Page 166 of In Love After Office Hours

I'm sorry.

I can't.

It's too late.

Even when time and time again other people would end up failing her, she would rather believe in everyone else but him.

Twenty-Two

THE FIRST TIME AMELIAcame to him, she had literally set fire to his library, sobbing hysterically as she told him that looking at all those books made her feel stupid. That it was like he himself had made her want to feel stupid.

The last time she came to him, she had thrashed his study, shredding contracts that had nearly cost him millions of dollars.

And that had been, what, seven or eight months ago?

Even now, Acheron's mind instinctively sought to distance itself from the memories, and all he could remember was the tears running down her pale face and the stark emptiness that kept growing and growing inside of him.

It had made no fucking sense to him then, and it still didn't. Amelia had known what she was doing, had fucking known she could have cost him his entire business, and yet she had still fucking gone ahead and dumped all the contracts into the shredder.

Why the fuck are you doing this? WHY?

He had never yelled at her before, but at that time, it had been just too fucking much. That time, the tears that used to destroy him had only left him cold.

Please don't shout at me. Please, Acheron, please, don't be like this, please.

He had once thought that he could never be like Anthony, the pedophile that had been so obsessed with thirteen-year-old Amelia that he had made her his mistress. Anthony liked making Amelia beg to keep her under his power, and as the years had progressed, Anthony had made sure they always had an audience for it.

Beg or...

The threats varied, but they had one common denominator. They had all targeted Amelia's soft heart for the underdogs, and Anthony had known it.

And because Acheron had been one of those underdogs, Amelia had begged for him, too.

She had gone on her knees for him, more times than he could count, and while he had always strove to make it up to her, what she had done at his study had been the last straw, and Acheron had lost it.

Is it your turn now? You want me on my knees? Because that's what it looks like. You want me to be your bitch the way—-

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