Poison

Maybe I should have been. Maybe a couple of glasses of wine would have seen me asleep in bed and immune to the feelings spinning deep.

My tears were brimming as I picked that case back up from the floor. I could barely take a breath as I summoned the last of my words to the man I’d pledged my heart into marrying.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said again. “I mean it, Seb. I can’t do this.”

“Your brain really is a poor excuse for one tonight,” he said, pacing the room. “This is madness. Total fucking madness. They need to up your fucking meds and get your stupid head back in gear.”

It may have been insanity, but madness was better than living an illusion for the rest of my life. It had to be.

“Goodbye, Sebastian,” I told him.

“You’ll be back when you realise what a stupid cow you’re being,” he said, and got back in bed.

I left my engagement ring on the counter next to his keys, and then took my first shaking footstep into a whole new world.Chapter OneAnnaThree months laterI pulled my phone from my handbag at the ping, calling up the message with one fumbling hand as I carried on up the street back to the office. I shoved it back in my bag without answering. Sebastian and his regular text, the same routine as every other lunchtime these past few months.

Have you come to your fucking senses yet?

No, I hadn’t come to my senses yet. So many nights I’d paced up and down my new apartment living room when my new housemate, Vicky, had bailed off to sleep, trying to make myself see reason and return to the man everyone was continually telling me I was insane for leaving. So many nights I’d failed.

This Friday lunchtime wasn’t any different.

He didn’t even put kisses at the end of his messages. No attempt to tell me he was missing me, or wanting me, or loving me. Just that same blunt question, as though it was inevitable I would one day realise I wanted to go wedding dress shopping and walk up the aisle to him, the god of an ideal existence – Sebastian Maitland and our world of perfect.

Life might’ve been so much easier if I did.

I answered the messages from Mum, desperate to know if I was still alive and free from seizures, then walked into work with a smile at Lucia on reception and dropped myself down at my desk to prepare for the afternoon project meeting. I had my sales strategy notes all mapped out, the coming quarter plotted for Pewter Security’s campaign, and that’s when another ping sounded from my handbag.

This was a different ping altogether. One that did actually have my heart racing.

Trojan from the online dating app. Trojan, the huge specimen of a man who’d been promising me all kinds of wonder in the bedroom if I agreed to a meet-up.

I’d been replying, flirting, asking about his preferences and his wants and his needs. It seemed they matched pretty well with mine. Fire and lust and flesh on flesh. The churn of animalistic excitement and desire coming to life.

Stacey from the marketing team headed on over with a file pressed to her chest, and I dropped my phone on the desk. She was one of the only people far enough removed from my life to avoid giving me scathing attacks at every opportunity.

“Is that him? The hot guy? Trojan?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s him. He wants to meet up this weekend. His promises are quite attractive.”

She nodded back. “So, are you going to do it? Bite the bullet and give him a shot?”

I leaned back in my seat and tapped my pen against the desk top. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve got to do it sometime,” she said. “It’s not like the local populous is offering you much fulfilment.” She put her hand over her mouth as Steve from accounts walked on by.

Cringe.

I screwed my eyes shut.

He’d been the last member of the local populous I’d spread my legs for in the hope of getting a genuine orgasm. I’d been disappointed. Same as usual. I’d fucked up in my stupid thrill-seeking. Same as usual.

“Sorry,” she said. “Hopefully he didn’t hear me.”

But he had. He fired me a seething glance from Peter’s desk at the other end of the room, and I cringed afresh. His seething glance could join the club along with everyone else’s, but still, it slammed me hard.

I should never have fucked anyone at work. It was a mistake. Hooking up with a couple of random hot-looking guys after nights out with some of my work friends had been one thing, but responding to Steve’s flirty work emails had been a whole other league.

“At least the online app should be good for anonymity,” I told her.