Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 72308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“Yes. Meant.” He was soft with me a moment before, but now he hardened, turning to impenetrable stone. “We’ve had this conversation before. I’m in no mood to have it again. I’m grateful for their idiocy because I’d much rather them take her than you. Or worse—your children.”
It was such a horrible thought that I couldn’t even bring myself to think it.
“Let this go, Elise.”
“You know me so well…”
“You can’t be this intimate with someone without knowing all their tells. You’re the woman in my life, and I want to keep it that way. I’m happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.”
“It’s not really about her…”
He let out an irritated sigh.
“It’s about you.”
“Do I compare myself to your ex-husband? Do you think I feel insecure that you loved someone enough to marry them? I don’t.”
“Wow, you really have no idea.” He couldn’t return my feelings because he didn’t even know what they were. This man was brilliant, but he was also oblivious. “Looks like you don’t know all my tells after all.”
His gaze hardened before he looked away.
“I’m in love with you.”
His eyes remained averted before they slowly made their way back to me.
For just a tiny moment, I prayed he would say it back, hoped it would be written in his eyes.
But he said nothing.
“I think you already knew that…even though you pretended otherwise.”
“I don’t want this to end, so no, I didn’t acknowledge it.”
He should have just punched me in the face. It would have hurt a lot less. “Wow…okay.”
“Don’t act like I’m the asshole here.”
“Then what are you?” I snapped, hiding the hurt in my voice by sounding angry instead.
He stepped closer to me, his eyes furious. “The first night we met, you laid down the law. You said it was a meaningless relationship, and if I ever tried to make it more, we’d be done. Now you’re breaking your own rules, rules that I agreed to. I’m the asshole? You came to me under false pretenses.”
“Things change—”
“That’s bullshit. Your kids will be in the house for more than a decade. That hasn’t changed.”
“I’d be willing to bring you into our lives—”
“No.”
He could have stabbed me, and that’d still hurt less. “You wanted to marry Camille and have a family…”
“That’s different.”
“Different because you love her and not me?” How could we be so close and he feel nothing? How could we have the most passionate relationship of my life and it was unremarkable to him?
He looked away, refusing to answer the question.
“So you are still in love with her.”
“No.”
“Then how is it different?”
“Because I want my own kids.” He looked at me again, his face tinted with red. “I don’t want to be a stepfather. There, I fucking said it.”
That hurt most of all.
Grave turned away, his arms shaking he was so mad. “This was supposed to be a meaningless relationship, but you pulled the fucking bait-and-switch trick on me. I thought I was getting a no-strings-attached fuck-a-thon with a woman who couldn’t want something more, and you fucked me over. You think I want to say these things to you?”
I was on the verge of tears, tears I couldn’t contain. I told this man I loved him, and he stripped me down to nothing. When my kids opened their presents under the Christmas tree, I’d pictured Grave there with us, bonding with my son, being protective of my daughter, dreaming of a life where I could have everyone I loved under the same roof. I imagined him as my husband, fucking me first thing in the morning before he left for work and again before we went to sleep. It was a dream come true.
But now that I knew how he really felt, it wasn’t a dream…but a fucking fantasy.
Tears pouring down my face, sobs about to crack my chest, I made it back to the elevator and hit the button so hard it slightly turned in the socket. But it still lit up like it was functioning. I threw my coat over my shoulders, and thankfully, the doors opened immediately.
I hit the button and faced the back of the elevator, not wanting him to see me ugly cry. Not wanting him to know that he’d hurt me far more than my ex-husband ever did. The doors shut, and I finally started to move downstairs.
He didn’t come after me.
This was it—the end.
29
GRAVE
“Sir, Camille is here to see you.” My butler Raymond entered my study with his hands behind his back, glasses on the bridge of his nose.
I sat behind my desk, my eyes tired because I’d been up all night. I got some work done, but all of it was half-assed. “Send her away.”
He gave a slight bow then disappeared.
I sank in my chair and looked out the window. It was raining. Raindrops pelted the window frame like tiny little drums.