Oops,” she whispered.
Then she stepped over the shredded pieces like they were nothing.
Like my entire life was nothing.
And walked away.