Chapter 2

OLIVIA CABELLO

Death was unfair. It has and will always be unfair.

My mother’s wails can be heard all over the cemetery we are in. I hold an umbrella for her and I feel so broken that no tears come to my eyes.

Girls were supposed to be close to their mothers.

Not me though.

I was close to my father. His little princesa. His muse. His only daughter.

And now, the person I love the most is dead because I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save my father, my best friend.

I don’t deserve to shed tears. I don’t deserve to mourn for him.

The rain roars back with a vengeance, pouring over the umbrella I’m holding frailly. My abuela and the rest of the family are standing by the other side of the casket sobbing as my father gets lowered into the ground.

They shouldn’t cry for him. They abandoned him a long time ago. They shouldn’t be here.

“I can’t live without you, Hose. Plea-- please come back to me. Please come back to me!”

We all know my father isn’t coming back.

We all know my mother is losing her mind but none of us speak.

I don’t speak when the family come to offer their condolences.

I don’t speak when we bury my father.

I don’t speak when…

“I don’t want you in the house. I can’t bear to look at you after everything. Hose would still be alive if you hadn’t… if you hadn’t…”

Killed your husband?

That’s what my mother wants to say and I can’t blame her.

Her eyes look at me one more time before she says, “I want to heal and I can’t do it when you are around.”

Because I look like my father and I’m the reason he’ll be rotting in a six feet deep grave.

I don’t speak as I watch her walk away.

I stand with an umbrella in the rain, my best friend consoling me.

“She doesn’t mean it, Liv. You’ve gotta know that. She’s hurt but she’ll come around.”

She won’t. My father was the only one linking us together and now he’s dead. 

“She just cut me off, Jules. I don’t… I don’t blame her.”

The phone that has been in my dark jeans since morning rings.

It has rung more than five times and I haven’t answered it. I know who it is.

I know what HE wants.

I pull it out and the called ID has Ryat’s name and number on the screen.

“Olivia”, Jules warns.

I offer a reassuring smile to her.

“Give me a minute to talk to him.”

She nods then she walks away.

I look at my father’s grave. At the tombstone that will be the only reminder of who he is, who he was.

Hatred courses through my veins as I slide my finger across the phone’s screen taking the call.

“I hate wasting time, Olivia. You never came yesterday but I expect you tonight, curvy. Don’t be late.”

The voice that used to make my heart skip and my breath catch in my throat now sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

The coldness in Ryat Winchester’s heart that I thought I would be able to melt is nothing but a forgotten memory in my mind.

This man never saw me as anything other than a sex toy for him.

My father died. Ryat doesn’t even know and if he knew I don’t think he’ll care.

Just like he didn’t care when I begged for his help in his office.

I’ve accepted what I am.

I am Ryat’s plaything. But tonight, I won’t be anymore.

---

I take the elevator to the penthouse and as soon as the lift doors part, I step into the penthouse that Ryat bought for me.

No. Not for me.

This place is where he hides me and fucks me behind closed doors.

This place is where he takes his whore.

His musky cologne fills the air, his six-feet two height that’s almost felt intimidating does nothing to me. The muscles that are stretched by the dark office shirt he has on comes to sight as his emerald eyes pierce mine.

His face is neutral. Like always. Cold, hard, murderous.

The distance between us feels like a chasm as I stare at him with the same cold eyes he gave me for two years.

“Come here”, he growls.

I don’t move an inch.

He gets angry.

I grab my Diamond Birkin bag throwing it in his direction.

It falls near his feet and he picks it up with ease, his questioning eyes on me.

“What’s this supposed to mean, Olivia?” his voice drops to an octave low but I don’t fear him. I don’t feel anything for this man.

“There. That’s everything you ever gave me just so I could warm your bed, Ryat. Your money is in there, your phone is in there, your clothes are in there and whatever we had is in there too. Find yourself another whore who’ll spread your legs for you. We are done, Mr. Winchester.”

My heart heaves and the strength and devastation gushing through my veins taps my back for doing what I failed to do years ago.

To leave this man.

Ryat throws the bag somewhere across the room and it smashes a couple of glasses.

I don’t flinch when his jaw tics and the pulse on the side of his neck becomes visible.

I don’t cower when a smirk litters his face and his eyes turn a stormy almost grey color.

“Your little attitude turns me on at times but this isn’t one of those times, Olivia. Bring your ass here or I haul it over my shoulder and I won’t be blamed for the consequences there after.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Winchester. I’d tell you to have a nice life but I’ve never been a liar.”

I turn to walk away but in mere seconds, Ryat’s hands wrap around my waist, my body knocking his hard chest in an instant.

His hand cups my face, he pushes some of my hair from my eyes and his thumb traces my bottom lip tenderly.

“Let me go”, I bark.

He smirks.

“Never. You want to cause drama, do it. You want to scream, do it. You want to hit me, do it. But thinking this is over? That will never happen, curvy. As soon as you opened your legs for me, you were mine. These lips are mine. Your cunt is mine. Your ass is mine. All mine.”

“I was never yours, Ryat Winchester. I will never be yours. You deserve someone as cold as you. You and your fiancé deserve each other. Let me go!”

“No.”

“You are going to force yourself on me? You are going to make me kneel for you? Do it! I’m already broken, there’s nothing that you can do right now that will make me feel a thing, Ryat because you did that! You broke me. You broke me, you bastard!”

I slap him and the tears I promised I won’t shed come falling in hot fat chunks.

Ryat lets go of me.

And I turn around and step into the elevator.

When the elevator doors start to close, Ryat’s face comes into sight and with enough anger and violence to rival an MMA fighter, he mouths the words;

“We will never be over.”