Page 145 of Corrupt Me

That fucking deadline has only accomplished to undo all my hard work and good intentions to stay calm and collected.

Bailey clutches the kitten pedant, eyes welling up.

“Do you have any idea where I have been these last couple of days?”

She shakes her head while I watch two tears slide down her gorgeous face. She doesn’t wipe them off as if to show me how hard that is for her too.

“In hell. In bloody hell.”

“You always revert to cursing in British English when you’re mad,” she says softly.

Exceptional observational skills, but then again, Bailey is everything and more. She’s good, kind, smart, beautiful. She’s not just the whole package—she redefines what a whole package is. No wonder someone else wants her. And that someone else got her.

“I’m past mad. I was mad when you didn’t come home or talk to me.” My tone, just like my sanity, starts somewhat intact. But then it takes a sharp dive, and I snap. “I was furious when I had to watch someone else make you his fiancée. But now, I am fucking murderous knowing that you’re going to marry him this summer.”

“Only if we don’t find Felix by then,” she whispers, lowering her eyes to the ground.

“That’s exactly what he fucking wants, Bailey. They’ll drag it out until you’re married, and we can’t change the Family law. Marriage is for life.”

She wraps her arms around herself. Everything in me demands to go over there and soothe her, but I am rooted in place.

“You could have come home and talked to me. We would have found a way together. Now…”

“Now what?” she asks, her voice cracked, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, desperate to erase that image from my head. “Now you’re bloody engaged to be married.”

“I did what I had to do.”

I rake my hand through my hair, tearing at the ends hard enough to pull some strands out, hoping the pain will anchor me. “This is how you justify breaking my heart? After you insisted you’d never do that? And I fucking believed you—like a dying man on his last breath, clinging to hope that he’ll finally find salvation.”

“This is not fair,” she screams, tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m doing this for you because I can’t bear something happening to you!”

We’re both running high on emotions, so our overdue talk slays us open. I slam a fist into my chest. “But can you bear me dying on the inside? Because that’s what is happening right as we fucking speak,” I shout back, holding my head between my hands. She’s the one who approaches me, her soft feet padding on the rug until she lifts her hand. I grip her wrist. That fucking ring blinds me with rage.

“You’re an engaged woman,” I mutter.

“Don’t do this.” Her sweet plea undoes me.

“You were the one who started this. Is this how you want us to live, in secret, as an affair?”

“You’re being cruel. And I don’t deserve that treatment.”

“You don’t deserve that treatment? Fuck, Bailey. I’d bloody die for you, but that’s not what shows how much I love you. It’s that I’d live for you. I thought we were a team. I thought after everything we’ve been through, after everything we’ve experienced, we’d never make decisions apart. Such a naïve fool, right?”

“Stop saying that. Please. Do you think I am happy with this situation? Do you think you’re the only one who is suffering?”

“Tell me how you would have fucking felt in my position.” I pant, the anger spilling over. “You’ve been jealous ofhypotheticalgirls before.”

She flinches at that, and for a brief second, guilt pricks at me. But I am on a rampage, too far gone, too mad to stop.

“But you make me watch this. I probably will never close my eyes again without seeing what happened tonight. You had your reasons. Maybe they’re even selfless. But fuck your reasons. I am too hurt to even care about them. Nothing changes the fact that you broke my heart. That nothing will ever be the same. And in the end, Felix won.”

A gloomy shadow falls over Hunter’s face—that stunning face I’d love to kiss until all that dejection vanishes. How I long to bury myself in his arms so everything else disappears until it’s just the two of us.

His chest heaves as he stares at me, looking like I’ve never seen him before—so utterly gutted. And it’s because of me.

You broke his heart.

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