Be My Woman: A Billionaire's Redemption

The front door slammed behind her as she burst out into the night. The sky had opened its wounds too as rain poured in cold, harsh sheets. She didn’t care.

She stumbled barefoot down the curb, arms hugging herself, hair plastered to her face, and tears flowing as freely as the rain.

A yellow cab passed. She threw out her arm as it skidded to a stop. She climbed in, her soaked clothes sticking to the seat.

“Where to, miss?”The driver gave her a quick glance.

She wiped her face roughly, catching her breath. “A club. Just… any club.”

He nodded.

As the car moved, the city lights blurred behind her tear-filled eyes. She pressed her forehead to the cold glass.

Her lips quivered. Three years. Three years with a man who told her she was his forever. Three years of promises, of firsts, of friendship turned to love and he threw it away for Cassidy. Her best friend.

"Why does my life always seem to suck? Am I really that pathetic? Don't I deserve happiness? How could they do that to me?!"

The sob ripped from her chest before she could stop it. Then another, and another.

She covered her mouth, trying to keep the sound in, but it hurt too much. Her whole body ached.

She had never felt so stupid. So used and so alone.

The cab rolled to a stop. Neon lights painted the puddles outside in reds and purples. Music vibrated to the sidewalk.

She paid the driver with shaky fingers and stepped out into the storm.

The bass was pounding deep, heavy, vibrating through the floor and up her spine.

The air inside the club was thick with sweat, perfume, and artificial euphoria. Strobe lights sliced through the darkness like blades. Bodies moved against each other in a hypnotic haze.

Liora sat alone in the corner, slouched in the velvet booth, her makeup smeared, her curls limp and soaked. A small table in front of her was littered with empty shot glasses and open bottles.

She was on her sixth bottle now as something cheap and vicious that clawed down her throat like liquid regret. Each swallow burned hotter than the last, but the fire wasn’t enough. It never was.

Her head throbbed with a relentless, cracked-bell ache, yet she welcomed the pain. Anything to drown out his voice. Anything to silence the screaming loop in her mind, her youth wasted on lies, on a man who had smiled at her every morning while fucking someone else behind her back.

A broken, bitter laugh slipped from her lips as she stared at the spinning ceiling. The club lights fractured into cruel rainbows through her tears.

“Three fucking years,” she slurred to no one, voice thick and ragged. “Who knew that bastard was just using me?”

She shoved herself upright, swaying like a storm-tossed ship, and snatched the nearly empty bottle from the sticky table. Her boots clicked unsteadily across the floor as she pushed through the writhing crowd, clutching the bottle like a dying torch.

She was looking for oblivion. For anything that might make the knife in her chest stop twisting.

She stumbled into the heart of the dance floor, neon lights painting her tear-streaked face in sickly pinks and electric blues.

Someone grabbed her waist from behind. She whirled and shoved them hard, eyes wild.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” She spat, voice cracking.

She lurched forward again, lost in the heated press of bodies. Then...bam...

She collided with a solid wall of muscle.

“Sorry.” She mumbled, trying to step aside, but her knees buckled. Strong arms caught her before she could fall, steady and unyielding.

The bottle was gently but firmly pried from her white-knuckled grip.

“Haven’t you had enough? What are you doing here, looking like that? You don’t belong in a place like this.” A low, deep voice rumbled near her ear, cutting through the chaos.

She looked up slowly. Her glassy eyes, red-rimmed, swollen with pain, met his dark gaze. Her lips trembled uncontrollably. Mascara ran in black rivers down her flushed cheeks.

“Just… let me be,” She whispered, the words fracturing.

She tried to pull away, but her body betrayed her. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt instead, clinging to him like a lifeline as fresh tears spilled over. Her forehead dropped heavily against his chest, and a broken sob tore from her throat.

“I just want to forget,” She whispered, voice raw and shattered. “The pain… the betrayal… it hurts so much. He laughed at me. He looked at her like I never existed. Three years. I gave him everything and he—”

The words dissolved into quiet, wrenching sobs that shook her entire frame. All the memories crashed over her at once. Her shoulders crumpled.

Before he could answer, desperation overtook her. She surged upward on unsteady tiptoes and crushed her lips to his in a messy, tear-soaked kiss.

It was wild, hungry, and devastatingly sad like a drowning woman gasping for air. Her fingers twisted tighter in his shirt as hot tears slipped between their joined mouths.

He stiffened for half a second, then his grip tightened around her waist. One large hand slid down to grip her ass, firm, possessive, grounding. When he finally broke the kiss, his breathing was ragged, eyes burning with something dark and feral.

She stared up at him, lips swollen, face a portrait of raw anguish.

“Make me forget,” she begged, her voice hoarse and breaking. “Please. Put me out of my misery. Just for tonight… make it stop hurting.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek.

Then, without another word, he bent down and scooped her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing. Her legs wrapped weakly around him, her arms circling his neck like she was afraid he’d vanish. The world spun again, but this time she wasn’t falling alone.

“As you wish, princess,” he murmured, voice low and dangerously soft against her ear.