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Chloe Bennett tasted betrayal on her tongue. It wasn't the tequila. No. It wasn't the burn of the liquor sliding down her throat. That would have been much easier to handle.
It was the sight of them-her sister, her ex-wrapped in each other's arms like she had never existed. She felt her chest tighten as she wallowed in self pity.
The club pulsed around her, but she didn't hear the music. All she heard was the echo of his words, the ones that shattered her into nothing. Stabbing her like a blunt pocket knife twisting deeper into her back.
"It was always her, Chloe." She had replayed those words over and over again, her mind desperately trying to find some loophole in their meaning. Some ridiculous way to make them mean anything but what they did.
But no, the truth was there, raw and unyielding. She should have known, the late-night calls he ignored, the way his gaze lingered a second too long whenever her sister entered the room. The tightness in his voice when he swore she was overthinking.
It's funny how she convinced herself she was crazy, how he made her feel crazy, how she told herself to stop reading between the lines. But now the truth was a slap to the face, so sharp it left her breathless.
How could she be so stupid! After all these years....This is what she gets? Her fingers curled around her glass, nails biting into her palm.
She buried her head in between her arms waiting for the alcohol to kick in. As she sat she began to curse. "Screw love. Screw men." Tonight, she was done feeling. Done with the humiliation. Done being the fool.
She just wanted to make it all go away, to forget this ever happened. And then she saw him. Sitting alone is the dark corner of the club, his drink untouched in his hand. He looked tall. Sharp-jawed. A presence that swallowed the space around him. His aura was intimidating, it was commanding. A silent force that pulled people in, even as it warned them to stay away.
He wasn't like the men stumbling around the club, reeking of desperation and cheap cologne, hoping to have anyone they could pin down for the night. No, he was different, composed.
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