Page 38 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”

― E.A. Bucchianeri

Scarlett

26 years old

Present time

“Your tits look insane in this. Total ‘fuck me, fuck you’ energy. Iconic.”

I breathed out thinly, tension wired into my jaw. “Well, iconic is kind of my thing, Vic. That and mandatory rehab, apparently.”

The words came out smoothly. Practiced. Sharp enough to keep distance between me and whatever pity was waiting behind her eyes.

Victoria sighed softly and looped her arm through mine. Her touch was steady. Mine wasn’t.

We took our heels off, stepping onto the white carpet rolled across the sand, a clean path cutting through the over-decorated mess some called a party.

We turned our backs to the ocean, the water dark and restless, moving like it was breathing.

Ahead, a crush of strangers waited with perfect smiles and empty eyes.

Music throbbed beneath my ribs. Flashbulbs burst in my face. Someone waved. I couldn’t tell if I knew them. I looked away.

“Happy birthday, Scarlett!” the crowd shouted, too loudly. Fireworks split the sky. Pink and purple hearts burst above me. I kept my forced grin locked in place. My hands kept shaking.

One year.

Three hundred and sixty-five days in a high-security wellness fortress in Minnesota.

Private chefs brought me food I never touched. Soundproofed rooms let me scream without anyone hearing.

Yoga at dawn. Therapy at noon. Sedatives before dinner, tucked into crystal glasses and handed over with a smile.

I was a patient with a view. A name they couldn’t afford to lose.

Every day, I sat by the glass and watched the world move on without me. They praised me when I didn’t cry. They marked it down as strength. They gave me lavender oil for panic attacks and wrote long emails about how well I was responding.

No one had asked why I kept waking up shaking.

They never mentioned the days I wouldn’t speak. The hours I spent staring at the walls. They slipped antipsychotics under silver lids and recorded everything I said behind their soft questions.

Everything was documented. Every word, every silence. And all of it happened in rooms covered in mirrors, so I couldn’t look away from what I was becoming.

I picked at the edge of my nail until it split. Victoria was still talking about what she’d gotten me for my birthday.

It had been three weeks since they’d let me out. Three weeks, and I still woke up soaked in sweat, heart pounding, certain I was still trapped in that place.

The dreams didn’t fade. They choked me awake. White walls. Locked doors. The same voice telling me I was doing better.

Now I stood surrounded by people who clapped for the comeback while ignoring the wreckage.

I had to do everything people expected. Keep my head high. Pretend the darkness hadn’t followed me home.

Victoria leaned in, her perfume strong enough to stick in my throat. “You good?”

“No,” I answered, still smiling for the cameras. “But I’m good at pretending.”

She gave my arm a squeeze. I didn’t look at her. Couldn’t. My chest was too tight.

Arms slid around my waist, followed by the brush of lips against my neck. “You enjoying your party, sunshine?”

Before I could answer, cameras clicked. Three quick bursts. Flash. Flash. Flash. The light stung my eyes, turning the night into fragments.

I turned, caught his hand, and pulled him with me, weaving through the dancing bodies without looking back at Victoria.

“Shit,” he laughed. “If you wanted me all to yourself, you only had to ask.”

I pulled him past the crowd, through the noise, down toward the edge of the beach where the lights thinned. We ducked behind one of the food stations handing out overpriced sliders to drunk influencers.

I stopped beside the table, let go of his hand, and turned to face him. “Don’t ever do that again.”

His smile faded. “Do what?”

“Touch me when it’s not planned. Seriously, Nicholas, this whole setup is already a pain in the ass. I don’t need surprise affection on top of it.”

He blinked, confused and annoyed. “Jesus, Scar. It was one photo op.”

“Exactly.” I stepped closer, staring him down. “You don’t get to make a moment out of me. I’m playing the broken pop star fresh out of rehab. You’re the fake boyfriend trying to look supportive. That’s the deal.”

He raised his hands like I was being dramatic.

Maybe I was. I didn’t care.

“Next time you wanna act like you give a shit, run it by my publicist first.”

He sighed and dragged a hand roughly over his beard.

“How do you expect people to buy that we’re hooking up when you treat me like I’ve got the plague?

” He glanced away for half a second before his voice dropped.

“This isn’t just for your image, Scarlett.

Mine’s on the line too. You think it’s fun for me to grope someone on camera while my actual boyfriend’s stuck at home, watching the whole thing play out on gossip blogs? He’s tired. I’m tired. We all are.”

To get out of rehab, I had to make my father a promise—to do exactly what he said. No questions, no conditions. Just follow the plan and rebuild the Scarlett Harper brand.

His brilliant idea of recovery wasn’t therapy or rest. It was a PR stunt. A fake boyfriend.

Someone famous, good-looking, and polished enough to convince the world I was healing through love. That rehab was behind me, and I was stable, supported, and smiling. The fans would eat it up. So would the press.

He called it a comeback. I called it a lie I’d have to live in.

On one of his rare visits, a few days before I was released, he’d given me a shortlist. Three men—a hockey player, an NFL star, or an actor.

Anyone but the man I wanted.

I fucking want you, Scarlett.

Only me?

Only you.

So, I’d picked the actor. Not because I liked him, but because I knew how actors worked. Long shoots. Press tours. Endless days on set. With a one-year contract in place, the more time he spent away, the easier this would be to survive.

What no one had told me was that he was gay.

Nicholas Preston was everything the headlines had promised.

Tall, beautiful, smooth. Dark eyes, perfect teeth, a beard he spent hours grooming.

Millions of girls dreamed about him. Every magazine called him Hollywood’s next obsession.

He’d been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He was everywhere.

And now, he was mine. On paper.

When he and his team had barged into my condo two days after I’d gotten out, I’d expected attitude. Arrogance. The usual smugness that came with that much fame.

I hadn’t expected someone kind.

He’d wandered through my place, took one look at my room with its blackout curtains, half-melted candles, and shelves stuffed with books and mess, and said, “This looks like Sabrina the Teenage Witch gave up halfway through a summoning spell.”

Then he’d sat on my bed and told me the truth—he was gay. He hadn’t wanted this arrangement either. His agency had forced it, just like mine. And for a second, I hadn’t felt alone.

Not safe. Not better. But not completely alone, either.

“Sorry, Nic,” I muttered, sitting down on the sand. It clung to my palms, gritty and warm.

I looked up. The sky was full of stars. Millions of them, just burning brightly.

“It’s a strange kind of hollow,” I said. “Selling yourself. Doing everything except what you actually want. And telling yourself that’s enough because there’s no other choice.”

He lowered himself beside me, arms resting on his knees. “I know. Thank God I have Matthew to go home to. He makes it bearable.” He paused, uncertain. “Have you heard about?…?him?”

I flinched. Not enough to notice, just enough to feel it.

Him.

I didn’t say his name. Didn’t let my mind go there. Didn’t let it wander to his hands, his voice, the way his mouth had felt on mine.

I didn’t let myself remember the way his eyes had burned through me, or how his words used to sit warmly against my skin. I didn’t let my heart ache. I didn’t let it hope.

He didn’t fucking exist.

He had let them take me. The man who had sworn he’d protect me. Who’d sworn I was safe with him. He’d abandoned me.

If I’d hated him before, now I wanted him buried. Or maybe just gone.

Gone from me, gone from this life, gone from the part of my memory that still stung when I breathed too deeply.

Nicholas only knew because he’d heard Victoria bring him up again and again. Begging me to reach out, to let him explain.

As if I needed his version of the story. As if I didn’t already know the truth. There was nothing he could say that would make a year of silence feel less empty.

A year. Twelve whole fucking months.

Not a call. Not a letter. Not even a message through someone else. He didn’t have to tell the truth. He just had to show up.

And he hadn’t.

And that silence was louder than anything he’d ever said. I hated him for it.

I always would.

When I’d gotten out of rehab, I thought I’d stopped waiting for him. I’d told myself it was done. That I was done.

But when I stepped back into my apartment and shut the door behind me, something small and pathetic had still looked toward the hallway, half expecting him to be there.

Not to hold me. Not to speak. Just to stand there with his hands behind his back, jaw locked, eyes hard—like nothing had changed when everything had.

He wasn’t there.

My father said there was no need for a bodyguard anymore. Said I wouldn’t be doing any public appearances without Nicholas and his team. That their people would keep me safe now.

So, I made a decision.

I’d locked that door. Thrown the key into whatever deeply buried part of me still wanted him. And I hadn’t looked back since.

I stared out at the water, the waves folding into the shore again and again.

Somewhere behind us, the party kept spilling across the sand, loud and curated and exactly what my father had paid for. Yet, the Hamptons had never felt this quiet.

My eyes lifted to the sky as a shooting star slipped through the darkness. It burned quietly, briefly beautiful, then vanished.

“No. But you know?…?I think I’m just like a shooting star. Forever alone. Bright for a second, maybe beautiful. Then gone. No one really misses it once it disappears.”

Nicholas didn’t answer right away. Just sat beside me, eyes on the stars above. “Have you ever heard of binary stars?”

I glanced at him, brow drawn, and shook my head.

“Two stars caught in the same pull. They orbit each other, not for a moment, but for a lifetime. If one fades, the other loses everything. They weren’t meant to survive alone.”

His voice was gentle, steady, certain in a way that made my chest ache.

“You’re not a shooting star, Scarlett. You’re one half of something rare. And somewhere out there, the other half is already looking for you.”