Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 234281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1171(@200wpm)___ 937(@250wpm)___ 781(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 234281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1171(@200wpm)___ 937(@250wpm)___ 781(@300wpm)
She whispered, “What?”
“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE, YOU GOLD-DIGGING BITCH!”
Mairi stumbled back at the fury in his voice. “Damen, what are you—-”
“What I am is a fucking fool to think you loved me!” He laughed bitterly. “And now, because you think I might not remain rich with my business struggling—-” Damen cursed. “Problems that you have caused – you think you need to find yourself another Greek billionaire?”
The look in his eyes made Mairi want to die.
Damen despised her.
Damen found her vile.
The tears fell fast and furious, leaving her half-blind. She caught sight of movement, Damen stalking towards her. And then he was right in front of her.
The smell of liquor hit her.
He was drunk.
And then he was snarling at her, “I know everything now! I know that you’re a fucking psychotic bitch who’s always wanted to marry a Greek billionaire.”
She wiped the tears away. “Damen...” Her voice cracked when, behind Damen, she saw that a crowd had formed inside his house and all of them could hear everything he was saying.
“Please, Damen—-”
“I can’t believe I chose you over a real lady like Alina.”
His words didn’t slash her heart like a knife stab.
Instead, his hateful words worked like a hammer that crushed her heart into pieces, the pain spreading to her lungs like wildfire and preventing her from breathing.
She hurt so much she could not breathe through the pain.
“Go back to Manolis. He can have my leftovers. I had you in every way—-”
Mairi slapped him. “STOP. Please, please, please stop.”
The force of Mairi’s slap somehow made the haze of liquor-induced rage disappear, and Damen stiffened, feeling like something had possessed him in the past few minutes.
Mairi was sobbing.
The sound tore through him, but Damen steeled himself from being conned by Mairi again. It was an act. It was just a fucking act. “I won’t give you another warning. If you’re not out of here in five minutes, I will have you charged for trespassing.”
And yet she stayed there, crying. God, she was still crying, like he had broken her heart when he knew now that she never had a heart.
“Four minutes.”
He walked away.
She was still crying.
He got into his car, slamming his door shut.
He shouldn’t hear her anymore, but why was it that he was still surrounded with the sound of her tears?
Damen called the head of his security. “If the five minutes are up and she’s still not gone, get the police to arrest her.” Ending the call, he looked at his chauffeur and snapped, “Drive.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Just fucking drive.” It didn’t matter where. His heart had found its home in Mairi, and now that the truth was out, he didn’t fucking care where he’d end up. Her betrayal had left him lost forever.
Chapter 17
“YOU HAVE ONE PHONE call, Ms. Tanner.” Even though the police officer was talking to her, his face was averted. So was everyone else’s in the precinct, affording her the chance to pretend that they had not all been a part of the most painfully humiliating incident in her life.
When she didn’t answer, the police officer pressed gently, “Surely there is someone you would like to call to aid you?”
It was so hard to think.
She couldn’t call her aunts. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to let her dream.
She couldn’t call her friends. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to believe she was with a man who loved her.
She couldn’t call Ioniko. She didn’t want him to think he had been wrong to trust her when she said that her love would never die.
None of them deserved to be embroiled in her troubles, caused by her own naiveté.
Ms. Tanner?”
A name slipped past her lips.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before she became dimly aware of a commotion, police officers hastily getting to their feet as their chorus of greetings filled the spacious station, made humid by the night’s weather.
And then a familiar voice.
“Where is she?”
At last. Someone who could let herself just forget she existed.
THE POLICE OFFICER pointed to where Mairi supposedly was, and upon following the other man’s directions, bitter rage burned inside Stavros Manolis when his gaze found Mairi.
She sat alone on a row of seats, her back straight. She wore a shirt and jeans and mismatched shoes. Somehow, those mismatched shoes hurt like the fucking devil, telling him wordlessly about what Mairi had to have gone through in the past hour.
When he reached her side, Stavros crouched down on one knee, placing him at eye level with her. “Mairi?” He kept his voice gentle. She looked so damn breakable, like one wrong word would have her shatter and there would be no way to piece her together again.
Her eyes were dry now, but they were red and swollen, like she had been crying until there were no tears left to spare. Her voice was wobbly and high-pitched when she looked at him and said, “You were the only one I could ask for help.”