Taming the Bitch (COMPLETED)

Chapter XIV - Two Exes in a Row

"Hi...!"

Vincent turns at the sound of that voice — one he had hoped he'd never hear again. But she is indeed there, standing a few paces behind him, arms folded before she lets them drop, stepping toward him with a smile she must think still has power.

"It's been so long..." Cathy breathes, gliding forward like memory made flesh.

He remembers — damn him — the last day he held her, the last time he'd looked at the girl he once thought he'd spend his life with, only to be discarded because he wasn't enough. They'd been young. He'd had nothing. Just a worn-out flat, a back-breaking job, and the kind of naïve love that thought it could compete against a dream.

She left him to chase that dream.
He stayed behind to survive it.

He was alone then — orphaned, penniless, and trying to fit two lifetimes' worth of work into one man's hands. His parents' accident had swallowed his world whole. His grandfather found him only later — the old man's only heir, the son of the disowned daughter who'd dared to love a mechanic. His grandfather had dragged him into the world of titles, fortune, and expectation. He dressed him, shaped him, educated him, turned him into the man he stands as now.

A man women like Cathy run after.

Ten years.
Ten bloody years.

He'd been twenty. She, eighteen. And he'd stupidly believed the world tilted toward him because she was in it.

He'd been wrong.

She left for New York and never looked back. He watched her face in ads, commercials, even in films that sank without a ripple. He forced himself to feel nothing. To numb whatever was left.

Now she stands here, a ghost who refuses to remain dead.

"I missed you, Vince..." she murmurs, touching the back of his hand as though she has any right. The nickname, once a comfort, now turns his stomach. Someone else says that name now — someone whose voice actually matters.

"What brings you here?" he asks, brow raised, tone clipped and cold. They stand in the lobby of Davis Holdings, newly merged with Walton Group. He's been moving paperwork all morning; he has no time for fossils from his past.

"I... I just want to talk to you, Vince..." she says, all shy softness, but he knows better than to fall for that again.

"Right. Well, Ms Krüger, I don't recall offering you an appointment. If you wish to speak to me, call my secretary like everyone else."

He steps past her.

"Vince, don't— don't treat me like this. It's been a decade, don't tell me you're still—"

"Yes, it has been a decade. Which is exactly why I don't understand why you're following me around now. Unless it's because you only just discovered I'm heir to a multibillion-dollar empire?"

"Vince, I'm not here for your money! I'm here to save you!" she snaps loud enough for heads to turn.

He laughs, a quiet, sharp sound. "Save me? From what, exactly?"

"You don't love that bitch—"

He grabs her by the arm and drags her into a corner before she can finish that sentence.

"Don't you dare speak about things you know nothing about, Cathy."

"Stop this! I know you too well, that girl isn't your type! I don't know why you're marrying her, but I'm here now. You don't have to—"

"You disgust me," he cuts in. The look in her eyes tries to mimic the girl she used to be. It does nothing now.

"And she doesn't disgust you?" Cathy spits, defiant. "Given how she bitches around with different—"