Chapter Forty-Two

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Hugh

I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in almost ten years. Yet when I wake with a pounding headache and the disgusting taste of whiskey on my tongue I know that clocks now reset.

I lay on my back and rub my head hoping it'll help ease the pounding - which it doesn't - but when my eyes open I know the ceiling I'm looking at definitely isn't mine.

Nope it's Anastasia and as I turn my head to find her wide awake staring up at the ceiling as well I can see that whatever took place for me to end up in here last night wasn't good.

I try my hardest to wrack my brain for some kind of memory of last nights events but there's nothing. The last thing I remember is finishing off a triple at my office before I headed off to the restaurant.

"Anastasia" as I say her name her eyes close and her body shudders, then when she opens her eyes again tears stream down the side of her face.

It's then flashes of last night start to come back to me.

Like a complete B reel of my atrocious actions, one by one filtering through my head.

Clutching onto her arm, shoving her to the ground. Fighting with Blake. Then the things I said to her. All of it filling me with an unmeasurable amount of guilt.

"Anastasia I'm-" I begin to say but my words cut short as she shakes her head and sits up. The bruise on her arm in clear view and I instantly feel sick at the sight of it.

At the sight of what I did to her.

"I think you should leave" she says her voice shaking as she swats away her tears angrily.

I don't move. Instead I stay rooted in place wanting to pull her into my arms, to apologise and make this all better but I do none of that.

"Please" she then whispers her voice cracking on a sob and she draws her legs up, bringing her knees to her chest as she wraps her arms around them.

And like the fool I am I rise from the bed, shamefully tucking myself back into my pants and I leave her room without another word.

Leaving her there to cry.

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