Chapter 4

AURIELLE

My scream woke the stranger up. He jolted upright and rolled away, falling to a messy heap on the other side of the bed. Instantly, he sat up and his head began to move every which way, as if expecting some kind of threat. When his eyes stopped on me, he relaxed.

"Morning, princess." he offered, his voice rough with sleep.

"Don't call me that, who the hell are you?"

With the energy of the pompous gigolo that he was, he leaned back against the headboard and looked at me coyly. "Surprised you didn't ask me for my name, considering all the requests you made last night."

My brain quickly scrambled backward through last night. He was watching me work through it with an amused look on his face. He was giving me time to arrive at the conclusion myself.

"I ordered you from that website..." I announced, mostly to myself. "Oh, my God, I ordered you from that website!"

"A website?" he asked, but I was already out of bed.

I grabbed my dress from the floor, my panties from the lampshade and turned my back to him, yanking everything on with the efficiency of a woman fleeing a crime scene. Which, arguably, I was.

"You don't have to leave..." he started.

"Here, take your balance!" I snatched my wallet from the nightstand, pulled out every note inside without counting and dropped the stack on the bed beside him.

It was probably too much. I just wanted to get the hell out of there!

"Thank you for your time," I hastily said to him, not looking at his face. I grabbed my bag, my phone, my dignity or what was left of it and walked out of that Airbnb without looking back.

Victor was in our living room when I walked in. The second thing I spotted was the manila envelope on the coffee table.

He pushed the envelope toward me. "Aurielle, sit down."

I didn't listen to him. "What is that?"

"Divorce papers."

I smiled bitterly. "What do you mean by divorce papers?”

"I have never loved you," he replied with a familiar coldness in his voice. "I am in love with Selena. I have always been in love with Selena. That will never change, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try. You disgust me, Aurielle. You always have."

“Haven't you done enough damage to me? You fucking cheater! Now, you want to divorce me?”

I had imagined many versions of this conversation, but none of them had included that word "disgust" said so easily. The words shattered what was left of the love I had for Victor, to tiny pieces.

I swallowed and shifted my weight on my feet. "Well, if you're deciding to do this, I might as well get my company back."

Something that might have been amusement crossed his face. "You mean my company?"

"I seem to remember being the one who established it." I snapped back.

"Oh, stop dreaming, Aurielle. Have you forgotten that everything is mine now? Legally, it is all mine. You signed it over yourself."

With a sinking sense of dread, I remembered how Victor had persuaded me to sign everything I owned over to him. Like a fool, I had trusted him.

"You sick bastard!" Was all I could say to him. "Has this been your plan all along?"

"Look, I have nothing to argue with you. Just check with your lawyer," he said, already rising. "Then sign the papers. Selena will be coming over to the house soon, so I'd advise you to move out immediately or she'll burn your things."

I looked at the papers for a long time, and I contemplated throwing them in Victor's face, saying every single thing I'd kept quiet about in this marriage.

I thought about Selena, carrying my husband's heart around all this time while I cooked his favorite meals, and trying to be enough for him.

I wanted out, I was done this time. With shaking hands, I picked up the pen and signed. The signature looked nothing like me, it felt too much like surrender.

When I was done, I walked out of my own house, leaving Victor and everything else behind.

I didn't know where I was going. My feet just moved and I let them, from one block of the city.

A bar, I thought vaguely. I needed a bar. I needed some alcohol that would sandpaper the inside of my chest until I stopped feeling quite so much.

As I walked to the bar, a car came out of nowhere. There was a loud screech of tires, a blast of horn, stopping close enough that I felt the heat of the engine on my shins.

I stumbled backward with a gasp on my lips, and every single thing I'd been holding in since I walked out of that house came roaring up my throat at once.

"Are you insane?" I screamed at the windshield. "You could have killed me! What the hell is wrong with you, you absolute maniac. Watch where you're going next time!"

The car had parked on the side of the road. Surging forward, I began to bang on the windows.

"Get out of the car right now, let me see your face!"

The door opened in obedience, and a man stepped out. The angry words died in my throat immediately as I took in those wide shoulders, and a coy amused smile.

“You?”