Chapter 93 - 0093: The Lie You’re Living

Chapter 93: Chapter 0093: The Lie You’re Living

Elena’s Point Of View

"What, Bambina?" Jaxx drawled, his voice a low, gravelly purr that cut straight through the heavy quiet of the private suite. "Are you mad because you didn’t get my cock?"

My body felt like it had been wrung out from the inside, every muscle limp, trembling, and completely depleted. It was that bone-deep exhaustion where your limbs feel heavy as wet sand, like I’d just spent hours running barefoot across jagged glass.

My lungs burned as though oxygen were a luxury I had to pay for in advance, each breath coming shallow, erratic, broken. My skin was damp with sweat, shivering from relentless aftershocks that refused to settle. And through it all, the heavy weight of his arm pinned across my waist felt like a solid iron bar... immovable, possessive, horrifyingly inescapable.

Some distant, rational corner of my mind registered how absurd this was, how a woman who negotiated multimillion-dollar mergers without blinking now couldn’t even summon the strength to shove a man off her own body.

I wanted to move. I wanted to scream until my vocal cords shredded. I wanted to dig my nails into his jaw and scratch that arrogant expression right off his face. Instead, I lay there, humiliated by how thoroughly my own body had betrayed me, how it had softened and surrendered to him even as my mind screamed in protest.

The shame of it curled low in my stomach, thick and nauseating, worse somehow than anything else that had happened in this room tonight.

But for those first agonizing moments, all I could do was lay slumped against his broad chest like a discarded ragdoll he’d played with until the seams popped. Beneath my cheek, his heartbeat thrummed... steady, heavy, infuriatingly calm. Unbothered.

As if he hadn’t just dragged me straight through the fire and back using nothing but his sheer, suffocating will. I hated him for that steadiness.

I hated that my own heart still hadn’t found its rhythm again while his simply carried on, unshaken, as if nothing extraordinary had happened at all.

And then he had the nerve to chuckle... that low, dark, insufferable sound rolling lazily through his chest directly under my ear.

My eyelashes fluttered open, vision swimming in the dim, golden light of the suite. I forced my heavy, aching neck to lift, glaring up at him through damp strands of dark hair clinging to my forehead.

"Wha... what?!" The words tore out of me in a shrill, horrified crack. "Ewww! Gross! God, you are so fucking disgusting, Jaxx! You’re an absolute monster!"

His lips curved wider into that maddening, razor-sharp smirk, dark eyes glinting down at me with a mix of lazy amusement and lethal confidence. "I’m just asking a simple question, Elena. You look disappointed."

"Disappointed?!" I gagged, heat flooding my cheeks so violently I thought my skin would blister. "I am repulsed! I am mortified! I want you to step off of me before I lose my mind!"

I slammed my palms against his rock-hard chest, pushing with every scrap of strength left in my trembling arms. He let me go effortlessly, loosening his grip with a quiet, taunting laugh... like tossing away a toy he’d already broken for the evening.

The casualness of it stung almost as much as anything else he’d done to me tonight; I meant so little to him that discarding me required no effort at all. I wondered, bitterly, if that was the part that hurt most... not what he’d done to my body, but how easily he could let go of it afterward.

I staggered off the velvet lounger and onto my feet, but my knees instantly buckled beneath me. Every step felt like trying to walk on thin ice over a fathomless lake. My legs shook so hard they barely obeyed the frantic commands from my brain.

I lunged to the side and grabbed the carved wooden frame of the armchair to keep from crashing onto the carpet, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw ached.

With sharp, frantic jerks, I yanked my disheveled emerald silk dress down over my thighs, desperately trying to scrape together whatever microscopic scraps of corporate dignity were left scattered across the floor. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I pressed them flat against the fabric, willing them still, willing myself back into the composed, untouchable woman who had walked into this suite less than an hour ago. That woman felt like a stranger now, a costume I’d stepped out of and could no longer figure out how to put back on.

Jaxx stood up too, rising to his full, imposing height. He stretched his broad shoulders with an obnoxious, fluid ease that made my blood instantly boil over, as though the entire encounter had cost him nothing more than a light workout.

"You know," he drawled, casually tucking one hand into his tailored trousers, "for someone who claims to hate me, you sure make a lot of noise when I touch you."

"Shut up!" I snapped, my voice shaking as I brushed hair out of my face with a trembling hand. "Just... close your mouth, Jaxx. Don’t speak to me."

"Make me," he countered smoothly, taking a slow step toward me, his eyes dark and heavy. "Come over here and put your hands on me again. See what happens."

My eyes darted frantically around the room, panic seizing my chest like a vice grip. Where the hell were my panties?

My skin prickled with unbearable mortification. The gala was still going on right down the hall. I could hear the faint, muffled hum of the orchestra playing through the heavy double doors.

The press cameras were out there. My board members were out there. Graham was sitting at the head table waiting for me to return from the rest room. Walking back out into that glittering ballroom without them felt like walking away half-bared, permanently marked, completely exposed.

I pictured the whispers that would follow if anyone ever guessed the truth, the careful reputation I’d spent a decade constructing crumbling in an instant, reduced to nothing more than a punchline traded behind champagne flutes.

And then my gaze snapped toward him.

He was standing near the edge of the rug, casually balancing on his back foot, lazily twirling the delicate scrap of black lace around his index finger like a trophy he’d won at a carnival. His dark eyes sparkled with sheer, wicked delight when he caught me staring.

Fresh blood surged to my face, hot and furious.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Jaxx?!" I spat, my voice shooting up, caught somewhere between an outraged screech and pure humiliation. "Give those back to me right now!"

He tilted his head slightly, his smile widening into something truly devilish. "Plenty, Bambina," he said casually, his voice smooth as silk. "There is plenty wrong with me. You should know that by now. You’re the one who keeps coming back for more."

"I didn’t come back for anything! You cornered me near the private bar!" Rage - pure, unadulterated, volcanic rage, erupted in my chest. I lunged forward, heart hammering against my ribs, and snatched wildly for the fabric. "Give it back!"

But the bastard shifted his weight back at the absolute last microsecond, flicking his wrist so the lace hovered just an inch out of my reach, exactly as if he’d spent the entire afternoon practicing the timing.

"Oops," he murmured, not looking sorry in the slightest. "Too slow, CEO. Your reaction time is slipping."

I froze, chest heaving, air dragging through my lungs in ragged gasps. My stomach twisted into a tight, angry knot. I knew this game. I knew the terrifying, exhilarating dance he always tried to drag me into, the one where he baited me into losing myself just to watch me scramble to pick up the pieces afterward. My voice dropped into a dark, desperate whisper, sharp with both mounting dread and fierce resolve.

"Not again," I hissed through my teeth. "Not this time, Jaxx. I am not doing this with you."

"You’re already doing it, Elena," he pointed out, his voice dropping into that deep baritone that made my pulse spike against my will. "You’ve been doing it since the second you walked into this room."

With a sudden, explosive movement, I stepped straight into his personal space and grabbed tightly onto his right wrist with both hands, tugging with everything I had left. My manicured nails dug hard into his tan skin, leaving red crescents against his pulse point.

"Give it back to me!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the high ceilings, raw and shaking with pure desperation. "I am serious, Jaxx! Give it to me right now!"

His wrist didn’t move a single millimeter. It was like trying to drag a steel beam out of concrete with my bare hands. His smirk didn’t even falter; if anything, it dug deeper into his cheeks, carving wicked dimples near his jawline.

"Uh-uh," he murmured, shaking his head slowly, mockingly, letting the delicate black lace dangle between his long fingers right in front of my face like dangling bait. "That’s not how we ask for things, sweetheart. Where are your manners? Where’s that polished, icy CEO poise everyone on Forbes is so afraid of?"

"Stop fucking playing with me!" I snapped, wrenching at his arm again, more frantic this time, my voice breaking around the edges. I hated the tremor in my tone. I hated how small, how helpless I felt standing in front of his towering frame. "Give them to me! I have to go back out there! My company is out there! My entire life is waiting at that head table!"

"Your company?" Jaxx drawled smoothly. His free hand rose lazily, his fingers lightly brushing a stray lock of hair away from my burning cheek with a touch so gentle, so agonizingly soft, it felt like an insult. "Or your hollow marriage? Which one are you so eager to run back to, Elena? The board that talks behind your back, or the husband who hasn’t looked you in the eyes for three years?"

"That is none of your business!" I yelled, flinching away from his touch, though my heart leaped into my throat at the brief contact. "You don’t get to talk about my life! You don’t get to judge my choices!"

"Bambina," he whispered, his tone dropping an octave as his eyes held mine captive. "Look at you. You’re an absolute mess right now. A furious, wild little cat, claws fully extended, hissing at me because I’m holding up a mirror to the lie you’re living."