Page 82 of Stolen Summer

“If you know me so well, then you know what I’m capable of and what I’m not. And I’m not capable of caring about anyone other than myself. I don’t want to see you again.” He turned his back to me dismissively like I was the help.

Maybe I was. Maybe I was just a girl he hired, no different than a maid, the driver, or the cook.

“Have it your way, but if I walk out of this house, I’m never walking back in,” I said with an air of finality I meant.

The hard press of his lips and the silence that followed gave me my answer.

Fuck Cole Riley.

Fuck his problems.

Fuck his money.

I wished I’d never met him.

I didn’t want to see his face again.

And he could shove his deal up his pompous ass.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Irefused to chase Cole another second.

Stuffing my clothes into my bag, I had to get the hell out of this house. I needed a moment alone to process why I had this gripping sense of panic and foreboding within me.

God, it felt like I was going through a breakup except Cole and I were never together. Not really.

Everything about our relationship was fake.

As fake as he was.

I had no idea where he was in the house, but it didn’t matter as long as he stayed away from me.

How had I let him touch me?

He didn’t stop me as I hurried out, dragging my shit behind me, and slammed the door hard, essentially closing the door on Cole. This chapter of my life was finished.

Despite being swarmed in anger and hurt, I meant every word I said.

I swore as I stomped through the sandy grass, hauling my bag, I felt his eyes on me through one of the windows, but I refused to look.

I didn’t want to deal with or think about money when I walked through my front door, but the reality of my situation hit me in the face. My life was the same as when I left. I had no money. I was as poor as before. Poorer considering I’d already spent a chunk of the deposit Cole had given me on past due bills.

My shoulders slumped, and my bag dropped to the entryway floor, defeat draining me. It would take me years to repay Cole what I’d spent, and in just a snap, my future shifted, and I watched my dreams vanish. I saw myself twenty years from now at the diner in the same worn-out, stained clothes shoving wrinkled dollars into my pockets.

The first tear rolled down my cheek, and I swiped at it.

Cole Riley wasn’t worth my tears.

My back hit the closed door as I glanced around with blurry eyes. It was no secret I had emotional damage.

My mother had left. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted a daughter.

The guilt from Dad’s accident.

The stigma that followed me for being poor.

And now this. The day I made myself vulnerable to another human, he cut me, treating me like every other jerk.