Page 103 of Her Ruin

That’s all you have to say?

Club got raided. Glad you weren’t here.

Elixir got raided? He’d said it so casually. Was this something that happened often? I shuddered at the thought. I sat up in bed, drawing my knees up to my chest as I read the last few messages. Did I ask?

That’s a lot of information in one night

Nothing left to hide

Tears welled up again, and I wiped my eyes angrily.

Is that why Rye showed me it all?

I waited for a long time—so long that I was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Then, as dawn peeked through my window, I got a reply.

Yeah.

Not my style, but effective.

You think it was effective?

To know if you’d run

Now we know. Take care of yourself, Isla

Tears slipped over and dripped onto my blanket.

Now we know. I’d run.

I lay back on my pillows. He wasn’t accusing me of anything. He was just acknowledging that I didn’t fit into his world. I didn’t. I never had. I never could. I set the phone face down and turned away from it.

This was what I should have done the first night he kissed me. I should have closed the door. I should have never let myself be curious. Nothing good came from loving Zayn McCabe.

Loving?

I squeezed my eyes shut. No. I didn’t love him. I loved the thrill, and maybe I enjoyed the sneaking about.

He was enigmatic. He had that sheer magnetic pull that was hard to resist. But part of that pull had been the danger he radiated.

The thrill.

You could only be thrilled so many times before it became boring. The thought of Zayn being boring almost made me laugh, but I didn’t want to wake Julian. I reminded myself of my earlier pep talk. This was temporary—it hadalwaysbeen temporary.

It was just sex. Nice, delicious, toe-curling sex.

It was physical attraction, nothing else. It wasn’t love.

I kept repeating the lie in my head until sleep finally claimed me.

* * *

The raidon Elixir was the talk of the office on Monday morning.

They were still gossiping about it on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, I was growling when anyone mentioned it.

By Thursday, I was no longer attending team meetings and just growling in the general direction of people.

---