NATALIE
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
I mutter under my breath as I hurry to the powder room to freshen up. I didn’t even wait for Ethan’s answer.
Why do I care who he dated and why? It’s got nothing to do with me. He’s got nothing to do with me.
“Except that you can’t seem to keep your hands off him,” I tell my reflection in the mirror once I reach the empty powder room. “And you can’t get him out of your head.”
I feel foolish, the sensation crawling up my spine like an unwelcome guest.
All this anger I have in me, all this doubt, it crumbles when I stand before him. He confuses me. His actions constantly throw me off, and yet he makes me want to believe he’s sincere.
But I don’t know whether the desire to trust the look in his eyes, the words that he speaks, comes from this desperate need to be loved for once, or if it’s simply because my feelings for him never faded. But—How could I have feelings for a man who hurt me so deeply? What does that say about me?
My eyes burn, and my hand clutches the front of my dress, scrunching the expensive material between my fingers as my heart aches. The emerald fabric wrinkles under my grip, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I’ve been abandoned so many times that the idea of trusting someone sends me to the edge of despair. I don’t remember my father, but I know he left because of me. My mother never wanted me. My brother barely tolerated me. And Ethan. He was the first man I gave my heart to, and like my family, he too tossed me away.
I always told myself all I had to do was move past it. Move past all these people in whose eyes I was worthless.
But I feel foolish because I wasn’t able to.
At times, I feel like an empty husk, undeserving of love and unable to give it either.
I exist. That’s all I do.
Look at me now. A bitter laugh bubbles out of me. My mother is using me to pay off her gambling debts. She has no love in her heart for me. I know that. How could I not?
But a broken part of me keeps hoping one day she’ll wake up and change, that she’ll suddenly love me.
Ethan is back playing a different sort of game, one I can’t figure out. He says he wants me, his eyes, his words, his touch, they all point towards the same thing, but why? Why would he want me? Nobody else has ever wanted me. He didn’t want me before so why now? I keep thinking, keep wondering what it is he’s really after, but I come up blank.
I touch the edges of my shortened hair, the strands silky against my fingertips. I’m not unattractive, but the woman who approached Ethan today was a stunning beauty. He went out with her. He could have somebody like her, attractive and confident, and she clearly wants him, too. So why me?
I see the weariness creep into my eyes as I look at myself in the mirror, a bone-deep exhaustion that pierces my very soul.
I’m so tired.
I’m so tired of feeling like I can never win, of this self-doubt that clings to me like a second skin. This is why I’ve always focused on my work. I poured my every waking moment into my work and built all my confidence around my career. As an employee, I’m indispensable. There have been so many attempts to poach me from Thalvyn by other companies, better companies.
When it comes to my work, I know my self-worth. I know how good I am. But when it comes to Natalie the woman, I come up short. I stopped paying attention to her because I was always told she was nothing.
I put up these walls around Ethan, but they’re not stable because he always manages to reach within and rattle me.
He’s gentle with me, playful, and when he takes me in his bed, he’s rough like he knows I won’t break, that I need this particular mixture of pain and pleasure. The indulgence and hunger in his eyes when he has me under him, it breaks me, and it makes me want to crawl back for more.
Tonight, when I saw that woman, when I heard her words, I was jealous. Ethan picked up on it but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
I’m scared. I’m scared of being hurt, of letting my walls down, and being tossed away again.
Because that’s all people do with me.
Why would Ethan be any different this time around?
‘He protected you from getting attacked.’
A small voice in the back of my head reminds me of the scene from his office when Robert had come at me with that letter opener. I saw how severe the wound was and know how Ethan tried to play it off as inconsequential.
