Because behind his eyes was something else. Something that burned hotter than the sun creeping up the horizon.
Anger warmed my stomach. “Yes,” I snapped. “Yes, I did think you were just going to let me walk away because it was my choice to walk away, and we live in an era where woman have choices. Where they can walk away without the fear of the man they walked away from following them.” I was almost shouting now. Almost. I didn’t have it in me to scream at him like I really wanted to. It felt disrespectful to the sunrise.
“I don’t live in a world where I play by the rules, Stella,” Jay deadpanned, his voice like velvet. “And I’m not a stupid man. I know exactly why you walked away, which had nothing to do with you not wanting to explore this. You were scared. Of the fact that you did want it.”
My stomach dropped. Because he was right. I hadn’t let myself think that, but it was true. It was the reason I’d dreamed about him. It was the reason he popped in to my head when I was using my vibrator. I couldn’t say that out loud, not here, not now. Especially when he was radiating so much arrogance.
“It’s not appropriate to talk about that now,” Jay’s apathetic words interrupted my thoughts. “As I said. I have a meeting. You have breakfast to eat. I’ll be in touch.”
Without giving me the opportunity to say anything, he turned around and left. Left me with the sunrise. And my troubled thoughts.
CHAPTER FOUR
I didn’t see Jay for weeks after my attack. Didn’t hear a single word from him. He wasn’t exactly the first thing on my mind, considering everything that had happened, but he was never far from my mind either.
My girlfriends had banded together as soon as I told them what happened. Carl and Richard were constantly at my place if I was home. We’d binged all the seasons of The Bachelor we hadn’t watched already. Carl tried to convince me to let him teach me how to make paella until he found out that my stovetop had broken three months ago, and I didn’t use it enough—or at all—to worry about getting it fixed. So he cooked it for me at his place and brought it over.
Zoe had urged me to see the therapist that called me after I got home from Jay’s, the one that he had arranged. I was sure she was right, that I needed to talk to a professional about what happened—it was fucked up. But the thought of chatting with a clinical psychologist scared the absolute shit out of me. I was terrified of what a therapist might find inside of me. Things that they would see that I’d been trying to hide from the world and most importantly, myself.
Zoe was not happy about this, a big proponent for therapy who went twice weekly and was one of the most well-adjusted people I knew. But then again, that wasn’t saying much considering I was surrounded by models and celebrities as part of my job.
Yasmin was a close second, but she had stuff of her own to deal with. A lot of stuff from her past that she kept locked down tight and had only shared with all of us on a night consisting of a lot of tequila and a lot of tears.
There was more to her story. A whole lot more. But I had the feeling she wouldn’t be letting the rest out any time soon. Maybe when she met the right man, someone who made her feel safe. A man who was strong and determined enough to get through the wall she’d constructed to protect herself from the world.
Henderson Smith was now out of the ICU but was still handcuffed to a hospital bed. When he was discharged, he’d be taken to jail where he’d await trial.
I wouldn’t have to testify against him, just like Jay had said, which I understood was unusual, but strings were being pulled beyond even Yasmin’s control.
“Uppercut!” the instructor yelled, and I moved my fist upward to Wren’s waiting glove.
She lunged back. “Jesus fucking Christ, bitch!” she jeered with a grin.
I smiled back, a thin sheen of sweat covering my body. I knew my punch had force in it, and I was proud of that. We’d been coming to this class since I got attacked, my way of trying to make myself feel a little more capable. Even though it was too late to change what had happened to me, if I got attacked again, I wanted to have the skills that would get me out of the situation before a strange man had his hands on my panties and a knife at my neck.
In addition to the kickboxing class, I was at the gun range every week and carried a Glock in my purse.