Page 46 of Beneath the Midnight Sky
Theo’s eyes widened for a split second before he chuckled. “Yeah, good luck. See you…well, maybe never? I’m betting all my money on her. She’s fiery,” Theo said.
Rowan just smiled at me, and I rolled my eyes. He was going to need way more than luck if we were being honest with each other.
Once Theo left, Lucas casually excused himself, claiming he had to take the trash out, and Ivy was nowhere to be found. Which left the two of us alone, staring at each other across the shiny, polished wooden bar top.
“You’re angry still,” he said, finally breaking the silence.
I just stared at him, arms crossed over my chest, saying nothing. I didn’t feel as if I needed to. Obviously, I was angry. Great sex didn’t change that. Great sex wasn’t an apology. He stood from his chair and slowly walked behind the bar, only stopping once he was in front of me. His hands came up, cupping my jaw and lifting my chin to look him in the eyes. I had to force away the memory of him spitting into my mouth earlier.
“Tell me what I can do to fix it,” he said quietly.
“An apology for trying to force me into something I’m not sure I want to do would be a solid start, Rowan,” I stated plainly.
He nodded his head slowly. “I am sorry for trying to deceive you, but I’m not sorry for trying to force your hand. I want you with me where I know you’re safe—I won’t apologize for that, little angel.”
I had to hold in the eye roll. “I’m fine, Rowan. I can take care of myself just fine.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “While I know you’re a strong, capable woman, Aspen, the photos say otherwise—” he cut himself off, and I stood there, mouth agape, frozen.
“What—”
“No, just listen before you freak out, okay?”
I pushed him away and started walking away, determined to get the fuck away from this man.The photos say…what fucking photos? That’s when it clicked in my head. Wyatt was all into computers and found out that Sam was the one calling me. He’d seen…I felt like I was going to vomit, but instead, I just stopped, slowly turning around to face him again.
“You saw all of it, didn’t you?” I asked, my voice a hoarse whisper. “Before I ever even told you?”
He ran his hand over his face a few times but didn’t answer.
“What is this to you, Rowan? Some sort of charity case? A way to feel like a better man? An experiment to see if you can commit to a woman? What did you do? Try to find the most broken one you could to trial run?” I quickly wiped my cheeks, erasing the tears streaming down my face. He didn’t deserve them. Rowan took a step toward me, and I backed up another step. “No. Absolutely not. That hadnothingto do with you, Rowan. You had no right to dig around into my past the way you did. Go fuck yourself,” I muttered, before I turned and ran out of the bar.
I was halfwayhome when Ivy caught up with me. Her small green Volkswagen Beetle pulled up next to the curb.
“Get in, Aspen. Please.”
I shook my head and kept walking. I had nothing to say to anyone right now. I heard her let out a small groan. The lack of noise from her car didn’t surprise me, nor did the slam of her car door. A few moments later, she was walking next to me. She didn’t speak; she just walked next to me until we got back to my apartment.
Once inside, a slow trek up the stairs, and one unlocked the door later, we walked into my apartment. But what I found wasn’t my apartment at all. At least not the way I’d left it. It was…destroyed.
Water was running in the bathtub and sink, flooding the bathroom floor. My clothes were cut up and all over the floor. The mattress was covered in paint and looked like someone had dragged a knife through it for good measure. My canvases were slashed. The couch was also covered in water and paint.
I looked around, truly at a loss for words.
It felt as if I couldn’t even fully comprehend what I was seeing.
Ivy quickly ran into the bathroom, turned off the water, and pulled the drains so they’d stop splashing onto the now-soaked floor. She came back in and just wrapped her arms around me, not speaking. I didn’t even hug her back. I was numb—I hadn’t felt this bad since I’d gotten in the car and run from Sam seven months ago.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” she whispered, her face buried in my hair.
I knew whathimshe was talking about, and it wasn’t Rowan. Rowan was obviously a lot of things, but he’d never do anything like this. Even if I knew he couldn’t have because he’d been sitting at the bar all evening long, driving me crazy. No, this had my ex written all over it.
The destroyed clothes and my art supplies being wasted all over the floor just sent me back in time to the tumultuous ending of our relationship.
My feet were dragging,and I couldn’t wait to plop down on the couch and just lounge. I walked up the stairs of our fifth-floor apartment, apparently the elevator was still broken. I shouldn’t be shocked when our landlord was the definition of a money-hungry pig, but I somehow still was just that—shocked.
I reached our floor, and the smell of pot hit me before anything else did. I let out a long sigh. This was the reason we’d gotten kicked out of our last place. Not thatIwasn’t paying the rent on time, but because the neighbors kept threatening to call the cops if Sam didn’t stop smoking in the apartment. That landlord told me that it was bad for his”extra side business”to have the police snooping around for a little bit of pot.
Rolling my eyes—how the fuck was this my life?
