“But I thought—” He curses and runs his hands through his hair. He stays like that for several minutes, eyes tightly clenched, like he did a few days ago when he told me I was his while we were having sex.
My stomach rolls again, and I clamp my hand over my mouth, certain I’m going to throw up. I didn’t realize that giving up control and then slamming face first into an emotional wall could make you physically sick like this.
Rush’s hands drop, and he looks up at me, devastated. “But that kiss.”
That kiss before, downstairs in front of everyone. That was for the video.
Wasn’t it?
My head starts to pound. Rush reaches for me, but I back away from him, shaking my head.
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
It’s not that I’m angry with him, but my heart is suddenly racing and I feel like I’m going to have a meltdown. I don’t want him to see me like this. I grab my clothes and a blanket from his bed and wrap it around myself, then head for the door.
“Dree, wait—”
I pull it closed. I can’t wait.
Back in my room, I pull my clothes on and sit on the bed, shaking. My nerves are screaming at me that I’ve done what I should never, ever do. I gave up control, and even though I liked it it’s bad bad bad.
Any second now Rush is going to come pounding on my door and demand to know what’s wrong with me. My stomach feels like it did the morning I woke up from the ketamine, and my whole body feels dirty and shameful.
I can picture the look of shock and hurt on Rush’s face if I tell him that’s how I’m feeling. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He just got carried away.
We got carried away, and now my whole body is screaming at me that I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Say you’re mine, I hear in Rush’s beautiful voice.
Then, in a shrill echo, Say you forgive me, in that insistent, whiny voice that I hate most in the world. In my mind’s eye, I see Striker passing me the glass of champagne, and me drinking it down like a complete fool.
My stomach rolls again and I only just make it to the bathroom in time before I’m throwing up into the toilet.
I collapse on the floor, crying. Rush isn’t Striker. He’s not. This is nothing like that. It’s the shock of being vulnerable, and it will pass soon enough.
But the sickness isn’t passing. Maybe I need to get some distance from here so my head will stop spinning. Then I can talk to Rush like a normal, sane person.
I grab my phone and scroll through the emails that Rush’s assistant sent me over the past few weeks. I find the email with the name of the car company that takes Rush’s people to and from London. I call and make a booking for as soon as they can get here.
“But don’t come up to the house, please. Can you meet me at the south gate of the property?”
The person on the other end of the line says he can arrange that, and takes my credit card information, even though he insists all bookings from Rush’s house go on Rush’s account.
“Not this one, please. How long until the car arrives?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” I hang up. Tears spill down my cheeks, and I grab my suitcase and start throwing things into it in a blind panic. Five minutes later, I shove my feet into shoes and peer out into the hall. The coast is clear.
As I descend the stairs and make a beeline for one of the side doors out into the garden, I can hear Rush talking in a clipped, impatient voice to Marlena, who seems to have waylaid him on the way to my room.
“Yeah. Okay. Look, I’ve got to go, Marlena. You haven’t seen Dree, have you?”
He can’t see me like this. I’ll seem like a crazy person to him. My stomach lurches, and I slip out the door and into the garden. There’s no one at this side of the house. I walk across the garden and start along the driveway.
It’s a long, long driveway, and I know Rush is looking for me. The back of my neck prickles for the ten minutes it takes me to reach the gate.
A car pulls up just as I get there. I hurry over to the back door, and an engine roars farther up the drive. I turn and see Rush’s black Land Rover barreling toward us.
The driver has gotten out of the car to put my case in the boot, but I open the back door and throw it onto the back seat, and climb in after it. “Don’t worry about my bag. Go, please. Quickly.”
The driver casts a perplexed look up the drive at the approaching car, and then gets in and we pull away. I think that’s going to put an end to it, but Rush’s car pulls out the gates too and starts following us. My phone rings and his name is on the screen.