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Alina answered coldly, “Yes.”
Drake’s voice, however, was bland as he said, “If you have something to say to Mairi, I suggest we do this privately. We have a car waiting outside. You may speak with freedom there, while here...”
As the man’s voice trailed off, Alina belatedly became aware that they were attracting curious eyes. She didn’t think people recognized her yet, but it was only a matter of time. She nodded stiffly, her gaze carefully averted from Damen’s former fiancée. She was not normally this emotional, but she might just lose it if she looked at Mairi.
Drake stayed in the middle of the two women as they walked out of the airport. He immediately spotted Raymond, a short but stocky man who served with Drake in Afghanistan, leaning against a black Benz.
At the sight of Drake, Raymond moved fast, murmuring a polite greeting as he opened car doors. Alina and Mairi were ushered inside the backseat while Drake took the passenger seat next to Raymond.
The moment the door was slammed shut, Alina burst out fiercely, “How could you?”
Mairi reluctantly met the accusing gaze of the younger girl. The sensible part of her told Mairi she had nothing to be guilty for. But the other part of her, the one that was still numb with pain and love for a man who would never really trust her, that part of Mairi welcomed the anger from Alina. She felt like the accusation, the disgust and contempt in the other girl’s gaze was completely justified. Allowing Drake into her bed might not have been considered a gross mistake, but it had not been her best decision either.
And so to Alina, she said nothing.
How, Alina thought with furious tears rushing to her eyes, could Mairi Tanner make it feel like she was the one in the wrong for attacking when it was the other girl who had been playing around while Damen Leventis was practically existing only to seek her forgiveness?
The older girl perplexed her, and the fact that it did only made Alina more resentful. There was also a regal air about Mairi, something that made her feel untouchable and pure even though Alina had seen with her own eyes that Mairi was anything but. Mairi was only four years older than her twenty, but right now the other girl made Alina feel very much immature for her outburst.
Well, immature or not, she did not have anything to be guilty of at least, Alina thought sullenly. That kiss between Mairi and the stranger had spoken volumes. Something beyond a kiss had happened between the two, and it was something that the man felt very proprietary about.
Alina glared at Mairi. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell Damen that you are over him.”
“I didn’t think there was a need to,” Mairi answered quietly.
Alina’s temper flared. “Don’t make it seem like he’s completely to blame! Maybe he was at the start, but now you’ve done something as bad, taking another lover to your bed—-”
Mairi opened her mouth to protest, but she closed it a second after. She so wanted to tell Alina how wrong she was, that she hadn’t completely crossed the line but if she did...if she did...
A memory intruded in her mind like a slap to the face. Mairi saw herself begging for Damen to listen to her explain, to give her time to make him believe in her love – how she had begged him when she had done nothing wrong, begged him even as he humiliated her in front of people who had once seen them in love and had then been subjected to seeing Damen reduce her to something no better than a beggar after the crumbs of his affection.
She shuddered. How pathetic she had been!
And when he was gone, leaving her alone as the police dragged her away, that was when she realized that it hadn’t just been people in Damen’s employ that had witnessed her humiliation. Cuffed like a criminal, she had been made to sit in the back of a police car, which then drove past people who had once been their neighbors. All their masks of friendly charm had fallen then.
When it became clear to them that Damen Leventis had abandoned her, none of them had passed up the opportunity to show their supercilious contempt for her, staring at Mairi as the police car slowly drove past them. It had been clear in their expressions they all thought the same thing.
She deserved to be thrown out because she was not one of them.
Mairi tried to block the more painful memories from her mind, but it was impossible. Being sent to jail had been excruciating, but it had been nothing compared to hearing the man she loved – the one man she had always dreamt she’d fall in love with – speak to her like shedirtiedhis life.
“Please, Damen—-”
“I can’t believe I chose you over a real lady like Alina.”
It was just a memory, but with the “real lady” now sitting next to her, making Mairi once again feel like a cheap slut, it was just too much. She wanted to shut the world away, wanted to go back to the past and stay there with her innocence intact, her dreams unbroken.
Alina looked at her with the same eyes as all those onlookers had gazed at her that painfully unforgettable night. Alina made her feel the same way Damen had made her feel, like shewasa cheap slut to ever think she meant more to him than just a body to warm a Greek billionaire’s bed.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Mairi whispered. All thoughts of being strong had disappeared, an unstoppable sea of guilt washing them away. “I just wanted to prove to myself I don’t belong to him.”
The other girl sounded like she was about to break down, but Alina told herself it couldn’t be true. How could Mairi be affected when she had managed to get in bed with another man while Damen Leventis’ whole world consisted of Mairi alone?
“You think too highly of yourself,” Alina heard herself spit out, “if you think you could belong to someone like him.” She wanted to hurt Mairi the way she had seen Damen had hurt in all the days she had lived with him.
Damen Leventis had put this girl on a pedestal, but she didn’t deserve to be there, and Alina would make sure to drag her down even if it was the last thing she did.
“You don’t understand—-”