Queen in Lingerie (Lingerie 4)

1

Conway

My rage lasted for two days.

I was pissed about everything. I was pissed she fucked up our relationship by admitting her feelings so publicly. I was angry she accused me of loving her in return. And I was particularly livid about that final comment she made to me—that my parents would be disappointed in me.

She knew exactly how to push my buttons.

In my fury, I banished her from my home. I didn’t want her in my bed anymore. I didn’t want her presence in the house at all. I wanted to wipe away any evidence she’d ever been there at all.

I wanted her gone.

I wanted her memory forgotten.

I didn’t love her, and I warned her not to love me. Now the world thought we were happy together, that I was in love with this woman.

When it was all a lie.

I hadn’t gone into my bedroom since she left. I stayed in a guest bedroom, using the clothes Dante picked up for me at the store. Everything I wore was new, and it was a much better alternative to walking inside that horrific room.

I would have asked Dante to clean it up and remove any evidence that she’d been there.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

On the third day, my rage finally started to plummet. The exhaustion from not sleeping was getting to me, and the hunger in my stomach was making me weak. I finally had to eat something and sleep. Once I woke up, I was a new man.

And I could think clearly.

Was she okay?

It was the first thought that came to my mind. My men had tried to give her three hundred thousand dollars in cash, but she threw it across the lawn and sped off into the night. She didn’t have any money, not even a cent. Unless she sold the car, she had no way of paying for anything.

Fuck, I hoped she sold the car.

I tried to convince myself that kicking her out was the smart thing to do. Our relationship was dead the second she made that confession, and we would never be what we once were. I had to get rid of her and move on with my life.

But I couldn’t stop worrying about her.

It was a cruel place out there. Was she alright? Did Knuckles make a move the second she was no longer under my protection?

What the fuck was I thinking when I kicked her out in the middle of the night?

Fuck.

By the fourth day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I caved and called her.

But the phone didn’t ring. It didn’t even go to voice mail.

The number didn’t exist.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Now I couldn’t even trace her. What did that mean? Did she ditch the phone so I could never call her again? Or did someone take her and destroy the phone so I couldn’t track her down? What if someone had her tied up?

I couldn’t breathe.

I called the number again in the hope it was just a mistake.

But it did the exact same thing.

Fuck.

A few days later, Dante knocked on my office door. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir—”

“I’m not hungry.” Dante had been trying to get me to eat, but I didn’t have an appetite. I just kept drinking. I sat at my desk with my hands covering my face, stuck in the mental torture I forced upon myself.

“There’s someone here returning the car you loaned to Sapphire. I just thought you might want to know.”

My head snapped up and my hands dropped. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

I jumped out of my seat and sprinted three flights of stairs until I sped through the entryway and to the outside. The red Ferrari was there, shiny and sleek like it’d been washed. Two men were walking back to a blacked-out car to prepare to leave.

“Wait.” I caught up with them before they could get into the car. “Where is she? Who are you?” I got in the man’s face, ready to kill him if he’d laid a hand on Muse.

“Who?” he asked. “I’m just dropping off the car.”

“Who told you to drop off the car?”

He shrugged. “That’s confidential. I’m just paid to do what I’m told.”

My heart was slamming against my ribs. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them broke from the force my heart was exerting. “Who do you work for? Who the fuck paid you?”

He raised both hands and stepped back. “Man, I’m just a courier service. When people move or whatever, they ask us to return their shit. The keys were at the office when I got to work, and I was told to drop the car off at this address. That’s all I know.”

I finally let him go, feeling the relief in my chest. If it was Knuckles or someone else, they wouldn’t return my car. They would keep it. Muse obviously wanted me to have it back when she no longer needed it. And if it were Knuckles, he would leave a note.