CADEnce (Deception Book 2) (4 page)

“WELL, GOOD LUCK TO YOU both.” Ira, the correspondent from CNN News smiled widely. I released the tension from my body with a deep exhale as Dante showed her and the camera crew to the front door. Of course, he had been the perfect gentleman in front of them; the complete opposite to who he really was. “And thank you so much for the exclusive.”

“Thank you.” Dante smiled. “Malik will see you to your helicopter.”

Malik appeared from nowhere, as was usual for him. I didn’t stay around. I needed to be away from both of them. If I’d thought Dante would go back on his threat to publish the videos, I would have sneakily gone with Ira back to the mainland, but I had no doubt he would stick to his promise.

I was trapped, both physically and emotionally. I needed time to think.

I rushed up the stairs, not even waiting until the front door was closed. My heart beat too fast with the anger surging through me, making me lightheaded and tearful. Swiping at my face, refusing to allow the tears liberation, I slammed the door to the studio behind me, quickly locking it and pocketing the key. Fuck him. I would stay in there, even throughout the thirst and hunger that would descend after a day or so. I didn’t want to be there. I would rather have died than live like that.

I huddled into the corner of the room when the door handle rattled, anger turning into fear and making my body shake. I drew my knees up and clung to them, wishing they were Cade.

I needed him. I missed him so much. The tears flowed as my heart squeezed tight in my chest. .

“Cade,” I whispered through the choked sobs. “Baby, I need you.”

“Star!” Dante growled. “Open the door!”

I didn’t answer him, my sobs too intense to allow my voice box any usage.

“Baby,” he said, much more calmly. My stomach heaved with the endearment. I wasn’t his
baby.
I wasn’t his anything. “Open the door. We need to talk. I won’t hurt you.”

Yeah, right!

The door rattled again and I jumped when his fist banged against it.

“I’ll give you three hours, and if you haven’t opened the door then I will fucking remove it. I suggest you check your attitude before I come back. I’m warning you not to piss me off anymore.”

I dropped my forehead to my knees when I heard his heavy footsteps retreat down the corridor. My heart hurt so much. All the things Dante had made me do—all the things Cade could see if Dante decided to show him. Listening to me beg to be fucked would break him. Fuck! FUCK!

There was no proof I had been manipulated with drugs, that I had lost my memory, that I’d had no idea who I was. If he showed the world, my career would be over. Cade would never get over it. The images would destroy him. In the recent years since I had fallen in love with him, he’d shown me how I should be loved, and what love should be like. His touch was demanding but gentle. His love made me dream in shades that didn’t even exist.

I’ll admit, in the early years, Dante had loved me like that but over time he had changed, become dark and moody, an alter ego finding its way to the surface and winning against the soft side he’d had.

But Cade, he was so gentle. He had a dark side, I knew he did, and although he sometimes brought that side of him into the bedroom, which I enjoyed, he would never have allowed that side to be seen in any other aspect of our relationship. He loved with understanding, devotion and an intensity I could feel like an entity in the air around him.

Vomit burst up my throat when I thought of his reaction to the press release. It would already be on the news; Ira informed me it was going out live.

Grabbing the waste paper basket I emptied my stomach contents, which wasn’t much. My ribs hurt with the violence of my heaves, nothing but bile allowing me any release against the nausea. My heart hurt as much as my stomach, my head throbbing with the constant emotional onslaught. I now understood the saying
dying of heartbreak.
I was dying, my soul battered by the shock of the cruelty of someone I once loved.

Shaking my head, trying to expel the rampant thoughts, I walked over to the shelf and grabbed the items I needed.

A new canvas was already set up in the window. I stared out at the small building that held Dante’s secrets as I mixed several hues on the palette. I knew it held more information about him,
about this,
proof to my defense, but I also knew that getting access to it again now I was aware of everything would be impossible. There was no chance of ever being alone again.

As soon as the paintbrush touched the hessian board, I relaxed. The sweep of each brush stroke calmed my heart rate, and the covering of paint on canvas quieted my raging thoughts.

I was home, on the inside anyway.

MY NECK ACHED, MY EYES blinking and widening to focus again. I stretched my back, enticing the muscles back into shape. A small smile, the first one in quite a while, broke the straight line of my lips. A tear trickled from the corner of my eye as I stared at my creation. My heart lifted slightly, appreciating the view I had crafted from memory—memories, a simple thing I had taken for granted before.

I wanted to touch it, trail my fingers across the picture but I knew I had to allow the paint to dry. The urge was overpowering.

My stomach lurched when a bang resounded on the door. Where had the last three hours gone?

“Star?”

“My name is Faye!” I spat, my lip curling at the sound of Dante’s pet name.

He ignored my reprimand. “Are you going to open the door now?”

“No.”

Although my whole body stiffened with fear when a huge crash rang out and the door gave way, I stood my ground, staring at Dante when he appeared in the doorframe.

He smirked, giving me a small tut. “Now we have to pay for a new door.”

He walked across the room towards me, his wide, angry strides causing me to back up a little.

“I’m sure
our
budget will cater,” I retorted with disgust.

His steps faltered when his eyes landed on the painting behind me. A large movement in this throat alerted me to his fury, his blazing eyes fixed on the canvas.

I chuckled bitterly. “How amusing is it that you even went out and got the same tattoos as your brother. Quite sad how jealous you always were of him.”

I gritted my teeth when his hand curled around my throat, his wrath lifting my feet off the ground. I didn’t struggle; I didn’t give him the satisfaction.

“I would love you to end my life right now. I’d rather fuck the Devil himself than you,” I choked out around his hold. “You’ll be killing my baby too though, Dante.”

He dropped me immediately, his eyes widening. I knew he had forgotten I was pregnant. The conflict in his eyes was clear. He wanted to hurt me but the need to protect his baby was physical in the air around us.

He leaned into me, his hot breath tickling my eyelashes and making me blink. “There’s only one of us who kills their child, Star.”

The air escaped me with his verbal punch. No one could ever make me ache more than I already did at my choice to terminate. I was just a girl, I had no money, and we were both going to different colleges. He had so much potential and a great opportunity he never would have taken if he knew.

I scoffed, nodding. “If this is what they would have been raised with as a father, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I did what I thought was best.”

I hissed when his palm knocked my face sideways, the thread that had been holding his need to instill pain at bay finally snapping. The sting made my ears ring and I dabbed at my lip, wiping the blood away.

Makeup covered my other bruises but the impact of this hit made my lip throb and swell. He would have to look at his damage this time.

“Hurt me all you want, Dante. But I will never love you again. It’s quite fucking sorrowful that you thought kidnapping me would bring me back to you. All you had to do was come home all those years ago instead of allowing me to think you were dead.”

“You knew I wasn’t dead when the news got back to you that I wasn’t on that fucking plane. Where were you, Star? You never even looked for me! You just laid back and opened your legs for Cade. So easy. You’re a fucking whore.”

I didn’t retaliate. I was enjoying watching him squirm under my feistiness. The empty Star who had lost her memories was timid and nervous. However, I wasn’t and I never would be.

“And why didn’t you come back to
me?
Hmm?”

He smiled, a cruel twist of his lips showcasing his malicious side. “Because you were screwing my brother. Are you that fucking easy that you wanted us both in your bed? Oh forgive me, of course you are, you’d probably have us both at the same time. Once a slut, always a slut.”

“Once a vindictive bastard, always a vindictive bastard. You sound like a child, Dante! Grow up!”

It was dangerous to antagonize him, but I couldn’t help myself. However he always won. He always fucking won.

I closed my eyes, my heart weeping when he snatched the canvas from its easel, his evil smile fixed on me. “How beautifully you paint my brother, Star.”

I clenched my fists, praying he didn’t destroy the only physical image I had of Cade. My own imagination had put on canvas the reality of a person who loved me so completely.

Dante tipped his head, studying the painting. “How similar we both are. You don’t see it sometimes.” He sneered. “Yet you paint us both perfectly.”

I snatched for it when he suddenly brought the piece down on the corner of the table. A choked sob echoed around me when he lifted it back up and smiled. “Much better.”

He placed it back on the easel and tapped my cheek before walking away.

My fingers pushed at the broken canvas, trying to place the ripped parts back together and fix the gaping hole in Cade’s face. Paint smudged on my fingers, the image still wet. I had never felt so much hatred in my whole life. I had loved Dante so much, so insanely that I would have done anything for him. But he would never see it that way. He would never understand because he didn’t have an ounce of compassion. He was a paranoid fool, a self-obsessed man who couldn’t accept things for what they were, only seeing them as a blatant hit against him. He had always been the same. He always saw things as a direct insult, even when people had tried to do him a favor or compliment him. He was insane.

I’d missed it. I’d seen his soul and I’d missed its desperate cry for help. Had I been so selfish that I had neglected what was so obvious in our years together?

No. I was just a young, inexperienced girl. One who had lived her life to give happiness to another. I’d lived for Dante. I’d tried to give him everything.

Exhaustion washed into me. Malik’s shadow fell over me as he stopped in front of me holding a plate of food.

“Star, you need to eat.”

My hand rose and came down against his cheek. “My name is Faye, you lying bastard. We are not friends. I don’t even know you! You will not address me again. Do you understand me?”

His jaw flexed, his eyes closing while he swallowed. When his eyes opened they were lifeless, looking over my head and down the hall. He didn’t answer; he walked around me and didn’t look back. Good!

I needed to lie down. I was weak, every inch of me ached, my eyes were sore and stinging. Emotional overload had me ready to collapse.

Closing the door to my bedroom, I stripped off the clothes that didn’t belong to me. He went all out in his lie. How could someone get away with this?

I made my way into the en-suite, blasting the shower as hot as my skin could stand and stepped under its torrent. I wanted to scald his dirty lies from me, to wash away my betrayals and my sins, make me unflawed, and make me good enough to have Cade’s love again.

The steam cocooned me, giving me a blanket for my soul to cry into and hope it cleansed some of the pain.

Even if Cade could get past the sex with Dante, I was carrying his brother’s child. What man would ever overlook that?

“You’re so beautiful, Star. Even in your grief.”

My insides curdled at the sound of his voice. The shower door opened and he stepped inside, naked. I tried to move around him but he stopped me, pinning me against the cold tiles, the hard plains of his body flush against my own. I hated him. How dare he touch me?

“Get off me, Dante. Now!”

“Stop acting like you don’t come alive to my touch, Belle. We both know the truth. We both know how the heat of my body against yours is sending shock waves of familiar need through your system. Your pussy is swelling with want. The needy thud of the blood rushing to your clit is making juices wet your walls for my smooth entry.”

That motherfucker. My body
did
awaken when he was naked against me but my hate overruled any subtle desire my whorish body might crave for.

“Dante, even rape victims can come. It’s the body being overruled, not the mind. I can’t control my body reacting to you but my mind,” I leaned my lips to his ear, “now it’s mine again, I will never succumb to you.”

His throaty laugh unsettled my false confidence. “Let’s test that!”

Before I could react, his knee forced its way between my thighs. His callous fingers, once welcomed, now invaded me without permission.