Billionaire Blaze, page 33
Richard shook his head. “She decided we might as well get room service, but we’re out of ice. Gotta keep the ladies happy, don’t we?”
I nodded as I shifted to go past him. “That we do,” I replied.
Thankfully, Richard left it there and I felt the building tension leave my body. I could go hide now, and hopefully everyone would leave me alone until the morning.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Kit
The slam of the door behind Lukas was so loud that I jumped. He was gone, and I knew our relationship was over. I still didn’t understand exactly why, but it was clear he had expected me to put up with his swinging behavior. And he didn’t like me mentioning Daniel at all, as far as I could tell.
I shuddered as I thought about what might happen in the morning, or if Lukas decided to come back. He had controlled me, taking me on a sexual journey that I thought would lead to me being his partner for a long time. I had been considering asking him what he wanted to happen when this project was over.
And of course, I had been playing his games. All his games. Even when I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Now that we were done, it made me wonder if there had been any point. Of course, at the time, on some level I had been enjoying it. At least, until today. Today had been far harder.
I got up and poured myself a drink, grateful to find some small bottles of wine in the mini-fridge. I considered going after Lukas, too. Maybe I just needed to apologize for not understanding. It was hard to know what he was thinking.
No matter how much I might want to talk to him more, though, I couldn’t. I didn’t know where he had gone. I didn’t know what room he was in, or if he would even be coming back.
Sarai had been expecting us to reappear for dinner, but I knew I couldn’t face that. How on Earth could I face her and Richard after all this?
As I thought about how much this had messed up, the first few tears slipped down my cheeks. I had been so happy here, even if the work had been difficult. Sarai and Richard were a wonderful couple and I’d felt like I was beginning to live in my own fairy tale with Lukas.
But it had all been fake. He didn’t want a partner. All he wanted was a woman to do as she was told, stay close and let him control her every move and feeling. To submit to his every desire. But there was no care in his domination of me. Not really. He’d wanted to be as cruel or kind as he felt like and have a woman suck it up. No wonder he was still single.
With these thoughts came anger, and my tears dried up. I wasn’t the sort of woman to let a man treat me like crap. Not for any reason, and definitely not because he felt like he could get away with it and expect me to put up with it.
I could only assume it was because of the money. Maybe other women were okay with it because he came with money. But I wasn’t. The money didn’t matter to me more than safety and being cared for.
Every time I thought about having to go back or go to dinner, my eyes teared up again. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
After a little longer, I received a message from Sarai. One word.
Dinner?
I didn’t want to respond, but I knew she would persist, and she knew what room we were supposed to be in together. I had to reply or she would come looking for us and realize that something was wrong.
Not tonight. I’m exhausted. Something disagreed with me earlier. Going to get some sleep.
I’d considered my options beyond that. With Lukas gone somewhere else, I didn’t know if he would go down for food, or if he would stay in another room somewhere. If Sarai was messaging me, there was a good chance that she had already tried to get hold of Lukas and he’d rejected her plans as well.
She responded to let me know she hoped I felt better soon and left it at that. It was enough for me to relax and at least feel one problem had been averted. The tears flowed thick and fast after that for a while. I let them come. My chest ached as I thought about everything I had hoped for.
I knew I must have been hoping for something that wasn’t possible. Lukas had appeared to be a man he wasn’t. I wasn’t grieving a real relationship, but a fake one. It didn’t make it hurt any less, however.
As I calmed, I tried to decide what to do next. I had done a lot for Sarai and made plenty of money from the project already. She had been paying me a little every week, even though there was a balloon payment waiting for me at the end. It was still more than I’d made in several years.
If I wanted to, I could go home and not even have to be here in the morning. After wiping the tears from my face, I hurried over to my pack and my laptop. I would be able to look for flights easier on that and see if I could get one any time in the next four to five hours. I knew that I would need to pack up, but I didn’t know how far it was from the nearest airport.
There were lots of flights if I was willing to pay for business class, but I hesitated before booking any of them. I knew my friends weren’t expecting me back. There wouldn’t be a car for me this time. I would need to sort a ride back from the airport to my apartment.
Could I just get a cab? I sighed. No. Not when I was this much of an emotional wreck. I needed a friend. And that meant I needed to call one of them to talk it through.
I picked up my phone and tried to decide who to call. It needed to be the right person for them to not only be able to pick me up, but to still be awake. It was almost midnight in the UK.
In the end, I couldn’t get through to anyone. Not a single one of them. I tried every friend I had in the UK twice and still nothing. They were all busy or asleep, and it gave me no way out that didn’t involve relying on some kind of public transport. And I was so tired.
More tears flowed as I went to pack my bags. If nothing else, at least I could make sure I was ready to leave as soon as I had a decent plan in place.
I was only halfway through when there was a knock on the door. Once more, I tried to dry my eyes and figure out if I could handle the interruption. Despite feeling a little hungry, I hadn’t ordered room service. So this could only be Lukas or one of the few other people who knew of our room.
Almost hoping it was the man who had just broken up with me, I barely even wiped the last of my tears away before I opened the door. Sarai stood there with a bottle of wine under her arm and an array of bags of snacks in the other hand.
She took one look at me, her gaze swiftly absorbing what she saw.
“Richard thought there might be more to this than not feeling well. Come on, my dear. Tell me everything.” She came toward me so fast, all I could do was fall back and let her into the room.
I didn’t know what to say as she went straight to the sofa and put all her offerings down on the coffee table. Although I had no idea where she had gotten it from, she had some British chocolate and several other snacks I recognized. It was like she had been preparing for this moment.
“Some of these were supposed to be for celebration purposes. I’ve been hoping things between you and Lukas might progress. Or we’d get some incentive this weekend to all work together on something else. It seems it will have to be a commiseration gift, instead.”
Her words broke through my fog and I managed to shut the door behind me and walk toward her.
“He broke up with you, didn’t he?” Sarai asked, patting the sofa beside her.
My tears were all the answer she needed.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
With Sarai aware of everything that had transpired, at least a little of the story, I was calmer. She’d poured us both wine, and broken open the large chocolate bar. A box of tissues had also featured as I told her what I thought I could.
It was easy to be calm now that I had her empathy. She didn’t think Lukas had been good to me, but she couldn’t think badly of him beyond not understanding why he had gotten upset at me.
Although I wanted to tell her he had seen me talking to Peter, and it had made him think I was up to something, I didn’t know how to say it. There was no way to tell her without making it look exactly as Lukas had described and I didn’t know what she thought of Peter or of me.
Even with that, I wanted to tell her so I wasn’t keeping secrets. I didn’t want her to think I had cheated on him or was using him as a stepping stone. There was a possibility if she knew what had happened entirely, it would make her angry at him. And I didn’t want that for him, either.
All I wanted to do right now was go home.
“You should get some sleep and let me take you back to the project tomorrow. I’ll get Richard to ride with Lukas and say I want some girl time with you. Does that make tomorrow easier to face?”
I nodded, appreciating Sarai’s offer more than I could put into words. She was being incredibly supportive while not shutting Lukas out or making it difficult to work with him, and I appreciated her ability to walk that fine line.
After squeezing my hand again, she left. For a few seconds I sat there and tried to think through my options. I still really wanted to just leave for the UK and not come back, but I felt far guiltier about the idea when Sarai had anticipated my distress and given me alternative options.
While I didn’t know how I would finish my work on the project, I knew at least Sarai would try and make it easy on me. Wanting to clean up a little and clear my head, I went into the bathroom. It was only then I noticed the Ben Wa balls sitting on the side of the sink, where I had left them to dry after rinsing them.
Sarai had used the bathroom more than once while she had been with me. There was no way she could have failed to notice them, and in a bathroom, there was only one use for them. She would have known.
I didn’t know what she thought, but I colored up once more, feeling so ashamed of whom I had been this weekend. I had truly let Lukas make a fool of me, and now my boss knew far more than I’d have wanted her to about it all.
I wanted to cry all over again. What should a person in this situation do? I had no idea, but it was done. Sighing, I tucked them in some tissues and took them to Lukas’ bag. He’d left it in the room with me, and I briefly considered wrecking some of the clothes in there for the way he had treated me.
No part of me could do it, however. No matter how much he’d hurt me, I just wasn’t vindictive like that. I tried to consider the alternatives but before I could do anything or simply go to bed, my phone rang.
“Hello?” I said, barely taking in that it was Stacy before I answered.
“You okay, lovely? I just got back after a small family party.”
“It must be early morning there now,” I replied, surprised she had decided to call me back.
There was a pause as Stacy said something to Matt about going to bed without her. I sat down again, already grateful I wasn’t going to have to beg her to talk to me.
“Tell me everything, lovely. You sound like shit, and I know that can only mean one thing. Lukas turn out to be a major arsehole?”
“Something like that.” Once again I told my tale, but this time all I left out was the kinkier aspect. No one else needed to know about that part. It didn’t change that he had brought me out here and then abandoned me.
“You sound as if you’re holding up pretty well, all things considered,” Stacy said once I had finished my story.
“I’ve already bitched about him to my boss. Didn’t tell her as much, but she had a big bar of our chocolate and some wine.”
Stacy let out a chuckle. “Sounds like a good woman.”
“I’m not complaining. But I’ve not been this calm the entire time. I almost booked a flight and came straight home. This project is going to be hell to finish. Let alone all the others I’m beginning to get offers to do. And we haven’t even done this big final showcase Sarai wants me to be here for yet.”
Again Stacy listened and asked questions about the project and what remained, giving me no judgment for wanting to run away from all of the mess here.
“It sounds like you can avoid him until that final showcase…gala…thing,” Stacy pointed out.
I frowned, almost hoping she’d said anything else. “Yeah, but I don’t want to be showcased, either. And running away right before that would make no sense. I might as well leave now and at least give Sarai time to find someone else to help finish things off properly.”
“There is another option.” Stacy paused, and I waited for her to elaborate. I didn’t like the sound of another option. Not one bit. “You could go to the showcase and then rub your success in his face. Sarai clearly thinks the world of you. She’s known this Lukas guy for a long time, and she came to comfort you, not him. She has your back too, even if she won’t screw him over while the project is running.”
“I don’t want any more jobs here. There’s no way I want to live in a country where I don’t have friends or a relationship. I’m definitely coming back to the UK after this.”
Stacy went quiet and I heard her pour a glass of something in the background. “What if you had friends there for the important bits? You said you can afford to lose the money you wouldn’t get paid for finishing the work. I don’t have any idea how much that is, but we’ve been talking about coming to see you out there. We can’t all quite afford it, or we’d have done it already, and I don’t want to ask you for money, but, if it means you can see this through, not damage your career, and we can support you… Could you help a bunch of us come over to be there for you?”
I almost dropped my phone. It was a wonderful idea and Stacy was right, far better than me hurting my career.
“You’d really all do that for me? Drop everything there and come to the showcase at the end?” I gulped, not sure whether to laugh or cry with delight.
“Darling, I mean it. We’ve all been trying to figure out how to be there anyway. If you could get us a place to crash, we can probably afford the flights.”
“Honestly, I might even be able to ask Sarai to put you up in the park we’ve just built.” I considered it and how cheeky a request it would be. I could always offer to let Sarai take it out of what I would be paid.
“That would be even cooler,” Stacy said, the excitement in her voice clear. “We’d be able to support you, see what you’ve been working on first hand, and be there to celebrate with you and make sure you never face this dick alone ever again. Can you really swing it?”
Although I wasn’t completely sure, I knew it wouldn’t take me long to find out. I had an entire car ride back to Chicago to talk to Sarai about it. If this was possible, she’d soon let me know. And if it wasn’t, flying home from Chicago in a few days after exhausting every possibility to stay and feel like I could cope would be just as easy as flying home now.
With a plan in place, I finally felt like I could go to sleep and face the following day. There might be the odd awkward moment but I had a plan and friends who were going to help.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Lukas
As I got into the car with Richard again, I tried not to think about how strange it was to be traveling back to Chicago with Sarai’s husband. He had been polite so far, and we had talked a lot about the game the day before, but it hadn’t been anything that could last.
When I’d gone back to Kit’s room this morning, I had found her already out of it, packed up, and my things all left neatly in one pile. It had been far kinder of her than I’d expected and it had hurt more because of it.
After booking a separate room I had considered what I might find when I went back. I’d half expected to find my clothes in tatters, shredded. Or all of them sold. Even Kit gone.
Instead, Richard had knocked on the door a few minutes later and let me know Sarai had decided she wanted a girls’ day with Kit. They’d already gone to grab a quick breakfast and set off. He’d said nothing about why. Or shown any awareness of anything that happened between me and Kit.
Of course, it had been the elephant in the room ever since. Or the car, at least.
I didn’t want to talk about it and it seemed Richard wasn’t going to bring it up, but I knew he was also missing out on a day with his wife so Kit could be with Sarai instead. Not that I wasn’t grateful he was with me. I was. I could have been making this journey alone.
The minutes ticked by in silence on the last stretch of our drive and it began to get uncomfortable. The more I thought about either of them saying nothing, the more I felt I might need to say something myself, after all.
“Did Sarai say why she wanted to travel with Kit today?” I asked, not sure where else to begin.
No matter how much I was angry at Kit for flirting with Peter and everything that followed, I was also hurting. I’d fallen in love with Kit far more than I’d intended to. She’d got under my skin. Every moment with her had been magical, and so much reminded me of her, including just looking across the car to the passenger seat where she had been on the way here.
After having her as my submissive and starting to teach her some of the fun ways we could play together, I knew the apartment would hold memories as well. The closer we got to home, the less I wanted to be heading in that direction.
“Sarai mentioned you and Kit would rather be apart right now and she didn’t want either of you to be alone. That’s all she told me, and I didn’t want to pry. If you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen. But the only advice I’d give on either account is that you follow your gut and your heart and not the advice of anyone else. No one can know what you feel or exactly what happened. All we can do is be there for both of you.”
I nodded. It was a lot more wisdom from Richard than I had expected. And it made me feel better that Kit wasn’t trying to get them to hate me. No matter how much I might be working on a project with them, they didn’t have to let me be involved to the end if they didn’t want to.
Did I want to talk about it with them? Was there anything really to talk about? I didn’t know.
