Page 39 of Love Me

Her spine goes ramrod straight. “Can’t you announce your presence like a normal person?” She turns around, waving a hand in a theatrical gesture in the air.

“Should I knock on my own damn door?”

“This is your room?” she asks in mock surprise.

“Cut the bullshit already.”

I approach her, and she dashes for the bed. She crawls over the mattress, and I grip her legs, tossing her around. She writhes under me as I get on top of her. My dick tries to sabotage me by getting hard––needy and hungry for her while I try to make a damn point.

She huffs and wipes at some strands of her hair that have fallen on her face. She’s so beautiful: that button nose and those delicate cheekbones. Those mesmerizing eyes and heart-shaped lips. Her lashes flap, making me want to count each one. Longing twists my heart. She’s my Celine. My sky. My wife. The one I still love with every beat, every breath, and every second.

“If I let go, promise to stay and talk.”

“Fine.”

I don’t trust her, but I need to see what she’ll do because I hope she will keep her word and not shit all over a promise again. I desperately need to hold on to something, to that small hope that there’s a chance we can find our way back together again.

She takes off to the door, stomping all over that small hope.

“Thank you. I needed that reminder.” For stupidly believing.

Her hand halts on the door handle. “Neither of us was good with promises.”

She’s not getting a reaction from here on.

“Speak for yourself.”

You were there, you will always be there, but I have a family to protect, and you don’t care any longer.

She squints at me. And fuck, if her distrust is not killing me all over again.

When she closes the door, I call my father. I need to get my hands on information and play him and one-up Celine.

“Felix.” I only call him Father when we’re in public and I have to play my part.

“Kaden.” If this asshole wants to believe he’s young and has no fatherly obligations, so be it. He has a twenty-year-old son and a wife, but he couldn’t care less.

“I want to make you proud.”

“You always make me proud. You are the head of the next generation, the future leader of the Family.”

“I want to learn from you directly, to help the company.” Spewing this shit makes bile rise in my throat.

“You earned your place to work in the company, but…”

There is always a fucking but or if.

“Yes?”

“How is Celine?”

“She wants to fit in so badly.”

He barks a laugh. “I was worried, but I am slightly reassured.”

“I thought I was in love. She was like a lost puppy I had to care for. Blame it on being a stupid kid who didn’t know better,” I say through a gnashed jaw. It physically hurts me to have said that.

“There’s a gala at the mansion, something charity related. I want to introduce you to some partners.”

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