“With a man, and you two seemed pretty cozy. I’m not letting you make a fool out of me. I’m sick of you women.”
“It was my cousin.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he bellowed. “I want you out.”
“Listen… Please…”
He walked to the elevator. “I’ll have a few cops here in an hour. If you’re not out, I’ll have you arrested.”
“You’re not going to give me a chance?”
“No.” He got on the elevator.
The ravaged devastation was the last look he had of her before the doors closed. He hadn’t seen her again until that day, three years after he kicked her out.
That day, when he got back to the condo, it was to find that all she’d taken were the few clothes she had from before she moved in. When she had first moved in, he’d thrown out most of her things because they were ripped or old and bought her new. The new things were still there.
He opened the drawer that kept all the expensive jewelry he’d given her to find every piece still there. The money he left in a kitchen drawer for her that she hardly used was there, too.
He looked around the place and wondered if she had even existed. Every other woman he knew would have taken all of it. He’d expected to come back and find nothing. Not even the furniture.
The only reason he knew she hadn’t been a dream was her scent lingering everywhere, and he couldn’t stand it another moment.
He ran out of there and had his driver take him home. Once there, he tore apart his office and drank a whole bottle of Scotch before Darian showed up after his butler, Franklin, had called him, concerned.
Darian stayed with him for several hours and even helped Franklin get him into bed.
He stayed drunk for a week before business intruded. The only way he got through day-to-day life was by making business his priority, and he went after it with a vengeance, building his company bigger in a short amount of time. The rest of the time, he was alone at home, drinking until he passed out. Every day was the same, and it was taking its toll.
Darian finally gave him some tough love, making him see the damage he was doing to himself. King lessened the amount of alcohol he drank, but he couldn’t let go of the one thing that was keeping him sane—the company he’d built from the ground up.
He worked fifteen hours a day and most times crashed on his couch in his office because he was too wiped out to go home. It had taken him a year to be able to go to a social function and even a few dates, but he still was unable to have sex.
She’d ruined him for any other woman, and it made him hate her even more.