She could only nod, her heart hammering against her chest. She knew that Nik’s ominously quiet tone meant he was doing everything to keep his rage in check.
And she was right.
As soon as they were back inside her apartment, she said quickly, desperately, “Nik, I’m sorry—-” Her voice broke off as Nik whirled around to face her, the furious disgust in his eyes making her flinch.
“Sorry for what?” he demanded icily. “You don’t have to say sorry. Unlike some other people, I can admit when I make a mistake.”
And the way he looked at her, Daria thought numbly, it was obvious to see that she was the mistake.
Wetting her lips, she tried to reason with him. “That man—-”
“Is Colton, the one you had a relationship with before me,” he finished harshly, and he released a humorless laugh at the shock on Daria’s face. “I know everything about you. Every god-awful thing, and that’s why I despise myself for still wanting you, knowing how you are.” He remembered the report he had read on her, remembered all the insanely crude assertions her ex-lovers had made about Daria’s sexual expertise, and he knew that there wasn’t anything in the world powerful enough to delete them from his memory.
“Why do you have to be such a goddamn whore?” Nik asked hoarsely. “Tell me,” he roared.
Daria wanted to sink to her knees at the pain in Nik’s voice. “Nik, please...” She couldn’t hate him for saying such words. How could she when she saw in his eyes that he loved her even while saying them?
“Is it a sickness?” he charged violently. “Is it because of how you were raised? Like mother, like daughter—-”
She slapped him hard. “Don’t.” She loved him, she would have accepted whatever he said about her because she had lied, but she couldn’t let him get away with that. “Don’t you dare say anything about my mother. Don’t you—-”
But cruelty, fed by pain and despair, had already taken a hold of Nik, and there was no stopping the other vicious words that poured out of him. “Why the fuck not?” he demanded. “Because the truth hurts?”
“You don’t have a right—-”
“Your mother WAS a whore! You can’t pretend you don’t know the things she does—-”
“She did those things for love,” Daria cried out.
“Love? Is that the new fucking word for what cunts do?”
“Bastard!” She tried to slap him again, but this time he caught her arm and used it to haul her towards him. Her body slammed against his, and cupping her chin, he forced her face up and crushed her mouth under his.
She struggled as hard as she could, but Nik’s lips were as punishing as they were seductive. Her body started to betray her even as her heart continued to bleed at Nik’s words.
He pushed her away as soon as she started to kiss him back. As she gazed at him with hurt confusion, he said harshly, “I could get you on your knees and sucking on my cock right now, and you’ll do that because you love me. You have fifty-five fucking billion reasons to love me, don’t you?”
The words hurt, but more than that, they were words she didn’t deserve. Daria waited for the anger to consume her, but there was none. She felt so empty, so tired. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why do you keep being cruel?”
“Because you’re a cunt and I’m tired of hearing your lies.” He remembered Miranda’s words about Daria saying she had her following him like a dog, and goddammit, wasn’t that the fucking truth?
Even now, even after seeing another one of her damn lovers look at her like she was a slut for the taking, he wanted her back. Even now, he loved her more than he hated her, and that was the fucking reason why he had to do this now.
He had done it with Iolanthe, and Daria wasn’t even a fraction as nice as the other girl. He had survived that and given time, he would survive this, too. He would learn to forget. He would learn how not to feel again.
Nik walked towards the suitcase one of his bodyguards had brought in from the hallway earlier. “You said you wanted to leave, right?” He kicked the suitcase towards the door. “So leave.”
Daria couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But you know that’s empty—-”
Nik opened the door for her. “Go.”
She shook her head wildly. “Didn’t you hear me?” Her voice shook. “I said it’s empty! You know I was pretending!”
But Nik only looked at her with expressionless dark eyes.
It was over, it was really over, she thought.
But she couldn’t make herself accept it.