Free Bartered Betrayal - The Billionaire's Wife 08 by Ava Lore

 
    Bartered Betrayal: The Billionaire's Wife
     
    Ava Lore
     
    Part XIII
     
    I went home.
    Not Anton's house—that wasn't home any more, if it ever had been—but my home. My tiny shitty apartment where this had all started. My studio now, I supposed, since all my shit was in Anton's house. I doubted he'd try to keep it all like some kind of jealous ex-boyfriend, but I didn't care about it anyway. It was just stuff. You can lose stuff. You can't lose yourself.
    Or you shouldn't, anyway.
    And yet that was what I'd done. I'd trusted Anton, let him fold me up and take me in and use me however he wanted because I loved the way my body felt when he touched it, and I'd loved seeing the man behind the mask. The one who sometimes laughed despite himself, the man who couldn't let himself lose control for even a moment, the man who sometimes seemed completely confused by me, as though I were some kind of exotic creature he couldn't understand. But I still didn't know him at all, no matter how many times I gave him control. I'd lost myself to him, and had nothing to show for it in return. I needed to go somewhere that wasn't his, that had never been touched by him, and clear my head.
    I walked the whole way there. It was cold. My sneakers, my old familiar sneakers, were just canvas. The leather boots I'd been wearing would have been better, but those clothes were for Anton's wife. I was just Felicia Waters. I shared his last name, but nothing more. Not his house, not his life, and certainly not his secrets. He didn't even share my secrets with me.
    My heart was a hole in my chest.
    The wind cut through my hoodie, but I kept going until I reached my building. Wearily I climbed up to my floor, and when at last I found myself in front of my old door, I realized that I didn't have the key. I didn't even know what time it was, only that it was now fully dark and I'd been walking for hours. My feet ached. My head ached. My chest ached. And now I was locked out of my old apartment. Locked out of my old life, if I wanted to get all metaphorical about it. Locked out of my old self, if I wanted to be truthful.
    I started to cry.
    I really hate crying, but I knew I had to get it over with sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner, so I leaned against the door and let it come over me like an avalanche.
    My shoulders bowed, my face crumpled, and I collapsed to the floor. Grief bubbled up in my chest, great wracking sobs that seemed to come from someone else completely, and a small, detached part of me listened to the anguished howls filling the small hallway, wondering what could have been so horrible that someone should make such a terrible, frightful sound.
    I didn't even know. I didn't even know.
    It's not like Anton loved me. It's not like he ever even hinted that he might. He'd explicitly said he didn't want a wife to love. And yet I'd allowed myself to hope, all the same, that our marriage might be something more than just a convenient arrangement. My stupid, dumb, hopelessly romantic heart had told me to hope, and I'd foolishly listened to it.
    Sadie was right. I was stupid.
    The sound of a door opening next to me startled me, and I quickly tried to wipe my tears away and pretend that some other girl covered in snot with a face like a tomato had been wailing like a banshee. It couldn't be me. I would never do anything like that.
    My next door neighbor, Mrs. Andersen, stuck her head out into the hallway and glared at me.
    “Felicia!” she snapped. “You don't even live here any more and you keep making a racket!”
    I stared at her, tears leaking from my eyes.
    She gave an exasperated sigh. Good old Mrs. Andersen. I could always count on her to not care. It was comforting. Almost.
    “Well, what's wrong?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
    “I'm locked out,” I said. It sounded inane even to my ears, because no one was going to bray like a wounded cow just because they were locked out of their apartment, but I wasn't