Page 89 of Play for Power (Central Sparks #3)

I rush to play the second message, worried the twist in my chest is going to make me heave.

His sweet and smooth voice hits my ears again.

I feel oddly calm at the sound, despite the agony consuming us both.

The second message is much the same, he’s drunk, though perhaps not as drunk.

“So I’m drunk again.” He sighs and I reluctantly smile through my tears.

“Remember that night when we watched all the Denzel movies and we talked about our crushes? You’re my biggest crush.

That’s what I wanted to say. You’re not a celebrity…

well, you kind of are, I guess…but you’ve been my crush since Addison first introduced us.

” He sounds almost like he’s smiling when he takes a shuddering breath.

“I know you made your choice, but I wish you wouldn’t leave me,” he whispers, and it reopens my bleeding heart.

“Wait, I learned…I learned something.” He clears his throat.

“ Tus ojos son mi lugar favorito. ” I scrunch my eyes closed on a sob; his pronunciation fumbled slightly, but I heard each word like a whip against my soul.

“I finished the whiskey, because the more I looked at it, the more I saw your eyes. I can’t stand knowing I don’t get to see them anymore. ”

He seems to take another few breaths, and it sounds almost like he falls to the ground, or another surface of some kind.

In my mind, I imagine he is shirtless, all that beauty I’m missing, on display as he breathes his next words.

“I miss you. I miss you so much and I wish I didn’t.

I just…I want you to be happy, Rosebud. My pretty girl.

I want you to smile and be happy and I don’t want to hurt you.

I know why you couldn’t pick me, and it’s okay, I’m used to being second choice.

As long as you’re happy, I’ll learn to be happy too.

I can’t pretend nothing happened with us, so I want you to know I will always be here for you.

I…” He heaves another shaky breath. “I have to go. I should go. Bye, Rosebud.” He hangs on the line for a breath and then the message ends.

I can’t help but feel like my heart falls out of me with that three-letter word. Bye.

It feels so final. It feels like the end, and the terror I’d been feeling over the prospect of being a glorified breeding machine feels like nothing compared to the panic I feel at never seeing Caleb again. Never feeling him hold me, never seeing that mischievous smile or those sparkling blue eyes.

I hate this small room, I hate this fucking dress, I hate this apartment, I hate…this life.

I need to get out, I need out.

I stand and splash my face with cold water, feeling splotchy, red, and puffy but not really caring. I need alcohol or something. I need to be numb. I need to lose myself in something that will just take it all away.

I swing open the bathroom door, not caring to excuse myself from whatever this dinner was meant to be. I don’t know what my plan is, all I know is that I don’t want to be here. I make it only as far as the foyer when two hands grip my arms, spinning me and slamming me against the wall.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Mickey’s disgusting breath fans across my face and I find the final cache of rage I have left inside me as I reel back and spit on him.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” I seethe.

He smiles, and it’s slightly unnerving, but he removes his hands slowly, with the individual peel of each finger, before wiping my saliva from his face.

It is pleasantly satisfying to watch, but it’s hard to revel in when he is still smiling like he’s won.

He leans down so his face is right in mine.

“Go on then, Rosita. Have your one last night of freedom. Go out, get drunk, make a fool of yourself, and fuck a stranger in a bar like the whore you are. Soak it up, wife. Get it all out of your system, because when you belong to me? I won’t be having you out of the apartment, running around with your pathetic friends, letting any man just touch what’s mine?

I don’t think so. So, go on. Have your last night of being a messy fuckup and bask in the last of freedom.

” He spits it all through his teeth. Peeling back, he opens the front door before shoving me out and slamming it in my face.

My breaths come in short pants as I stare at the door.

He kicked me out, and that’s exactly what I wanted…

but the words…what he said, the whore you are…

your pathetic friends…bask in the last of your freedom.

I didn’t just sign away my freedom when I chose my father over Caleb. I signed my death sentence.

If this was truly to be the last time I lived, then fuck everyone, fuck all of it.

I wouldn’t just bask in the last of my freedom, I’d have one final hurrah.

I’d go to a bar, maybe even prove him right.

I’m just a hole anyway, right? I order an Uber straight to Bozzelli’s and decide to really live for my last night of freedom.

I get to the bar and waste no time finding my seat. I make sure to make an entrance, holding my chin high and my shoulders back. Telling myself it’s just like any night. Of course, Stella is at the bar though, and when I order a drink, pulling on my usual empty, flirty smile, she lowers her brows.

“Don’t say anything.” I flick her a pretend smile, doing my best to act like I’m scoping the eligible bachelors across the room. Looking for tonight’s distraction.

My body shivers. No one in this room is the one I want to be with. I can barely stomach the idea of sharing space with another person, but I wasn’t about to let Mickey have the last word.

“Just…be careful, okay? Let me know…if I can do anything.”

“You can make me a martini. Dirty.” All my playfulness is completely hollow, it almost feels like I’ve lost my touch completely. I’ve never felt less like myself than I do in this moment. Stella gives me a worried look but makes the drink and places it in front of me before disappearing.

I keep my posture straight, absently looking around the room. It’s laughable, really. That I’m even bothering. I haven’t been able to notice a single other person for months and I somehow thought I’d stumble on the perfect distraction?

Settling into my denial, I tell myself I’m not searching the crowded bar for a specific set of Elizabeth Taylor eyes.

That I’m not hoping to get a whiff of Chanel’s men’s range when someone walks past. Or that my heart doesn’t leap out of my chest when I glimpse a navy Tom Ford suit in the corner of my eye.

I need to face it. My heart came here hoping it would find the one it aches for. That he’d be here, maybe doing the same and finding a distraction only for us to find each other. Like we always do. Because in every goddamn room, I seem to only ever look for him.

My facade starts to slip and I can feel the ache behind my eyes.

I face forward the moment some stranger across the bar meets my eyes and gives me a look that tells me he’d be down if I approached.

But I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Every part of me is aching for Caleb and none of these people are him.

I don’t feel the spark in my chest, I don’t feel at ease or like my skin is on fire from how intensely I burn for him. I feel…unsafe.

That’s what Caleb was. A safe place to land. A place to fall apart and know he’d hold me together.

I throw back the drink in my hand. “I wish I could go back,” I say the words to myself, realizing I’m crying again when a lone drop falls to the bar.

I grunt at how pathetic I’ve become. The old Rosie Garcia barely let a man speak to her, and now here I am fucking crying over one.

But I’m not just crying over any man. I am mourning a life I want so badly.

So go fucking get it.

The old, spicy voice of Rosie is a nice, gentle shock. The version of me who stuck up for herself, who fought hard for what she wanted. I order another drink, Stella still giving me a narrow-eyed stare as she makes it.

I take another look around the bar, and I hate it.

I hate being here. I hate the emptiness I feel sitting here alone.

The prospect of losing myself in a mindless fuck feels even more hollow than drowning my sorrows in alcohol and going home alone.

Because even my home doesn’t feel that way anymore.

Everything is him. He is everywhere. And I really…

fuck, I just want to get lost in him again.

Fight for your own power.

I order another drink, and down it just as fast.

Don’t let them take it.

What the hell am I doing.

Take it back. That is your power. Don’t let them have it.

Not once had Caleb ever tried to take my power from me.

All he ever wanted was for me to shine and for him to be standing there next to me so he could be along for the ride.

He didn’t want me for what I offered him, for how I added to his life.

He just wanted me. He never once asked a single thing from me, only to keep my power for myself.

I always thought being in a relationship, being in love, was settling.

That I’d be sacrificing a part of myself for the sake of another.

But Caleb…he never wanted any of that. He refused to let me change any part of myself and instead encouraged me to take.

He wanted me to take everything while he cheered me on.

What the hell have I done.

It’s not too late…right?

A buzzing sense of urgency sweeps through me so fast I nearly faint.

This can’t be goodbye. This can’t be forever; I can’t let it. Caleb’s never been chosen first, he’s never believed that he was worth it all, and fuck. I fed right into that when I didn’t immediately choose him.