I manage to escape the rain by three seconds and when I step into the lobby, it pours outside. Adam bobs up his head from a clipboard and freezes. His expression is filled with concern and worry and I simply ignore him and walk past. I don't need anyone's pity filled eyes and fake worry.

I check my reflection in the mirrors and my makeup is smeared and ruined. Black liner ringing underneath my eyes, nose red and cheeks puffy. I resemble something out of a tragedy story. I make the effort to wipe off most of it, but no matter how hard I try, I never do a good job.

The elevator up to the apartment is the slowest ride ever. The longer the elevator pulls up, the more I feel dread bite into my sink. It bites and chews and rips off pieces of my flesh for showcase.

The second I step into the apartment, I let out a sigh and breathe in the scent of vanilla floating in the air. It brings me no comfort at all. I make a quick stop into my bedroom and throw the clutch on my nightstand. It's simply too heavy and filled with baggage.

Despite being married to Dimitri and living with him for a month now, him and I don't sleep in the same bed. I think he's trying to give me my space. It's nights like these where I don't complain about him. Right now, I need the night to crash, fall and burn all over again with the memories playing like a tape recorder in my mind.

The apartment is silent. The top floor lights are switched on and without another thought, I tread upstairs. This is all intense. It's too much to handle. The flowers and note from Hugo, Dimitri going to see him, his grandfather, the media– I want it to stop. I need to to stop.

The handle presses down with my weight, I open and close it swiftly behind me. Dimitri is sitting across at his desk, typing away on his laptop. When he hears the door close, his head props up and his lips tug with a faint smile.

My mouth goes dry. I drink in the sight of him. Crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up and dark hair dishevelled. He plays every inch of a calm and collected, not an ounce of unease touching his perfect form. Whereas me? I'm being anchored down, down and down by this new revelation presented by his Grandpapa.

"You're back early. How was dinner with Quinn?"

I extend towards him, slowly and calculated. He shuts his laptop off and watches me walk around before he rises to his full height and towers over me. I don't say much to him. I have absolutely nothing to say.

How do I tell him his Grandpapa is a sell-out and a bloodsucking bully?

Who do I tell him who I am?

The truth is: I can't.

He frowns at me. He wipes his thumb underneath my right eye, then stares at it. Black liner has smudged the skin. Guess I didn't do a good job at cleaning off the makeup. "Have you been crying?" He asks.

"I'm fine. I argued with Quinn and I'd rather not talk about it." I mutter.

His worried expression rolls. He's not studying me in care? Dread? Curiosity? Doubt? Hell, I can't decipher between all of them.

"Take my mind off it. Tell me about your evening,

His face strings with confusion for a brief second but he elaborates. The thing is Dimitri is easy. He doesn't ask questions and never asks for more than he needs to know. He's very compliant, maybe a little too compliant.

Right now, I cherish his habit more because I don't need an endless list of questions darted at me. His baritone is a tiny buzz in the background to my thoughts. He's passionately rambling about some new stock investment and pauses when I don't react. So I play it perfectly. I force out a crooked smile when his eyes flick to mine and tag on with the last words of his sentence to keep his flow of thoughts baring out.

I'm incredibly selfish. Then again, this is why we fit ruinously like two jigsaw puzzles. We have the same pernicious principles. He was selfish for recruiting me to play his wife and now I'm selfish for using him to suppress my thoughts.

I need to know if he'll cave in despite knowing everything about me. I need to know if he won't let his Grandpapa's judgement cloud him. I need to know if he won't release me from his contract. A tiny part of me needs to know if this perfect facade won't end in divorce.

So I break the one rule I've vowed to keep. I kiss him. Unprovoked, mid-sentence, utterly pathetic.

At first Dimitri freezes, takes a second to process his lips on mine. He brings his hands closer and everything inside me fades. He's going to push me away and bellow if I'm fucking okay for kissing him out of the blue. He does exactly the opposite – he's completely melting into my embrace. He urges me closer to him, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist as my arms interlock around his neck.

His hands roll down, touching the depths of me until my dress is hitched to my waist.

I'm breaking rules after rules. Strike after strike and I'm reprimanding myself for it harshly. I can almost sense his surprise when he pulls back for a brief second and gazes into my eyes.

What are you doing? I interpret. I pull him back, he doesn't protest. "Shit," he mutters against my lips. "I don't have a condom."

I'm about to mutter I don't care but he releases and pushes a neat pile of stacked paper off his desk. They pull apart and fall onto the ground. There are a few more heavy clanks with items dropping to the floor. He doesn't once care for them. Then he scoops me up and props onto the wood. He steps between my legs, prying them open further as his lips attach to the swatch of skin on my neck. Right now, we're a catastrophe and devastation in the making.

"Yes?" he inquires, lifting his dark eyebrow.

"Yes, yes, please."

Dimitri sucks, bites, nip at the skin and the small juncture of my shoulder. Then he follows the narrow pathway down, slowly and leisurely. Too slowly. I'm a pent up bubble of thirst, need and ache.

I don't get far because he pushes me against the wood, the contours of his torso bare against the silk of my short dress.

He plunges two fingers inside, my back arches but he's got me locked underneath his weight. The warmth shoots right through my spine, every piece of me chipping for him. I'm unable to think and this is the exact distraction I need. He's good at distracting my sentiments and I praise him for it.

Tonight, he's not soft nor gentle, just relentless. He's merciless with the rhythm of his fingers. It's all the pent up exhaustion from trying to keep our hands to ourselves. In and out. Again and again and again– He's got me pressed against his desk, head dipped and whispering the most filthiest of words in my ear.

Among the brazenly dirty promises, he whispers how pretty I am, how good I feel and how badly he's missed me. Ballads of sin are escaping his lips, I'm drinking all of it.

This is the last time, this is the last time, this is the last time! But against the curve of his sordid lips, I'm losing all sense of my vows. Dimitri controls all of the movements and the intensity, the heightened exhilaration and insensately so.

His fingers leave me, he locks his eyes with me before pushing them into his pretty mouth. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My breath hitches and I'm breathing out of sync - streams of tightness erupting through me. He merely passes me an innocent smirk.

His fingers are replaced by his tongue, my spine shudders.

The pressure builds and builds and builds. He slows down the tempo for a brief minute before he's back. Now, it's just him relishing his own hunger like he's been starving for days on end. It's just him and the restless agony. I scream his name, over and over. It bleeds his office walls dry but to him, it's merely the recurring lyric to his favourite song. No mercy, no leniency only indulgence into his favourite third sin of lust.

My fingers cave into his lush hair, holding the strands by the scalp. Each long flick and my hand only tightens more. If it's hurting him, he isn't complaining.

Every second is torture, sweat beads between my brows. My breath is uneven, chest heavy with euphoria. Dimitri pulls away from the slow torture for a brief second, licks his lips and commands, "Be a good girl and come for me."

And I do. All the tension rips through me, searing out without warning. I'm crumbling, crashing, scorching against him. For him. Dimitri doesn't stop. He keeps going, rather sluggish with no mercy and not an ounce of care for his name as a plea on my lips.

My body quiver and quakes with one last plea and he grins. He sits back on his chair, grinning proudly and rather self-satisfied. My hair is a mess, my body is limp on his desk and I'm still seeing the stars flash by.

He chortles out a smug vibration of laughter before he's leaning over me, kissing me again. His tongue flicks against my lip and I open for him all over again. He tastes like me and him and every inch of satisfaction for my helpless state.

After everything crashes down and my thoughts are no longer clouded, I make a promise. The day he becomes a habit, is the day I leave him.

With that, I gather myself and my thoughts. He's already holding my panties in his hands and I snatch it off him. This wasn't supposed to happen.

He waits for my next move but I don't have the courage to look him into his eyes.

I'm too selfish. So I avoid his eyes at all cost and tread out of his office. I'm so ashamed and he doesn't utter a word.

My legs are propped to the side on the stool, a half drank wine glasses sits near me and I'm peering down at another application.

I lost my dignity and morals applying for this job. It was a column writer for a sleazy tabloid - the same tabloids that are exploiting me and most likely the same tabloids that have exploited my mother in the past. I'm not sure what's happening. Ever since Dimitri stepped into my life, I can't seem to hold down a job.

Dimitri walks through the door, we simply gaze at each other. No words said yet until he forced out the sentence I've been dreading to hear: "So we're going to talk?"

"About what?" I flip the page over. Nonchalance will get you far.

Dimitri's jaw clicks. He's pissed at my candid attitude. He narrows his dark blue into slits, seeing right through by bullshit. "I thought we said we weren't doing this anymore? Then you barge into my office and you're all over me? What's going on?"

He needs to quit asking me questions. I snap, "It was just sex, Dimitri, get over it."

He blinks at my flippant attitude, his mouth parting open slightly. Then he's turning away sharply, exterior cold. He's hurt and I'm the reason why. Crap.

"Can I ask you something?" Keep it casual. Distract him with questions and my baseless thirst for prying.

I didn't expect him to reply, "Hm?" He chips, his voice still on the edge of irritation.

Here goes nothing, "What did you say Asterio Industries competitors name was?"

"Hugo Antolin," Even hearing his name sends my chest tightened and my stomach sinking with nausea.

"What does he do again?"

"He's a Spanish-British businessman. CEO and vice-chairman of Antolin Corporation."

I narrow my eyes at him, thinking. "The chain of hotels right?" As if I don't have first hand experience running through the corridors during the day and sitting on the hotel luggage trolleys, asking each employee to push me. The murmured laughs and smoky sun of Barcelona are a distant memory now.

"Yep."

"That's interesting," I state then fix my throat. "I met Aunt Angela and Uncle Oliver at the wedding. Oh and I remember briefly interacting with a business associate with yours. What was his name again? Lincoln Williams?" He hums in agreement.

If someone told me seven years ago that I would be hanging out with snobbish people like Aunt Angela and Uncle Oliver - the same people I escaped from - I would have laughed in their face. Fate is so bleak with me. It constantly taunts me. Angela and Oliver are the most unlikely duo, chat too loud, make prude remarks and spoke to me in butchered Spanish. Even Dimitri was cringing.

Then there's the absolute contrast such as Lincoln Oliver - an angel who only speaks in economics that it's become a personality trait of his. Fate is so funny.

"He's in the hospitality industry and you're in telecommunications. I don't see the link between you two." I remark, slightly murmuring out a laughter.

"I've stayed in a few hotels but the link is between him and my grandfather. They go way back."

I pause. Hugo was friends with Dimitri's Grandpapa? He knows Hugo first-hand? That shady wrinkly bitch.

Dimitri elaborates without me asking, "He sort of viewed my grandfather as a mentor. Grandpapa let him inside the industry, helped him with buying shares when he was starting out. Years later, something happened between them and they've fallen out."

None of this makes sense. What if they're working together? "But you had dinner with him? Did your grandpapa know?" Another jab, another answer that just falls out.

"No, and he doesn't meddle with my business. He's a shareholder in Asterio Industries and all points of action are run through me, Anwar or Aisha. It's a little funny, most of the conversation at dinner was mostly about his daughter. He spoke a ton and very fondly of her,"

I choke on the wine, and swell up. Dimitri cranes his head in alarm but I wave it off. "Remind me again why Hugo Antolin couldn't come to the wedding?" it slips out before I've registered what I'm saying.

Dimitri pauses for a second, his gaze flicking to the side as he tries to remember. It takes him a while before he replies.

"He was in Terrassa that day, I believe. He was visiting someone," My heart sinks deep into my stomach. My mother is buried at Terrassa. I wish Dimitri hadn't told me that. This is exactly what I get for sticking my nose into Hugo's business.

Another memory sears across my mind. This time, it's a newspaper article with my mother photographed dead on the paper. My visions blurry now, I can't see a thing and my only thought is what the fuck is Hugo doing at my mother's grave on my wedding day? Dimitri's chatting away blindly,

"I need to go," I croak out, my voice barely inaudible. Dimitri turns around, the glass in his hand. It's too late because he has already seen the tear roll down my cheek.

He steps towards me, like a floating Dracula - ready to bite on command. Instinctively, I step back. I need space, I need to get away from here. Dimitri's fingers are smooth on my skin, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I start panicking. The threats, the media, the fucking divorce– I'm drowning and this acquired information is an anchor, pulling me down, down, down. I'm struggling to keep my head above the water.

So I crumble with every last stabilised form I have. "I'm stressed. I can't find a job, Quinn probably hates me because we argued at dinner, I missed the kids and–

"Why won't you let me find you a job?"

I glare at him. I didn't need him finding me a job. I don't need him talking to people for me. This will happen on my own accord not because I'm married to a business tycoon in London. "I don't need you meddling in it." I declare dimly.

"Hey, okay. I'm sorry for suggesting it. I'm merely trying to help. Please don't cry."

"I need to leave. I need to go back home." I sniffle and gasp in a big inhale. The tears stream down my cheek.

"Home? Bella, this is your home."

"No, back to Kent to Abuela. I want to get out of London. I need to see her and make sure she's okay–"

"Bella," he holds me by my arms tightly. "You're rambling." I crumble even more upon his small reprimand, Dimitri panics. "Okay, fine. You can go back to Abuela tomorrow morning."