C5, PT. 1

Even as her stomach iced over, she gave him a plastic smile to cover the shame that snaked through her belly. “I guess that makes us even.”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “Did Maximus tell you I cheated on you?”

She wasn’t aware that she moved, only that she was on her feet, her body reacting to her flight instinct quicker than her mind. She took two strides before Roth grabbed hold of her and swung her around.

“You wrote in your series that my character, Rex, cheated. Why?”

 “Let me go.”

“What the fuck did I just tell you?” he growled as he put his hands on her shoulders. “No more running. We’re sorting this shit out.”

“Oh, is it confession time? Ok, Roth, why don’t you tell the class what my dad blackmailed you about! Inquiring minds what to know!” she announced to an invisible audience with rabid good cheer before she dropped the act. “There’s nothing to ‘sort out.’ You’re combing through ashes for something that no longer exists. You demand answers from me, but I don’t harass you about your secrets. Have I asked you what you do for a living? How you became a billionaire in just over a decade, despite my Dad’s exhaustive efforts to humble you? How you ‘proved’ yourself to my dad’s associates? Why your mother called you a monster and wanted you institutionalized?” She met his flinty gaze with fiery defiance. “Why did you really marry me? An alliance with my family can’t be the only reason you’re going out of your way to publicize this marriage. Nothing with you is that straightforward and simple. There’s always layers upon layers of ulterior motives. What else do you want from me besides sex and to make me suffer? Is there an asset I inherited that you’re after? Someone you’re targeting through my family’s network to wreak havoc on?”

His expression didn’t alter during her damning litany. He leaned in, a predator with a one track mind. “Stop deflecting and answer. I told you in Colorado, I didn’t cheat on you. Why do you think I did?”

His words stabbed dead center in an old, festering wound, but she didn’t flinch. “Want me to list all the reasons?”

His eyes glinted. “Yes.”

“How about the fact that we lived apart for two years, in separate countries? What man sees his wife four to six times a year and stays abstinent when he doesn’t even have to sneak around? You obviously didn’t want me dropping by—I had to force you to give me this address to send you a birthday present! You never wore a ring, and apparently never bothered to tell anyone you were married, since the concierge thought I was some cheap hooker bothering a client! You even had flowers on the table as if…”

She wrenched away from him, unable to take his hands on her. Surprisingly, he let her go, but she felt his eyes track her as she paced, feverishly running her fingers through hair that was now fully dry.

“That’s your proof that I was unfaithful? A floral arrangement, staff not knowing your name, and not seeing you while I was working like a dog in a different country because I was run out of my own by your father?”

Her shoulders hunched as if she received a blow before they dropped. She pivoted smartly to face him. “My suspicions about your fidelity weren’t the determining factor of why I walked away, it just tipped the scales in a direction I was already leaning. But, you confirmed my suspicions years later with your vasectomy.”

“What about it?”

His tone wasn’t defensive, merely curious, as if they were discussing the weather. Fiery worms funneled through her heart like a rotted apple.

“What faithful married man gets a vasectomy?” she jeered. “Aside from the fact that you rarely visited, I was on birth control, so you wouldn’t have to worry on that front. It stands to reason that you did it for someone else. Or multiple someone’s… You could screw around to your heart’s content without any repercussions, and I would be none the wiser.”

“Is that it?”

His dispassionate tone snapped her tenuous hold on her temper.

“Fuck you!”

Even as the familiar curse burst from her, she castigated herself for allowing him to elicit such strong emotions from her. Why couldn’t she be a stone-cold bitch during these confrontations? Why couldn’t she laugh off their past as if it meant nothing? Why did she care about something that happened five years ago? She felt like a train careening down a mountainside with no brakes. There was a curve up ahead and if she didn’t get herself under control, she was going to derail.

“You say you didn’t leave me for your inheritance, and you didn’t run back to your father for money or security, so why did you?”

She gave him an incredulous look that he met with grim resolve.

“I need to know why.”

“You already know!”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it isn’t safe to assume where you’re concerned. I thought I knew you, but you’ve managed to surprise me more than anyone else. I’m not fucking guessing anymore. Spell it out for me.”

“So you can judge whether my reasons were good enough to leave? I don’t have to justify my actions. You certainly don’t,” she spat and turned her back on him, mentally cursing a blue streak as she struggled to keep her emotions in check.

She paced in a zigzag pattern, too agitated to walk a straight line. He knew what buttons to push to put her on the defensive. She didn’t owe him an explanation, but her mind was already cruising down memory lane, supplying her with all the reasons she ended their marriage. And with the opening he gave her, she couldn’t help herself.

“I ignored my father’s warnings about you, but coming here made me realize how little I knew about the life you led and who you were when we were apart. I had no idea you invested in this building or how prosperous you’d become. You wanted me sequestered in Philadelphia, far from the success you accumulated. When I trespassed into your territory, you made my position in your life crystal clear. I wasn’t a wife or partner who was entitled to know what was going on—I was relegated to a plaything, a sex toy to entertain yourself with when it was convenient for you. ‘I’ll visit when I want you,’” she quoted and tried not to react as her insides shriveled. “I was just a body you visited a couple of times a year, nothing more. The way you looked at me, like I was the last person you wanted to see when I’d come all that way…” She rolled aching shoulders as her invisible load grew a little heavier. “It’s not something I’m likely to forget. I’d never seen that side of you, didn’t even know it existed. You were always so affectionate when you visited me, but that night, you couldn’t bring yourself to touch me, much less be near me, even though we hadn’t seen each other in three months.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, while a version of her younger self huddled in a corner of her mind and rocked to self-soothe. “I realized how doomed our relationship was. When you saw me, you were reminded of my father. We’re one and the same to you.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it? If I was some other man’s daughter, maybe you would have confided in me about your trials and let me console you. Instead, I was treated like the enemy. Why would I subject myself to a lifetime of punishment for things I have no control over?” She fixed him with a level look through dull, glassy eyes. “Yet here I am, being punished for my father’s sins of blackmailing you and putting you on his blacklist.”

She saw that hit home when his hand balled into a fist.

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Confessions. Please do not share or distribute.

Copyright © 2024 Mia Knight. All Rights Reserved.