Page 21 of Twisted Love

She frowns, reaching for a stool and motioning for me to sit. “Your eyes are sunken. You didn’t sleep last night, did you? What happened?”

I sink onto the stool Sunny set out for me and answer her, but I don’t tell her the most humiliating stuff. I do tell her that he left the money on the side table after sex.

Her jaw drops with astonishment. “What? How dare he?” she gasps furiously. “Did you return the money?”

“No.” My fingers grip the edges of the counter as I take a deep breath.

“Why?” she demands. “You should have thrown it back in his stupid face.”

“I put the money into the kitty, Sunny.”

“Oh, Raven,” she whispers.

Her compassion makes me feel tearful. I push myself up and move toward the counter where the coffee pot sits. The action is mechanical, a small reprieve to keep my hands busy. I pour a cup, the dark liquid steaming as I cup it in my palms, letting the heat seep into my skin.

When I return, Sunny is back at work, her focus trained on icing a cake with deliberate precision. I pause, watching her for a moment. The rhythm of her hands is steady and confident, something I envy in this moment of chaos.

“Give me something to do. I need to feel useful. What can I do?” I ask.

Sunny nods toward a bowl of sugar pearls sitting nearby. “You can handle those, right?”

I set my coffee down, rolling up my sleeves as I step closer. “Yeah,” I murmur, heading to the sink to wash my hands. When I return, I pick up the tray of pearls and settle into the task. One by one, I place them along the edge of the frosted cake, matching Sunny’s earlier pattern. We work in silence, the occasional sound of clinking tools and quiet movements filling the space. It’s what I need. The quiet, the simplicity, the chance to escape the chaos in my head.

“You’re a fighter. You’ll be fine,” Sunny says suddenly, cutting through the quiet.

“I don’t know if I will. It hurts too much because I still love him, you know.” I don’t look up from my work, but I know Sunny is listening. “I don’t know if I can bear the coldness, the disrespect. I’m sure now that I must have done something to hurt him … to make him leave. But no matter how hard I try to rack my brain I have no idea what it is.”

“Why can’t you just ask him?”

I shake my head, biting the inside of my cheek. “I did, but he just refuses to talk about the past.”

“He didn’t use to be like this. What’s his problem?” she says, irritation evident in her voice.

“No, he didn’t,” I admit. “He could be short-tempered with other people, sure. But never with me. He was always so tolerant. Once I drew on his face with a permanent marker pen and even then, he just laughed. He didn’t care that he had to walk around with my drawing on his face for days. But now, he’s just so incredibly mad at me. It’s like he hates me and he hates himself even more that he still wants to have sex with me.”

“Any idea how he got rich so fast?”

“No. He refuses to talk to me, remember?”

“Well, gossip has it he invested in companies... or rather, the companies he invested in turned out to be good bets, but no clue how a dirt-poor kid actually got the initial funds to invest in these companies though.”

“These are things I’d like to talk to him about. Despite the wall of antagonism between us, I am immensely impressed by him and all he has achieved.”

Sunny sets down her piping bag, brushing her hands on her apron as she turns to me. “Do you want me to talk to him? Maybe I can get through to him.”

I glance up at her, startled. “No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “I don’t think he would appreciate you getting involved. He isn’t the old Earl. You saw what he was like in the church. Anyway, this is a very delicate situation. Between us. Until I’ve exhausted every option, I don’t want you getting involved.”

“It’s so bizarre. He used to be so freaking crazy about you. I was sure back then he’d give up his life for you. I guess it’s true what they say about hate being the other side of the love coin.”

She glances at the work I’ve done so far. “Looks good,” she says, offering me a thumbs-up and a warm smile.

I smile back.

CHAPTER14

EARL

The tires crunch over the gravel as we pull into the lot. The place is nothing fancy—just a commercial property tucked between two weather-beaten buildings—but it has potential. My agent, Olivia Pierce, sits beside me, flipping through her notes with the efficiency of someone who thrives on control. She’s a sharp, no-nonsense operator, and she’s been relentless about finding me the right investments.

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