3. Katherine
1276 Words
3
Katherine
I stumbled to my feet, caught off guard by the abrupt change in direction. My pulse pounded in my ears and my cunt. Every place he’d touched me was super-heated.
I couldn’t have him.
Yes.
That was true.
Another fact that I knew.
Even if my treacherous body didn’t give a s**t that I should stay the f**k away from him. That he only brought me misery. And bruises and welts and… all those delicious things I had somehow learned to crave. Not broken. No. Not like he wanted. I had too much fire in my veins to ever break before him. He liked me more as a wild mustang than a broken stallion.
“You’re an ass,” I spat.
He laughed once without mirth. “And you’re trying to distract me.”
“It was working.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He leaned his arms back against the edge of the hot tub and stared hard into my eyes. “We have to talk about this.”
I poured myself another glass of champagne and guzzled it. “No.”
“You can’t escape it forever.”
I knew that. But I could escape it as long as possible.
“You agreed,” he reminded me.
“And things change,” I snarled back.
He arched an eyebrow. “The contract hasn’t.”
“No, but we have.”
“Have we?”
I bared my teeth at him before whirling away to look out across the Manhattan skyline. So much had changed. Before we’d gotten married, we’d been f*****g. It was great. Even though I hated him. But after the wedding, everything had changed. We weren’t the couple we’d been before saying I do.
I heard him shift behind me. His powerful legs moving through the water. Then his hands were on my waist under the water, running down my wet body.
“Katherine,” he purred.
I forced my body still, refused to react.
His nose brushed against the space between my neck and shoulder. My body shuddered involuntarily.
“You have my money. That’s what you wanted,” he said, trailing his nose up my neck to my ear. He whirled me around in the water, dragging our gazes together. “Now, give me what I require.”
I stared into his hungry eyes, saw the monster I’d married, and met him toe to toe.
“What if I don’t?”
He released me, letting the mere inches between us feel like a mile. Then his hand went up to the diamond earring in my ear. “Then these will be the last payment you receive.”
I reared back. “Payment?”
The word was horrific.
“What would you call it?”
“Yes, I sold myself for your money, but that doesn’t make me a p********e. I’m not subject to your whims. I’m your wife.”
“Sure, Ren,” he teased.
I clenched my fists at my sides. I seethed. “Don’t you dare call me that.”
“What? Only Penn can? Still pining after your long-lost love? Even after he married someone else? Your mortal enemy?” he asked with a sardonic laugh.
“I remember you making me attend their wedding reception,” I said brusquely.
And how it had killed me to watch it and to see them happy together.
I’d liked Natalie once. Before she was a bet that I had to destroy. Before she stole the one pure thing in my life—Penn. I knew that he wasn’t mine any longer, but I couldn’t control how my heart had longed for him for more than a decade. I wasn’t idiotic enough to try to continue the relationship with him though. He was out of reach now. I knew that.
“Then it shouldn’t matter what I call you.”
“You act as if you’re a saint,” I snapped back at him. “As if you haven’t been f*****g your side piece for the last year.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I jumped right over his rejection. “I know you left with her at Halloween. I’m not stupid.”
“I never denied that I left with her. You watched me do it and said nothing.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are we done? I’m tired of this conversation.”
“No, we’re not done. You said that you would give me a baby. You signed it in ink, Katherine.” He leaned forward. “I can promise that the practice will be enjoyable.”
“I’m too busy.”
“Busy?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes. Living my life.”
“What life?” He huffed in disbelief. “All you do is work out and party. That’s not a life.”
“One, that isn’t all I do. I’m a socialite. I run my social media pages all day. Plus, I help with the animal shelter charity.”
“Your Ears and Tails thing?” he asked with a shake of his head. “We all know that’s just a front, so you and your friends can have an excuse to wear lingerie in public. You don’t care about it. You don’t care about anything, except how you look and how many followers you have. You’re a shallow, vapid Upper East Side princess, sweetheart, and everyone knows it.”
I knew that I had poked the bear. That I’d provoked him into this, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Just because I’m not running a company doesn’t mean that what I do is any less than your job.”
“I employ thousands of people worldwide. I provide jobs. I provide shelter. I bring in billions of dollars,” he drawled. “You have no ambition. You take some pictures and donate some money. You don’t go to the animal shelter to help the dogs. You don’t care about the charity for more than your party. You’re about to turn thirty-one, and what do you have to show for it? A million followers? Who f*****g cares? The clock is ticking.”
“f**k you,” I said mercilessly.
The clock was ticking. f*****g f**k. How dare he!
I wasn’t some ticking time bomb to use my body for motherhood. That wasn’t how women were treated anymore. Women were successfully having kids in their forties. This wasn’t the fourteenth century, where you needed to pop out ten in the hopes of raising five to adulthood. I had advanced healthcare on my side. I wouldn’t even be considered at risk until thirty-five.
I trembled with rage. And he didn’t even look like he cared.
This was Camden Percy. Right here in front of me. I needed to remember that the next time I considered letting my guard down. He knew how to walk right through my guard and take a machete to my feelings.
I stepped back from him. One step and then another.
“You know what?” I said as I stared back at him. He arched an eyebrow in question. “I was actually going to f**k you tonight. Good thing I didn’t make that mistake.”
Then I climbed out of the hot tub and into the cold. I wrapped a fuzzy robe tight around myself.
“Happy anniversary,” I whispered.
I didn’t wait for his response. I turned on my heel and walked back inside. I dropped the robe, slipped into my dress and heels, grabbed my jacket, and was out of the penthouse before he made it back inside. I took the elevator downstairs, still shaking from the cold… or from the conversation.
My body felt brittle. Like I’d break apart at any moment. It was a familiar feeling. I’d built up walls around myself. A bulletproof exterior to hide the little girl within who had been abandoned over and over again. If you kicked a dog too many times, you shouldn’t be surprised when it bit back.
I flagged down a cab and headed up to my own penthouse. I left the dress, bra, and panties in a trail through the house before I stepped into my shower. I turned it on as hot as it would go and showered off any remnants of the night until there was nothing left. Not a speck of Camden Percy on my skin or on my heart.
But I didn’t cry.
I seethed. I plotted. And I decided then and there how I was going to make him eat crow.
- Writer
