My fast-beating heart was anger.
Grief.
Nothing more.
The wedding was in full swing, the big band carrying from the ballroom. Patrons in silk and sequins laughed, paying no attention to me.
“Angel—”
I looked over my shoulder, cutting off West before he could speak. “Why—how could you think I’d want
to be your fucking mistress? Just leave me alone, West.”
I didn’t give up everything to throw it all away on the man who’d thrown me away—
Grayson.
I came to a full stop.
Seated above everyone else in the ballroom, he tangled a hand in his rose gold hair as he talked to paparazzi. I looked at the garter in my hand, the one I was supposed to bring to the wife on his arm so he could peel it off her leg.
My heart crumbled like old granite.
He didn’t see me…and that was a good thing. I was back to being a ghost. My eyes found the bruise forming on my finger in the shape of Grayson’s teeth. A vicious wedding band, the only kind someone like me could ever have with someone like him.
“Marry me,” West said to my back.
I froze, and his hand clasped my shoulder, forcing me to spin. To look into his deep brown eyes.
“Marry me, Angel.”
I would have laughed if I wasn’t so disgusted, so broken, at the thought.
My soulmate left me in pieces, and the boy who ruined me—raped me—wanted to pick them up.
“You can’t offer that. None of you can!” I yelled before I could control my emotions. “You give away…you give away promises you don’t own the right to keep.”
I swiped at my tears.
West blinked. “I’ll take you down to the courthouse right fucking now.”
I glared at him.
He’d been the one to call me out on my naïveté, for believing in a happily ever after with Grayson. When I’d once thought Grayson and I were speaking in truth, it turned out West was the only one to offer me real truth.
There is no such thing as a happily ever after.
“I don’t know what your goal is here. I don’t know what bet you’re involved in again—”
“It’s not a bet—” he all but growled.
I cut him off. “But how little you must think of me. If you honestly believe I’d fall for that.”
Again, my brain supplied.
If you honestly believe I’d fall for it…again.
Not once, but twice, I’d fallen for a happily ever after. I was Cinderella in bare feet, walking across nails, pretending the only reason I couldn’t see my shoes was because they were glass.