Page 11 of Cruel Obsession

I don’t have time for this shit.

Chapter Four

Mirabel

I wake up thinking about the wrong man.

Not my family. Not my friends. Not the guy from Accounts I had dinner with a month ago.

Him.

My eyes open to gray morning light, and he’s there—burned into my retinas like I’ve been staring at the sun. Ice-blue eyes that had dropped to my chest for half a second before he’d looked away, jaw working like he was angry at himself for looking at all.

I roll onto my side and press my face into the pillow.

It doesn’t help.

My body remembers things it shouldn’t. The way he’d moved through that room—measured, controlled, like violence wrapped in an expensive suit. The ink crawling up his throat. The absolute certainty in his voice when he’d saidnoand walked away from everything.

What kind of man does that?

And why does the memory make my stomach drop and my thighs clench?

He’s terrible. Has to be. The kind of man who abandons his pregnant fiancée in front of a hundred witnesses because he doesn’t like surprises. Probably leaves wreckage everywhere he goes and never looks back.

I should be disgusted.

Instead, I’m lying here tangled in sheets that suddenly feel too warm, wondering what his hands would feel like. Whether he’d be gentle or—

Stop.

I throw the covers off and swing out of bed. The floor is cold enough to hurt my bare feet. Good.

I have better things to think about. My father. The visit I promised him. Anything except a stranger I’ll never see again and shouldn’t want to.

The apartment is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and Diane’s off-key humming from the kitchen.

She’s at the counter in an oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts, phone in one hand, coffee mug in the other. Her dark hair is piled on top of her head in a messy knot that defies gravity.

“Morning,” I say, reaching for the coffee pot.

“Survived yesterday, then?” She doesn’t look up from her screen.

“Barely.”

“That bad?”

I pour coffee and watch the steam rise. “The groom said no. At the altar. In front of everyone.”

Her head snaps up. “Wait.What?”

“You heard me.”

“He actually said the words ‘I don’t’?” She sets her phone down, leaning forward. “Like, out loud?”

“Word for word.”

“Holy shit.” She draws the words out, savoring them. “That’s either the coldest thing I’ve ever heard or—I don’t know—kind of incredible?”