Page 29 of His Scarlette Obsession
“Nothing’s going to happen to it,” I say tightly. “I’ll haveLegaldraw up a contract. You won’t have anything to worry about.”
“And the engagement?” she goes on stiltedly. “Am I going to lose my head because you changed your mind?”
Fuck.
I can’t believe I forgot about that, and it kills me, knowing that I only have myself to blame, letting my desire for her overrule my common sense.
“Let me worry about that.”
“But—”
“I said I’ll take care of it,” I snap.
“Fine.”
“Great.”
She bites her lip hard as if to keep it from trembling, and I yank my gaze away from her because I just don’t fucking trust myself not to give in...and make a fool of myself yet again.
Enough is enough, Qahiri.
The silence that follows is deafening. It presses against us from all sides, heavy with things unsaid and chances destroyed.
You took her to a fucking ball. But all she still thought about was the other man.
I keep my gaze fixed on my phone, scrolling through meaningless emails, faking business for the first time in my life.
The writing’s on the fucking wall, and it’s time you stop acting like an idiot.
Eventually, the limo begins to slow. We’re at her building—a modest apartment complex in a quiet neighborhood that’s worlds away from the gilded cage I was born into.
My driver opens the door for her, and my chest tightens when I see her almost trip in her haste to get out of the car. To get away from me.
I can’t stop myself from looking as soon as the door closes, and the tinted windows allow me to stare without being caught.
She’s walking quickly, her head down, and my world feels like it’s about to collapse when she doesn’t look back, not even once.
And even this, dammit...
Even this was a cruel reminder of another one of my mother’s infamous scandals. Of how she had shamed the king for the very last time, with her making a drunken proclamation about only marrying him for his crown...before driving away with her twenty-five-year-old bodyguard.
It was the last time anyone saw her alive, with news the next day reporting both my mother and her lover dying of drug overdose.
I lean back against the seat, my eyes squeezing shut as my driver pulls away into the night.
It’s better to be alone, I try convincing myself,than to follow in my father’s footsteps and turn our family into the national laughingstock for the second time.
Scarlette
I spent forty-seven minutes researching the least traumatic way to tell your grandmother that your engagement is over.
Forty-seven minutes.
But Google was surprisingly unhelpful on this topic. Who knew?
The top results were mostly about “managing family expectations during relationship transitions” and “communicating major life changes with elderly relatives.” One particularly useless article suggested bringing flowers and her favorite dessert to “soften the emotional blow.”
Riiight.
