Roman-2(Lane Brothers, Book 5)(195)

Even though she pleaded with Thomas, trying to get him to see that it was the world that was driving them apart, he’d made it perfectly clear that—this time—she’d driven him away all on her own. This wasn’t the sort of rift that would heal overnight. She couldn’t just dive into a swimming pool and get him all hot under the collar by showing off her glistening wet skin and hair. She had to accept the fact that Thomas Lloyd might never forgive her. He hadn’t even said goodbye as she’d left his hotel room. He’d just let her go.

She’d taken the flight back to her lonely apartment and saw the thousands of missed calls and texts from everyone under the sun…but there was not a single call or text from Thomas. Nothing from him at all. He hadn’t even checked on her. He hadn’t even asked if she’d returned to America. He’d just let her go, like she meant nothing to him at all....

Sasha logged on to her laptop. Since being thrust into the limelight, she’d gained a new compulsion to check on how the media was portraying her. Pippa’s engagement scandal had made it to the gossip websites, presumably via someone at Amore. Realizing she was on the losing team, Pippa had switched allegiance to Chris, turning him into her media puppet. Through him, Pippa had successfully steered the attention away from any kind of scandal and made it appear as though Sasha had been the manipulator and master schemer, and that she’d been the one to blackmail Thomas into proposing to her through the sex tape.

According to Chris, Sasha was in it for the money and nothing more. The fact that Thomas’s sister, Crystal, was the real leaker of the tape had been completely hidden. Pippa had done incredibly well at minimizing Thomas’s association with his drug-addicted, porn-star sister, but in doing so, she had left only one available villain: Sasha.

The world had lapped it up. No one wanted to see Thomas Lloyd end up with some young nobody, some silly floozy playing at being a journalist. It made more sense—and sold more magazines—for Sasha to be some kind of seductress who’d tried to milk Thomas Lloyd for everything he was worth.

Though Thomas had come out of the whole thing better than she had, it still must have caused him extreme embarrassment. Sasha could only hope it wouldn’t be detrimental to his career. But what kind of man would create a false engagement to someone, just to bury a sex tape, and, more importantly, what kind of movie producer would want to hire such a man?

Sasha’s first place to check online was the celebrity gossip website, Chit-Chat, the place where Chris’s video had first surfaced. There were now over five hundred comments on the video, a large portion declaring such things as Chris ‘is the perfect man’ or ‘sexier than Thomas Lloyd.’ Then, there were the vile comments, the ones that called Sasha a ‘slut’, a ‘fame whore’, and a ‘greedy player.’

Somehow, reading those words about herself never got any easier. It didn’t matter that they were wrong; the fact that there was a consensus amongst so many people hurt Sasha deeply. That Chris had been the one to cause it hurt even more.

Pippa had told Sasha she’d be reviled after Chris’s interview got out, and she was right. Someone had taken stills from the leaked sex tape and drawn huge, red arrows highlighting all of Sasha’s imperfections—her cellulite, a spot on her left thigh, a visible vein. But even now, looking at shots of Thomas’s head between her legs reminded Sasha of the ecstasy she felt being with him.

She felt a tingling sensation spread up through her legs. Thomas had made her come harder than she ever thought was possible. That the moment had been picked apart by total strangers still couldn’t take away from the reality that she’d experienced.

Feeling aroused at the memory and craving what Thomas had once given her, Sasha found a link to the original sex tape. She’d never willingly watched it; she’d just seen flashes of the grainy footage that Kelly had shown her back in the Atomic office. Realizing it was the closest she was going to get to Thomas, she hit play.

Thomas’s kitchen appeared before her. The footage started at the point where he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. It was a passionate kiss, one that should have proved to the viewer that there was a real connection between them. If Sasha had just been using Thomas, there was no way she’d have been able to fake that kind of arousal…unless she was a better actor than he was!

Sasha watched on, feeling the vicarious arousal she’d experienced at the time. A thrill of excitement ran through her, as she watched from a new angle the moment Thomas had swiped his arm across the kitchen countertop, sending items crashing to the ground. Even though it had happened to her, Sasha could hardly believe that he’d had such an insatiable desire for her body. Her lips parted, and a little sigh escaped her mouth as she watched him lift her in his strong arms, inch her back onto the countertop, and hitch her dress up to her hips.