Chapter 279: Played
If you walk into a room full of people and you have no idea who among them is being played. Then more than likely the person being played is you. Emily knew the saying. She’d heard it plenty of times before.
Emily had come to associate it with people getting hustled in bars. Those who were part of fake friend groups, and employees about to be sacrificed by their fellow co-workers. Never in a million years had she thought to apply the saying to her relationship with Derek.
She had taken everything between them to be genuine. Believing that it was all coming from a good place. How could it not when the two of them were bound together, by the miracle of sleep? Her and Derek only being able to enjoy a good night’s rest when they were in each other’s arms.
But Derek had proven her wrong. Showing her that every time that she had been in a room with him, she had been the one who was being played. Slowly developing feelings for him, while Derek himself had remained unaffected. She had to hand it to him. The man had really had her fooled.
To the point that shortly before the secret of his engagement had come out. Emily had actually believed that she could see some of the love that she felt for him, reflected back at her whenever she looked into his eyes. But clearly that had been a figment of her imagination.
He had just been playing a sick, and twisted game with her for his own amusement.
Why do that and jeopardize their sleeping arrangement? Emily had yet to find an answer to that one and she was not really looking too hard.
Derek had decided that sleep was a minor need for him.
A fact that he had proven by having the gall to go, and get engaged while at the same time he had just asked her to be his girlfriend. Emily believing that the two of them were at one of the happiest times in their lives. But clearly it had been just her. Maybe he got what he used to get from her, from Penelope now. Maybe while Emily was wide awake, nightmares nipping at her heels. Derek was fast asleep in Penelope’s arms. That had to be it.