Page 145 of Chandelier Sin
“What?”
“Quite the entertainment.” Even as I said it my heart squeezed, but there was no room for weakness.
“Atticus?” She searched my face trying to see the man behind my closed expression.
I shrugged. “You got me up here, where I needed to be.”
She shook her head, her mouth forming the wordno.
“I have no further use for you.”
She exhaled. “You’re lying.”
“Which way?” I turned around. “You have one final use, apparently.”
I waited for her reaction, her condemnation for ruining her, just likehedid. Day after day, year after year, and I saw no other way but to be his equal with this cruelty. Only my strike against her wasso much worse because I’d promised I could get her out, and now I was torturing her.
“Atticus?” She spoke my name like she couldn’t believe what I was saying.
Just don’t look her in the eyes.
That won’t help her.
“Fine. I’ll find it myself.” I walked away.
Destroying those I loved was an art form I’d forged since birth. Again, a reminder of why I deserved all the self-hate I could muster. Because hurting Eve in any capacity was fucking diabolical.
For a beat, I paused in the hallway, considering going back and telling her how I really felt about her.
Then, I came to my senses and remembered who I had to be. I stormed onward, Hell-bound, ready to face off with Pendulum.
Atticus was the storm that had ripped me from my moorings.
His words crushed me like no one’s ever had before, because he’d been someone I’d clung to.
I slid down the wall and clutched my knees to my chest, enduring the heartache of a lost friendship that had almost become more.
This agony echoed a past I chose to forget.
Atticus’ decadent cologne lingered on me, reminding me why I’d believe this was real, we were real, even if only for a little while. Those moments before, with his firm hands caressing me, his kiss that left my lips deliciously bruised and craving more, proved that. I’d needed to be with him so badly, I’d betrayed myself.
Those climaxes he wrecked me with had stolen my thoughts, wiping out my existence—his haunting touch a light in the darkness.
Until it had faded all too quickly.
That brief faltering glance we shared before we kissed had me believing he was just as infatuated with meas I was with him.
Then, as though I’d imagined it, it had vanished.
Oh, God.
Tell me it wasn’t all a lie.
Atticus would have discovered the great hall by now.
I hung my head, resting my face in my palms, feeling defeated because I failed to get through to him.
Maybe I had read him wrong.
