Empire of Sin (Empire #2)(13)

I follow my own.

So I ignore them and settle on my chair. Then I turn on my computer, enter the login details I was provided, and I start attacking the tasks the head of the IT department left me in an email.

My lips pull in a small smile as I soak in the feeling of having this peaceful, quiet setting with no one barking orders at me. This is what free people do. Work to provide for themselves.

It doesn’t take me long to finish the tasks assigned to me. They must be taking it easy on me on my first day, because by the time lunch rolls around, I’m done.

Ben and Chad already left, probably to eat in the cafeteria. From what I gathered, almost all the workers at W&S eat there. Me, however? I never even considered the option of having my lunch there. Lots of people I don’t know? No, thanks.

I open my drawer, retrieve my sandwich, unwrap it, and take a bite as I follow a tour on W&S’s employee website. I like whoever suggested they add this for newbies like me.

It’s sophisticated and there doesn’t need to be needless contact with the HR people.

For a moment, I’m focused on the introductory video, but a few minutes later, my mind floats somewhere else.

It’s easy to block these thoughts when I’m concentrating on a task, but now that my brain is in a paused state, it’s impossible to veer it in another direction.

Because it’s already there, at the Black Diamond hotel, where I let a British stranger take my virginity roughly and without holding back. I let a stranger leave angry red marks all over my neck and breasts that I couldn’t conceal with foundation, so I had to wear a scarf for some time.

I wish that was all. I wish I’d left that night in Jersey.

But I didn’t.

I’ve been having dreams about it, about his merciless pace and his punishing gaze. About how he grabbed my throat, then fucked it, then grabbed it again. I’ve been imagining those moments, too, like right now.

And it always gets me squirmy and raises the temperature a notch. Usually, I’d try to fight these feelings harder, but I don’t seem to have the will.

I think I’ve become sort of obsessed with what happened that night. All I can picture is light chestnut hair, intense hazel eyes, and that angry samurai.

As angry as his thrusts inside me.

As angry as he deep-throated me.

I didn’t think I would ever be that type, the one who gets off on violence and being handled roughly, but I should have known better.

I really, really should have.

Ever since I was a teen, I’ve been having nightmares about being held down and ravished. Then I wake up drenched in sweat and with a strange sensation between my legs.

That’s when I should’ve known it wasn’t really a nightmare but a fantasy. A dangerous, deadly one.

And the evidence is that I can’t stop thinking about it.

It wasn’t part of my plan, but it happened, and now, I can’t get rid of the memory. Time is supposed to make me forget, isn’t it? It’s supposed to wipe my memories clean of him, his callous touch, and the scent of his cologne.

But that’s the exact opposite of what’s happened. Ever since that night, he’s magnified to lengths I can’t control. He’s become the taboo subject that I pictured before I went to sleep and then hoped no one knew what I was thinking.

Or what I’ve done.

It’s over, Ana. You’re a new person now.

I keep telling myself that as I dive back into work. I start messing around, creating a mock-up of a security system that could be accessible to everyone.

I’m good at that. Systems. It’s not only the perfect way to keep my plans intact, but I can also use them as a fa?ade to appear flawless on the outside despite having broken insides.

My grandmother once told me that imperfect people create perfection and I’m starting to take her words to heart.

At the end of the day, I leave last to avoid the rush of people. Thankfully, when I take the elevator, there’s no one in it and I can breathe properly.

The doors open a few floors below and I pray there aren’t too many people. My social anxiety and I had a field day today and we just need to go back to our small apartment and hide for an eternity.

Or at least, until tomorrow.

My hold falters on the strap of my laptop bag when my gaze clashes with the same one I’ve been dreaming about for the past two weeks.

The same stranger I left in that hotel room but can’t stop thinking about.

My only one-night stand that I shouldn’t have met again.

And he’s staring straight through me.





5





ANASTASIA





This isn’t real.

I must be hallucinating.

Or maybe I’m dreaming again, stuck in an imaginary moment and never woke up this morning.

But the more I stare at the man in front of me, the more tangible this becomes. He’s not disappearing.

Why isn’t he disappearing?

He usually vanishes about now. He becomes one with my dreams and stops bothering me.

Not now, though.

Now he’s coming inside the elevator—where I currently am.

Oh, shit.

The need to run hits me out of nowhere and it takes everything in me not to jump out of the elevator like a monkey.

My mission is put to an abrupt halt when the doors slide closed with brutal finality. Now, it’s only he and I in the car.