Chapter 8

• Sophia's POV
• Hours later, when I opened my eyes, I felt like I had been through a meat grinder.
• My head was pounding, my vision was an indecipherable blur and I was being slowly suffocated by the heavy duvet.
• I rolled out of bed but I miscalculated landing on my behind buck naked on the hard tiled ground.
• I sat up with a pained groan. Why was the floor so hard? I looked down at myself, the realization that I was naked somehow just hitting me.
• Why was I naked?
• I stood up horror washing over me as I saw a very naked man on the bed that I had just rolled out of.
• His back was turned to me so I didn't see his face but that long ink black hair was unmistakable. It was Handsome Guy. From the bar.
• I gasped covering my mouth as disjointed memories from last night came back to me.
• When I could no longer safely locate where my mouth was to take another sip of alcohol, I stood up to leave the bar only to trip and fall into Handsome Guy's lap.
• He blinked down at me. "Are… are you alright?"
• His voice was slurred and he looked even more drunk than I felt.
• But that didn't stop me from breaking into a violent sob, thoughts of Jerry somehow intruding in my drunken haze.
• "No, I'm not fine." I sobbed.
• Handsome Guy held me awkwardly as I cried.
• My memory skipped from the bar to this room.
• Handsome Guy was placing me on the bed before pulling away so he could let me sleep alone.
• I held on to him though, my mind still warped by the heartbreak, the alcohol and the spiked drink.
• "Help me forget even if it's just for a night." I begged a complete stranger.
• Before Handsome Guy could refuse, I pressed my lips to his and then we-
• Oh Lord, what on earth had I done?
• I raced into the bathroom and threw up into the sink. As I washed my face, I knew one thing, I had to get out of here before the stranger woke up.
• I didn't do one night stands. Hell, before this I had only been with one man, my ex husband. And now barely a day later, I had pushed myself onto the first man who acted nice to me.
• Oh, Lord. I wanted to find a hole and bury myself to hide from the intense embarrassment and shame I felt.
• From the look of this hotel room, I knew the stranger was loaded. Los Angeles was a small place for the rich. Everyone important knew everyone important.
• If the stranger found out who I was and sold this information to the press, I was finished.
• I washed my face and rushed out in a hurry. I pulled on my dress in a hurry and wore the slides I saw to the side of the room.
• Grabbing my purse, I paused at the door hesitating before I left the room.
• I could barely recall the face of the stranger. I didn't know if it was the drugs in the spiked drink, the poor lighting of the club or the hangover dulling my memory.
• And now this morning, his face was buried in his pillow so all I could see was his broad back with an ouroboros tattoo, his tapered waist and-
• Focus Sophia.
• I wouldn't check the face of the stranger. In fact, It was good I didn't remember his face. All the better to forget about this terrible mistake.
• With that thought, I ran away from that hotel room.
• "Sorry Ma'am. Do you have another card?"
• I blinked at the flushed server handing my card back to me.
• After leaving the hotel, I'd decided to get some coffee. Anything to wake me up and make me feel less like a zombie with a cramping belly who was currently torn between feeling stupid for having feelings for a man who had treated me like shit for five years and feeling ashamed for my actions with that stranger last night.
• Yes. I needed coffee. Badly.
• I handed the server another card. And another until we had tried out every card the Baxters had given me.
• They all declined.
• The Baxters had blocked my access to the money in my accounts they had funded.
• I was penniless.
• Good Lord. I should have expected this.
• After all, what was one more betrayal on top of everything else they had done to me?
• With my accounts frozen, there was only one way I could get some cash to find a place to stay or even food to eat, I had to get to my savings.
• My savings in cash from before I became a Baxter that I'd sewn into the lining of my box.
• My box in my bedroom at the Baxters.
• I swallowed hard. I had to return back to that house.