The silence after he said that was heavier than the curtains blocking out the sun.
Lucas continued to watch with a cold satisfaction as the color drained from Mira’s face.
She looked so small and fragile, swallowed by the large bed and such a stark contrast to the wolf and reckless creature from the night before.
"I can’t rember what you’re talking about, that part is a blank for ." She whispered while her fingers twisted nervously in the silk sheets.
"Oh, is it?" His voice was low and devoid of the fury she thought she would be hearing by now.
He took a slow step closer as the floorboard creaked under his weight. "Let’s see if we can jog your mory then, shall we? You called Mr Husband, in that pathetic slurring voice of yours."
Mira flinched. God, I went full cringe? I never go full cringe.
He was at the foot of her bed now. "You told that I was so frantic," he continued in a voice that was perfectly a mocking mimic of her drunken tone.
Well, that’s not new? He is. This whole I’m-going-to-stare-you-into-confession routine is even proof of his dramatic self.
"You poked my shoulder." He demonstrated with a rigid finger in the air, "and asked if I was going to bite."
"Stop," she whispered.
Please, do the love of all that is holy, stop narrating my sha spiral. For fuck’s sake!
"Why?" He asked in a cold voice. "Does the truth make your hangover worse?"
No, but your voice is currently competing with the tiny construction workers in my head for most annoying sound.
He didn’t wait for an answer though as he advanced. "Then you climbed into my lap."
He paused at that, wanting that exact image in his head to form perfectly in Mira’s too.
And it did because the fragile blankness that was in Mira’s mind shattered to be replaced by a horrifying vivid flashback.
The feel of expensive wool under her fingers, the solid warmth of him, the dizzying scent of his cologne.
I did. I really did. I treated Lucas Atkins like a piece of gym equipnt.
"Do you rember now?" He pressed. "Do you now rember how you settled against ?"
I rember thinking your lap was surprisingly comfortable for a man made with so much spite. She retorted but only in her mind while she just stared at him in reality.
"You were a writhing drunken ss in my arms, Lorena." He stated, "and you even had the audacity to tell to relax."
A bitter and humorless laugh escaped him this ti. "You slled so bad, and so revolting."
"That’s not true, I... I couldn’t have. And I don’t rember any of the things you’re saying." She lied in a trembling voice that obviously betrayed her.
"Liar," he hissed as his composure finally broke completely. The mask of control he had been putting on slipped to reveal the anger beneath.
"You were in my lap and your hands didn’t stop exploring so irritatingly."
His gaze dropped pointedly to his own chest and then lower as if showing her how far and lower she kept going. It made Mira want to vomit.
"You told you liked fire too," he whispered this ti, "and the worst thing you did? You kissed ."
That blunt statent sucked all the remaining oxygen from the room.
Mira’s eyes widened in pure horror.
No no no. She had kissed him? She had kissed Lucas Atkins?
"No," she imdiately denied as if not even wanting it to drop. She shook her head as if she could automatically dislodge the terrifying blur of that mory that suddenly ca to her mind.
"No?" Lucas challenged with his eyes now gleaming with dark amusent.
"You do know that you’re such a terrible liar right, Lorena?"
"Even if! It was a mistake!" The confession was finally torn from her.
"Yeah right. My life is full of your mistakes!" He roared, finally unleashing the full fury that she had been suspecting.
"Mistakes that I always have to clean up for you! Mistakes that cost my life, my people, my ti, my money and now my peace!" He snapped, even though Mira could not understand what mistakes she’d done to do all of that.
"First you humiliate publicly with that dumb actor you call an ex, and then you privately assault in my own car!"
Assault?The word was too outrageous to use.
To Mira, it was even utterly ridiculous that it montarily overrode her sha.
"I was drunk!" She yelled. It was just a little misguided snuggle, not a whole felony!
"Your state of intoxication does not absolve you of your actions, Lorena Sanders!" He fired right back at her using her full na like it was a whip.
"You think just because you can’t rember it ans it did not happen? Is that it? That it doesn’t count?"
He straightened up to look down at her as if she were so annoying ant he wished he could just squash already and call it a day.
"First you throw yourself at your ex in front of the caras and people, then at in private. Honestly, I’d give you an award for the consistency at least. You deserve that much."
The accusation was not one Mira resisted, but she could tell it was a master stroke designed to corner her completely and leave her no report to defend either action without condemning the other.
"It was honestly nothing like that with Alex!" She threw, desperate to defend at least one part of her disastrous night.
"Oh really? How nice? So what was it like then?" he asked as he crossed his arms over his broad chest like a king demanding a petition from a worthless subject.
"He ca into and I kept pushing him but couldn’t cos I was drunk and so I felt trapped..." she rambled on so fast.
Lucas ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair. "You’re nothing but a liability."
Mira could not help but sigh at this point, she was tired of the back and forth. "I’m sorry," she whispered as fight drained out of her, replaced by so much guilt.
"Sorry?" He scoffed. "Your apologies are as worthless as your promises."
He walked to the door. "You are confined to this house. Indefinitely. You’re not to leave neither work nor so much as look at a glass of champagne."
He paused with his hands on the doorknob even though he wasn’t looking back, "and there’s your phone on your bed, took it from Callis. Then a painkiller for you as well, take it. I won’t have you whining about a headache you fully earned."
The door slamd shut after that while Mira remained seated for a full minute as if letting all his words finally sink in.
She had so many questions to ask him just yesterday and now today, she had made it even worse.
Slowly, she untangled herself from the sheets and shuffled sohow to the desk.
A single white pill and a full glass of water sat there and she imdiately swallowed the pill with the water that felt like it was doing little to wash away the bitter taste of her humiliation.
Just as she set the glass down, her cell phone, which had been buried under a pillow, lit up with an unknown number.
She answered and a familiar voice imdiately spoke.
"Hello, Miss Lorena Sanders?"
"Yes? Who is this?"
"It’s Travis. I apologize for calling so early, is this a good ti to talk?"
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