When the sound of the engine finally faded, I forced myself to turn and walk through the automatic doors that led into the airport. Fighting the dread, I headed toward the wing that housed the private hangars at the far-left side of the building.
I stumbled to a stop when the wall of windows came into view.
A fuel tanker was being moved away, and there was an empty spot where our chartered jet had sat last night.
Disbelief burned through my system. That asshole had…leftme.
Logan was right. He was a pussy.
My teeth gritted. A crush of despair and a slur of insolence.
Hatred and disgust.
What was I going to do? I had sixty dollars, a phone charger, and a tube of lipstick in my clutch.
Jarek saw to it that I had no funds at my disposal. I was given an allowance to shop and play the pretty part of a woman in my position.
Beyond that, I was at his mercy.
Which meant I would have to call my father, swallow what little pride I had left, and make up some vapid story about how I’d gotten to this ski destination and become stranded.
Ask him for a way to get home.
So, so long ago I’d lost any semblance of whathomemight mean.
Because there was no sanctuary there. No respite. No comfort.
Swallowing it down, I moved for the ticket counter so I could inquire if there were any available flights, my hand shaking as I fumbled into my clutch to get my phone.
Only it rang the second I pulled it out.
My stomach soured when I saw his name on the screen. A burst of spite filled me to full.
“Jarek.” I wished his name didn’t tremble when I said it.
“You answered.” His voice was a sneer.
Barely controlled hatred whipped through my chest like a windstorm. I tried to keep it subdued. To act like the dutiful wife I was supposed to be.
“You thought I wouldn’t?”
He scoffed. “I thought you might be busy.”
Anger broke through a fissure. One that’d been forming for years. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play coy, Aster. Don’t act like last night didn’t play out exactly how you intended it.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Or was it planned all along?” he pressed. “Make me look like a fool? Cheat me?”
Ire escaped my lungs, scraping up my throat in a clap of disbelief, resentment thick in the hiss of the words. “You thinkIset that up?”
I heard the clanking of ice in a glass. It wasn’t even eight, and I knew he was drunk. “Maybe not, but I know you wanted it. Did you enjoy fucking him? You are just a whore, after all, aren’t you?”
Pain lanced through my spirit, wrapped in a bow of malevolence. The horror he’d wielded. The sorrow he’d inflicted. And I’d had no choice but to go along with it.
Moisture burned like poison at the backs of my eyes.