No Second Chance For Us

e P

wine onto her already stained silk dress. The men who had been circli

, his eyes raking over her disheveled form.

The air around him suddenly dropped ten degrees. "Get out," he said, his

Without another word, they scrambled out of the room,

g word, anything. But before I could even take a step, Alden' s voice, c

n inconvenience, a dirty secret to be swept aside. My carefully constructed composure threatened to shatter. I felt a hot sting behind my

e. "Don' t touch me, Alden!" A crash followed, and I heard the unmistakable so

hisper now, laced with a vulnerability I'

s kneeling, his hands hovering over her, his entire body rigid with desperate restraint. Her eyes, filled

st want you to be safe." His voice was rasp

et him pull her gently into his arms. His embrace was tender, almost fragile, as if s

?" he murmured, his voice so h

ffered a ghost of a smile, a cruel, triumpha

was a man utterly undone, stripped bare by a love that clearly consumed him. He was raw, vulnerable, completely at Amanda' s mercy. And in t

h hopes, whispered silent prayers that one day, he might look at me with even a fraction of that intensity. But seeing it now,

convenient distraction, his pretty little bird in a gilded cage. Nothing more. And a kept woman dared not

past the curious glances and hushed whispers, my head held high. The crisp autumn night

y dwelling provided by the man who owned my time, if not my heart. There was an unspoken rule: after any event,

st a single lamp in the sprawling living room. I sank onto the plush sofa, exhaustion a heavy cloak. I c

ights humming, my phone clutched in my hand. My father' s medical bills spread across my desk like a cruel map of my impendi

ffocating companion. Then, Chloe, ever pragmatic, had suggested a world I didn' t even know existed. "There are wa

e I met Alden. It was at a discreet, high-end club, much like the one tonight. He was impossibly handsome, radiating an aura of power and detachment.

spering, "Hope, are you sure about this? He' s...

ike that, I became his property, his secret. His kept woman. I became the longest-running "arrangement"

he room was still dimly lit, casting his silhouette in deep shadows.

elf up. Habit. Always greet him. A

, and something else I couldn't quite decipher. He pushed me back down onto the sofa, his hands grippin

gh, his teeth scraping my lip. I tasted blood. I tried to push

u going to refuse me now, too?" His voice was h