I watch Ronan and the blonde woman disappear in the crowd, draining the room of color. Crestfallen, I turn to face Lawrence, his expression unreadable once more. “What would you have me do? Deny my own heart?” I shake my head, laughing madly. “I can’t. Not tonight.”
He grabs me by the arms, his touch turning painful, fury flaring in his gaze. “I don’t give a fuck what you want or what you do, but I won’t be made a fool of.”
“But you are a fool, Lawrence.”
“Get your things. We’re leaving now,” he says quietly, a deadly tone in his voice.
I shake my head. “No.”
“What are you going to do, Blaire? Go to that boy and beg him to take you back? And if he does, how long before his love for you chokes the life out of you? Before you feel trapped in his arms again? Sooner or later you’ll come back to me, begging me to fuck you and offering me your body for my money.” He pauses. “We’ve been there already, haven’t we?”
“I won’t. I can change,” I say weakly.
“Frankly, I’m growing bored with you and your show of emotions. Come with me now and stop lying to yourself.” When I hesitate, he extends his hand to me. “Come. We’re beginning to draw attention to ourselves.”
I stare at his hand as my heart and my head fight with one another. My head wins. I take his offered hand and go with him.
Lawrence is right. I can’t change.
“I want to go to my apartment. I don’t feel like spending the night at your place,” I say after the car has been moving for a while.
“No.”
“No, what?”
Lawrence is looking out the window and sitting as far away from me as possible. “You’re not going back to your apartment tonight so get it out of your head.”
“I said that I want to go back to my apartment and that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t need your permission.” I’m about to press the button to lower the partition separating us from the driver and give him my instructions when Lawrence speaks.
“Careful, Blaire. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Normally I wouldn’t heed Lawrence’s warning, but the dangerous edge to his voice and the energy he’s radiating makes me stop. “What are you going to do? Force me to fuck you?” I spread my knees apart as I pull the skirt of my dress up, revealing my legs and bare *. “Why bother to go back to your house when you have all you need right here and now.”
“Again, careful there, Blaire…”
“Or what? What are you going to do to me, oh mighty Lawrence?” I slide my dress off my shoulders, the fabric pooling around my waist and hips.
“You like what you see? Why don’t you finish what you started before? It’s yours.” Naked from the neck down with only his diamond necklace against my skin glimmering in the dark, I smile insolently. “But no matter where and how you take me and all the gifts you shower me with, I won’t ever be yours. I’m looking at you and it’s him I want. It’s him I’m thinking of. It’s always been him.”
I want him to get mad at me. Inflict pain on me. I want him to hate me, hit me, physically hurt me. Maybe then the guilt and pain breaking my chest will stop and numb me from the inside out.
He moves so fast that I have barely any time to realize what his intention is before he’s over me and his hands enclose around my neck, making it hard to breathe. The venom of my soul has contaminated him.
I can’t move. I’m at his mercy and some disturbing part of me rejoices in that fact. Take away my will to say no, Lawrence. Make it easy for me to deny my own heart. Make it easy for me to hate myself. Please forgive me, Lawrence.
“Don’t mention him in my presence again,” he warns, loosening his fingers.
I manage to laugh even as his fingers are wrapped dangerously close around my neck. “It doesn’t matter. He’s—”
Before I have a chance to finish my sentence, Lawrence covers my mouth with his. This kiss is as fatal as a bullet to the heart. It tears me open and makes me bleed. It’s like dying a slow death each time his lips touch mine, but the masochist part of me wants that pain, that nothingness that he brings me. I shove him, kick him, and scratch him. I invite his wrath, his maddening fury. We struggle for dominance. My life in his hands, his pride in mine—both of us doomed.