Page 50 of Beauty and the Billionaire

“Then don’t,” he spat, blinking twice rapidly and turning away from me. “Nobody’s stopping you. Pick up your goddamn excuses and leave.”

I stood in total silence, my soul stunned out of my body. It took me what felt like an eternity to regain control over my feet, but only seconds had passed.

“Orwell!” Dominic’s shout startled me, and the faithful valet hurried into the room.

“Sir?” he answered.

Dominic stared out of the window, his back turned to us both. He blurred before my eyes, although I couldn’t tell if my tears came from anger or sadness. “Help Mr. Rashid pack. He will be leaving us. Today.”

Orwell gasped, although I couldn’t tear my gaze off the back of Dominic’s head to see the man’s expression. “Sir, I…”

“Do as you are told, dammit, or stay away together with the boy once you’ve driven him,” Dominic said. He didn’t need to raise his voice to make this an undebatable demand.

“Sir,” Orwell whispered, agreeing. I could feel the weight of his gaze on me as he lingered in the sitting room for a few moments longer. Orwell turned away and quietly left us.

“This isn’t you,” I whispered for the sake of something that was beyond my understanding, beyond my reach. “This isn’t the man I know.”

“No,” Dominic said flatly. “This isn’t what you imagined.”

The words stung me like acid. I stared at him, swiping the silent tears off my cheeks, and held my breath so I wouldn’t let a single sob out. I tried to be brave, but the truth was that the idea of leaving him terrified me. What would he do once I was gone? The damage would be irreparable if he outed Julian. He didn’t know it now, but he wouldn’t be able to live with this decision.

“Dominic,” I said, my voice small. “For the last time, I’m asking you not to go through with this.”

“I swore never to rest until I’ve destroyed all three of them,” Dominic said in a flat, emotionless tone that somehow chilled me to my bones more than a shout or a threat would have.“Everything I did brought me here. Every choice I made brought me closer to this. I will not stop. Not for ten of you.”

Although half a dozen paces separated us, he might as well have kicked me in the stomach. Like a wounded puppy, I cowered away from him, taking two swift steps backward before I turned around and hurried out of the room. It felt like toxins evaporated and made the air in there unbreathable. It felt like he had wielded a knife that slashed much more than flesh.

As I ran up the stairs toward my room, I swallowed bitter tears and knew that I was the stupidest guy who had ever lived.

Dominic

I stared into the flames, my armchair drawn close to the fireplace, but the real heat came from within. My flesh burned. My heart was like a dying star, the violent reactions making it hotter and hotter and hotter.

As I followed the sparks that rose from the crackling wood, my mind kept returning to the sight of him leaving the house. His small, slender back receding in the distance, his footsteps leaving marks in the snow as he walked toward the waiting car, and the fresh snowflakes erasing any proof that he had ever crossed the driveway.

Cruel. Heartless. Ruthless. He saw me for who I was, and he hated it.

Ah, but it didn’t matter. The opinion of an infatuated twenty-two-year-old, however irresistibly sweet in one moment, was still irrelevant in another. His affection couldn’t last. He was not the first person to teach me that lesson, but he was bound to be the last.

I had made all the mistakes of a lovesick teenager. I had handed him all the power over me. I had given him a bullet with which he could shoot me.

Enough was enough.

I was not naïve anymore. I did not fool myself with the notion that the world was good so long as all the people in it were. People were rotten, and so was the world.

It didn’t matter at all. It didn’t. It made no difference in the grand scheme of things. And if enough time passed, the memories would fade, and I would remember just how right I was.

But when?Part of me screamed this question internally because it couldn’t withstand the bleeding of my heart.When will it stop?

I tensed all over, holding my breath, and found myself believing for one devastating moment that you could die of it. You could die of this pain.

It would pass.

It had to.

Zain

It was already dark outside by the time Orwell pulled over at the corner by my father’s shop.

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