Page 14 of Corrupted By You

I frowned. “I get plenty of action.”

“Your vibrator doesn’t count.”

Tsking, I shoved her away and Dacia giggled.

Had it really been so long since I’d had fun?

Ella’s words echoed louder than ever in my mind.

Did I really kill the spark inside of me to appease others and inevitably lost myself in the woods?

Suddenly, the world around me spun in slow motion and I stood rooted in my place, an uneasy pang moving through my body. I’d like to blame it on indigestion, but I knew this feeling like the back of my hand.

Loneliness.

It thrummed through my veins and caused the smile on my face to falter. Taking in the scene before me of strangers dancing the night away with happiness splattered on their faces…I wondered if there was anyone in the room who felt as misplaced as me but pretended to put on an act.

The pads of my fingers glided over my wrist, right on top of my pulse. It beat, but it never drummed fast anymore. I was merely a speck in time, going through the motions and surviving. There was nothing inside of me that truly felt alive.

And I was tired of being a flâneur in my own life.

I wasn’t jealous, but I wanted what so many of my friends had—happily-ever-afters with partners who loved them endlessly. Despite all of my accomplishments, I felt like a failure that I hadn’t found my person. For all intent and purposes, I was fully independent but when I lay alone at night in my silk sheets, I often wondered what tomorrow held for me…and hoped it was someone who brought me breakfast in bed, who listened to me recount my days, who planned date nights, and who treated me like I was their sole reason for existing. I wanted tomorrow to hold the kind of man who was deserving of my presence and for whom I wished to do all these things because I loved him just that much.

Then again, the Hill curse probably explained my predicant, I thought bitterly.

Knowing this wasn’t the time nor place to be having such self-pitying thoughts, I spun on my heels and headed towards the near-empty bar.

Just as I wove through strings of busybodies, I caught a familiar group of men entering the club. I gave them a mild glare as I marched their way instead. “Excuse me, but what are you doing here?”

“Crashing the bachelorette party,” Cade informed smoothly. Behind him, his friends—Samuel, Nate, Nico, Josh, Shaun, and Hunter—stood with shit-eating grins. “What else does it look like?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at another club?” I accused. “Can’t you spend one night away from your women?”

“Nope.” Cade snagged me into his arms for a hug. “Now tell me where my fiancée is.”

I sighed and pointed at the dance floor. “Over there.”

Most of them left in search of their women after greeting me, except for Shaun Jacobson the III, who stopped to engulf me in a big bear hug. “Hey, Dar.”

“Hey, Shaun.” I hugged him back. “Good to see you.”

Shaun was an old friend. He was the captain of the hockey team—the Rangers—when Ella and I had been co-captains of the cheerleading squad at St. Victoria circa 2014. We had a long history marked with a stitch in time where Shaun and I attempted to be more. We kissed twice, but it amounted to nothing when we realized that we were better off as friends. Something that hurt my mother’s ego because she would have liked nothing more for me to be saddled with South Side’s equivalent of a duke.

Shaun was everything Mother wanted for me—an ex-athlete, corporate asshole, and wealthy. I adored and respected Shaun, but I wasn’t in love with him.

“Looking great.” He pressed a perfunctory kiss to my cheek. “Still too pretty for your own good.”

I shook my head with a smile. Such a charmer.

Shaun’s blue gaze snagged at something over my shoulder. Or rathersomeone, I should say. The smile instantly fell and he shoved his fingers through his short-cropped blond hair, striving for indifference. The muscle ticking in his jaw gave him away.

Hera.

He was always looking at Hera.

I felt sadness for him and I offered gently, “Her husband allowed her to come out tonight. That’s why she’s here.”

I probably shouldn’t have brought up the fact that Hera was married to another man while Shaun lost his chance years ago.