Page 85 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

“I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast, Shae.” And with that, he closes the door in my face.

EIGHTEEN

STORM

The room smells like sex and Shae.

I collapse into the armchair across from the sofa and glare at my phone until the text arrives from Anderson that Shae’s safely back in her suite.

Two minutes and forty-three seconds. That’s how long it takes for the message to come through.

After I get the confirmation, I darken the screen and stare at the sofa where Shae and I just hate-fucked our rage toward each other.

I can’t believe Shae and I screwed.

I can’t believe how fucked up I feel about it.

“Fuuuuuuck,” I groan, running my hand down the side of my face…then regretting the action because it smells like Shae.

She’s everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

The truth is, I don’t want to hurt Shae. I don’t want her to hate me. But I don’t know what the hell to do with this tornado of emotion I’m stuck in.

For the first time since I laid my eyes on Shae Rivers outside the Econ building, I wish I could create emotional distance.

I wish I had the ability to be objective when it comes to her, rather than all-consumed and obsessed.

Because that’s what I’ve been in the near decade I’ve known her: Obsessed. Possessive. Uncontrollable.

I’m the flame, and Shae’s the kindling.

And we’re about to burn each other alive.

My whole body awakens as if electrified, and I surge to my feet, pacing the length of the living room. My skin feels wrong; my mind feels wrong.

Everything feels wrong when Shae and I are out of sync.

I chuckle. Out of sync? We’re on two completely different planets right now.

My eye catches the file on the desk across the room. A dossier on Tempest and Raiden Rivers that Axel compiled and sent over while I was at the palace.

I stare at their last name. Rivers.

If it weren't for their middle names, I’d think she’d completely erased me from their genealogy.

Tempest Amaya, after my mother. Raiden Alexander, after my own middle name.

But that’s it. There’s no mention of me on the birth certificate, like Riale said. The twins could just as easily have been made in a test tube from all the data I gathered on them.

I move to the folder, opening it to stare at their Kindergarten pictures. Shae was right. They both look like me—especially Raiden.

No wonder he stared at me so intently at Versailles. He probably thought he was looking at a mirror.

I flip through more pages: progress reports from their Montessori schools, medical records from their premature births and their two-week stint in the NICU after being born at thirty-four weeks.

I read on, rubbing my chest when I learn Shae’s water broke at thirty-two weeks, and she spent that time until birth in the hospital on bedrest, trying to keep them in.

I should have been there.