CHAPTER 4: WHIPLASH

Solange looked at him, her brows furrowing as confusion rose alongside irritation. If he wanted to insult her, he could have done it outright. “What are you talking about?” she bit back. “What smell? I literally just took a bath.” 

He shook his head; his eyes had a faraway look, like he wasn’t hearing her at all. “So that’s why I was so drawn to you.” He whispered, his voice trembling, barely audible. “But wh… why didn’t I smell you yesterday? ”

Seeing how pale his face was getting, Solange took a step closer, but the look of shock and what looked like fear on his face made her hesitate. Something was wrong… Something had changed. 

The man who had looked at her so passionately just hours ago was now looking at her like he’d seen a ghost. “I only used your body wash. What are you talking about?”

Her towel suddenly slipped, and she quickly grabbed it and held it tighter. She had been planning to come into the room, wake him up, and probably get a quickie before she left for her shift at her own place of work. But now her excitement had turned to anxiety. 

She saw a flicker of arousal flash across his face, his hand twitching as if he wanted to reach for her, and her stomach fluttered. 

He was still drawn to her…still wanted her. 

That thought should have been comforting, but as she watched sheer panic start spreading on his face, the tension in the room became almost unbearable.

She felt thrill and terror coil together like a knife twisting in her chest.

Her mind raced as she tried to make sense of it. Maybe he just got a bad message, or he was a typical male and had a secret. Maybe he… didn’t mean what he said last night. 

She swallowed as her chest tightened. Last night had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to. But the gnawing fear burrowed into her stomach, whispering that she might be wrong, that the man who had made her feel whole could vanish in a heartbeat.

His phone suddenly vibrated on the nightstand, and he scrambled for it like it was a lifeline, fumbling like he hadn’t used his hands in years. His eyes darted across the screen, and as he read, the remaining color drained from his face into pure, unadulterated horror. 

His eyes darted from the screen to her face rapidly, and a low, guttural sound of disbelief escaped his lips. “No,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck no, it can’t be.”

“Alistair?” Solange stepped closer. “What is it? Is it about your friend?”

Alistair looked at her as if she were a serpent coiled in his bed. "What have I done?”

“What… You’re scaring me. What happened?” she asked, her voice trembling as fear prickled along her spine.

He squinted at her suspiciously. “H… how old are you?”

“What?” she stammered, taken aback by the sudden question. Was the age gap why he was panicking? 

“Please,” he hissed. “Just answer me.”

“If that’s what you’re worried about… though it’s too late,” she said, trying to lighten the mood with humor. “I’m nineteen, almost twenty. So I’m legal and fully consented.”

Instead of calming things down, her reply seemed to make things worse. 

He let out a harsh, jagged laugh that sounded like breaking glass. "If this gets out… Fuck, what have I done?"

“Can you fucking calm down?” She snapped, getting irritated by his overreaction. But her stomach dropped; she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t seeing the complete picture. There had to be something else making him panic like this.  

She stepped forward, reaching out to him, trying to understand. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

He recoiled from her reach as if she had hit him. “Get away from me,” he rasped, each word hitting her chest like a hammer.

Then he stood abruptly, making her jump, his phone clattering onto the floor, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He ran a hand down his face as if trying to erase the image of her from his mind. “I just spent the night with my… with a… a… stray,” he muttered, voice frantic and jagged under the weight of his panic. 

She drew back. “Hey! The hell do you mean by stray?" She snapped, her voice shaking with anger and heartbreak. She’d thought he was different. That what they had was special, but in the end, it was just another rich man looking for a dirty pleasure by sleeping with the ‘poors.’ “You fucking knew my status when you met me at my place of work. And you were not drunk or blind, either.”

The man who had made her feel safe was gone. In his place was a stranger with eyes and voice full of ice, revulsion, and panic. 

He laughed, but it was sharp, fractured, and almost terrifying. “This is disgusting… why the hell did this have to happen now of all times?” he whispered, looking like he was talking to something she couldn’t hear. 

She should have focused on the fact that she may have slept with a loony, but the single word struck her like a physical blow. “Disgusting.”

Solange’s heart fractured in a way she had never known possible, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, hot and humiliating. "You slept with me, and now you are calling me dirty?"

“You are a scandal waiting to happen!" he snarled, then he started dressing with frantic movements. 

He didn't look at her; he looked at the wall, at the floor, anywhere but at the girl he had just worshipped. "I was blinded by a biological fluke. This 'pull'… this 'bond'… It’s a mistake of nature. I won't have my name dragged through the mud for a biological error like you." 

Then he stated, pacing the room, hands trembling, muttering fragments under his breath. “… no one can hear of this… my name… ruined…” His voice rose, filled with panic and self-loathing. Then he took a deep breath as if trying to regain control of himself. “You can’t be my mate. You…. Someone like you can’t…”

Solange could barely comprehend the words, her vision swimming with confusion and pain. “Mate? What are you talking about?” she whispered, her voice shaking as she watched him walk to the door. “W… where are you going?”

He reached the door, hand white against the handle. He turned to her once, expression frozen, completely cold, shut off from any hint of the man she had known. “I reject this bond.”

The words hit her chest like a hammer, and her knees buckled as pain slammed into her, but it wasn’t physical pain. It was something far worse, far deeper. A ripping, tearing sensation in the center of her chest, a white-hot agony that seemed to lodge straight into her soul. 

Her hands clutched at her chest as the world tilted violently, and she slowly dropped to the floor. “What bond?” she choked, tears streaming down her face. “Alistair, please… why does it hurt like this?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look back at her. 

The door slammed behind him with a heavy click, leaving her alone on the cold floor with the faint, lingering scent of sandalwood clinging to her skin, a cruel reminder of everything that had just happened. 

Solange curled into a ball, her body trembling, feeling like there was a hollow being carved out in her soul. Every shred of hope, every flicker of warmth she had felt just hours ago, was gone.