CHAPTER 2

A month earlier…

 Sleep abandoned me as my eyes fluttered open. I rubbed at them gently before easing myself upright on Lana’s bed, and sighed. I missed Mason. God, I missed him so much.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I instinctively brushed them away with the back of my index finger, as though wiping the tears might erase the lingering pain too.

 “He never deserved me,” I squeaked, my voice a few notes higher than usual.

 Lana stirred beside me.

 “Sorry,” I murmured, offering her an apologetic smile when her eyes lifted to mine.

 Lana and I shared a space, we’d always shared everything, ever since we met as freshmen at Oxford University. Every high, every low, every messy in-between. She’d given up a Mayfair luxury house, her mother’s graduation gift, for my modest Bexley apartment—nothing too fancy. A decision that still baffled and irritated me.

“This space is big enough,” She’d insisted back then.

I’d rolled my eyes, imagining the life we could have lived in one of London’s most expensive neighborhood if she’d accepted the damn mansion.

“Still sobbing over the philanderer?” Lana asked, narrowing her eyes at me on a scowl.

I shrugged and moved past her to the bathroom.

 “Robin, it’s been five fucking months. Can you at least try and get over the cheating bastard?”

 She waited for an answer, it never came, then added, “If you’re going to cry, I won’t stop you. I’ve done my best and heavens knows I’ve tried.”

With that, she turned over, leaving me alone beneath the harsh bathroom light. I stared up the ceiling as if it held answers it was deliberately withholding from me. I murmured for what felt like the hundredth time that Mason didn’t deserve me and heaved a sigh.

Yet, I still missed him.

I felt stupid. Gullible. Naïve.

How could I still think of him after everything he did? After the pain he caused me?

I sighed, washed my hands, and headed back to Lana’s bedroom, only to stop dead.

Shit, nature was calling.

I groaned softly. How had I forgotten to pee? Mason had completely hijacked my senses. I retraced my steps, tugged down my knickers, and let it all out; his betrayal and my pathetic self, flushing it all down.

Hopefully, that was it.

Hopefully, he was finally out of my system for good. It was time to live again.

When I returned to the bedroom, Lana was fully awake, sitting cross-legged on her bed.

“Surprisingly, it’s not late at all,” she said dryly. “It’s just two in the morning.”

“I hear the sarcasm,” I said, exhaustion lacing my voice. “It doesn’t suit you. And I already apologised for waking you. I should go to my room now.”

“Don’t go,” she murmured, rummaging through the mountain of papers and quirking her lips up in a pout. “Help me with these.”

“Can’t it wait till morning?”

“Nope. I can’t sleep anymore.”

I didn’t argue. Instead, I climbed onto the bed beside her, helping her sort and grade the chaotic mound of biology practical papers sprawled across the cotton sheets. It took far longer than either of us expected.

By 3:05 a.m., we both gave in to the tiredness. Lana collapsed on her bed. I retreated to my own room.

Just before I slumbered, my phone jumped to life beside me, flashing Mason’s name across the screen.

My eyes bulged out on a gasp, my gaze fixed on the screen, his memories ricocheting as my thoughts tumbled, my breath hitched.

Was I going to allow him back into my life after the gut-wrenching experience?

If I answered the phone, I would be disappointing myself yet again.

I stroked away the tear beneath my eyes, deleted his number and tossed my phone to the side.

Mason was done ruining me!