Kitty shook her head. “Her decision can’t be you.” Dark circles made her frosty blue eyes practically glow in contrast. I wondered if she had slept at all.
Jason’s eyes darkened. “And why not?” he challenged.
“Because you use people.” She lifted her chin and continued, “I’ve seen you do it every year. The new girl always gets pulled back here and tricked into being your submissives.”
The words knocked the breath out of me. Thiswasa pattern of behavior for him.
Jason let out a short, humorless chuckle. “I don’t trick them. They agree. You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Kitty’s jaw clenched. “That’s none of your business.”
“And who I fuck and how I fuck them is none of yours.”
Kitty stepped forward, her tone shifting. “Please. Just leave her alone.”
Jason glared at her. “Why are you so concerned?”
“She’s different.”
“How?”
Kitty exhaled, her voice heavy with something that almost sounded like regret. “Because she doesn’t belong here, Jason. She’s smart and deserves more than a job where she’s poked and prodded like an animal.”
She thinks that?I blinked in surprise, and a new wave of guilt washed over me. Kitty believed in me, even after she learned the truth. I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
Jason loomed closer. “Better not let the other Cherries hear that. You might have a mutiny on your hands.”
“This isn’t a joke, Jason.” Kitty’s voice wavered. “She’s in love with you.”
My eyes widened. She couldn’t know that. No way. She was bluffing, trying to make him feel bad. She had to be.
Jason scoffed. “No, she’s not.”
She crossed her arms. “You didn’t see her face yesterday when you pulled that shit on stage.”
His mask cracked, just for a second, like guilt was creeping in.
But then it was gone.
I tried to steady my breathing as he leaned into Kitty’s personal space. “I think you have a show to get ready for.”
“Jason!” Kitty called after him as he marched out the back door, but he had heard enough.
I turned, pressing my back against the wall, with my hands trembling at my sides. Ethan had warned me. And after seeing how Jason talked about me, and how little he cared about me, I knew he had been right all along.
Jason had used me.
I was just another girl in a long line of idiots who thought they meant something to him.
A bitter laugh bubbled in my throat, but it died just as quickly.
I clenched my fists, forcing myself to push down the wave of humiliation, of heartbreak, of every stupid, reckless feeling I’d let myself have for him over the course of my time at Pink Cherrie.
I had been nothing more than a game to him.
And I had let him win.
THIRTY-SEVEN
