Chapter 9 – Choose

I got in.

Not because I had an answer but because the other choice was worse. If Adrian Vale knocked on that front door, Damien would see him, same as Bella. The whole house would know I had been with the one man in this city whose name could ruin me.

The door shut. The car was quiet. It smelled like leather and his cologne. The same scent from last night.

He didn’t look at me at first. He just drove.

We only went a few streets away. Not far enough to disappear but far enough that the mansion lights were behind us.

He parked under a tree and turned off the engine.

Then he held out my ID.

I took it. My fingers brushed his and immediately i felt my heart beating rapidly. I pulled my hand back fast.

“There,” I said. “I have it. Now take me back.”

He stared for a moment before speaking.

“That’s all you came for?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are your hands shaking?”

I looked down. “Fuck.” He was right. 

“Because this is dangerous,” I said. “Because you’re you. Because if anyone sees me in this car, they’ll say I threw myself at you and for fuck’s sake,I’m married!!!!”

“Let them say anything they wanna say.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re Adrian Vale. People don’t talk about you the way they talk about me.”

He leaned back in his seat, calm as ever.

“You ran away this morning.”

“I had to go home.”

“You left money on the table like I was something you could pay off.”

My face burned. “I honestly didn’t know what else to do.”

“You knew.” His voice stayed low. “You got scared of my name and tried to make last night nothing.”

“It was one night and yes,it was nothing.”

“Was it?”

I looked out the window. I could still see a sliver of the house through the trees. Damien and bella was in there. My phone was already buzzing in my lap.

“Why did you come?” I asked. “Why not just send the ID with a driver? Why sit outside my house?”

“Because you don’t get to come in my bed and then disappear.”

The words hit harder than I wanted them to.

“I didn’t disappear. I went back to my husband.”

“The same husband who moved another woman into your room and home?”

I swallowed. “That doesn’t make last night yours.”

“I didn’t say it was mine.” He turned his head toward me. “I said it wasn’t nothing.”

My phone lit up again.

Damien.

“Where are you?”

Then another.

“Sophia. Answer me.”

I locked the screen.

Adrian saw the name.

“He’s looking for you.”

“I have to go back.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. If I don’t, he’ll tear that house apart.”

Adrian didn’t start the car yet. 

“Because you’re scared of him.”

“I’m scared of everything,” I said. “I’m scared of him. I’m scared of you. I’m scared of what people will say if they find out I was with you last night.”

“And still you got in my car.”

I looked at him. “Because you threatened to knock on the door which is a way worse option.”

A small look passed through his eyes. Not a smile. Something darker.

“Good. Then you understand I don’t make empty threats.”

The car felt too small. I could still remember his mouth on me. I could still remember the way he said my name last night. I hated that my body remembered it too.

“This can’t happen again,” I said.

“Then say it like you mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

He watched my mouth when I spoke.

“You mean you’re going back to the man who put your best friend in your place??”

“I don’t have another place tonight.”

“You do.”

I shook my head fast. “No. I’m not going home with you. People will thin-”

“I don’t care what they think or will say. Not like they can touch me.”

“I do care if you don’t.”

My phone rang this time. The sound filled the car.

Damien.

I stared at it until the ringing stopped. Then a message came in.

“If you’re not upstairs in five minutes, I’m coming to find you.”

My stomach dropped.

“Please take me back,,” I said.

Adrian started the car.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t touch me. He just drove, slow and controlled, like he had all the time in the world and I had none.

He stopped a little down the street, not right in front of the gate.

I reached for the door.

His voice stopped me.

“You can go back inside but that doesn’t make you his.”

I looked at him.

“Last night is not over, Sophia.”

I got out before I could answer.

The night air felt colder now. I walked fast, keeping to the dark side of the trees, and slipped back through the side door. My heart was in my throat the whole way up the back stairs.

The guest room door was open.

I had left it closed.

Damien was standing inside.

He turned when he heard me.

His eyes went over my dress, my hair, the fact that I had gone out at all.

“Where were you?”

I closed the door behind me.

“I needed air.”

He scoffed.

“That’s the same lie you used last night.”

He stepped closer.

“You left this house again. After I told you not to. After I put you in this room so I could see you.”

I held my bag tighter. The ID was inside it. Adrian’s words were still in my head.

“You can go back inside. That doesn’t make you his.”

Damien stopped right in front of me.

“Who were you with?”