Page 15 of His Curvy Obsession

I idlein the driveway for a while, replaying the last hour in my mind. It’s good that I have a meeting this morning. It turned out to be a good excuse for a quick exit, in case she turned me down.

Which she did.

Maybe I should have known better than to take her drunk ramblings last night to heart. I don’t know what came over me. Lust for Rebecca and her curves, maybe, or the words of my older brothers from days ago, about my potential to be a father one day, the stage in life they’re both entering while I remain firmly behind, trailing behind them in life as I always seem to do.

I’ve spent most of my life with my head down in books, studying, researching, and inventing. With Elijah and Emmett, we’ve built an empire that is guaranteed to outlive ourselves. And maybe that’s the only legacy I need to leave, the only mark I need to make on this world.

Maybe.

But I want more. And after last night, I can’t seem to look at Rebecca in quite the same way.

It’s not as if I haven’t noticed her beauty before. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at her. It’s the reason I made her moveher office next to mine, away from the rest of the staff, so that they could actually get some work done and stop eyeing her like candy.

Maybe I’ve always felt as though I have ownership over her. She’s been with me for seven years, my faithful assistant, my right hand at the office who never fails me.

I wasn’t surprised to learn last night that she doesn’t like her job all that much. But what I didn’t know is that she has something else she wants, a completely different path in life that she always meant to take after graduating college.

Instead she came to work for me at the tender age of twenty-three, pouring herself into her work, giving in to my demands, stretching to meet my high bar.

Before she came to Stone Enterprises, my assistant position was a revolving door of rejects who either left voluntarily because they couldn’t handle working for me, or who were eventually fired.

Then she came along.

As beautiful back then as she is now. Slightly afraid of me, although that fear is long gone by now. Now she’s the only person in my office with the backbone to stand up to me. To tell me that I’m making a mistake, that I’m wrong. She’s saved my ass more than once due to this, always telling me the truth while the yes-men around me pretended to overlook my errors.

She has my respect. A hard thing to earn. And she has my trust, as well.

Who better to marry? Who better to raise children with?

It’s a solid foundation, better than most start out with. But she thinks she needs something more than this. She thinks she needs love. Something I’ll never be able to promise her.

How the hell can I promise to love, when I’ve never loved a woman before?

It’s not as though I don’t know what love is. I suspect it’s just different for me. I feel love differently. And I express it differently, much to the frustration of those around me.

I feel love for my family. My brothers, my niece…even my unborn nephew.

And if I ever have children, I’ll love them too. But that’s a different kind of love. Family love.Automaticlove.

Falling in love with a woman is…different. A gradual process that occurs with time, if you’re lucky. I’ve never been able to get into dating. The demands of romantic relationships are too much.

Maybe if I married a woman, I would eventually love her.

But maybe not.

I can promise Rebecca a lot of things. But I can’t promise love. I just can’t.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I was up all night again with Ellie.”

“Right.”

I look away from my oldest brother and gaze around the room. This quaint restaurant isn’t our usual meeting place, but it’s closer to Elijah’s house than our downtown offices are.

Lately, Elijah has this thing about working on weekends. He prefers not to do it at all if he can avoid it, no longer the workaholic he once was before he met his wife. And if wehaveto have a work meeting on a weekend, he demands that we meet somewhere closer to his house, so he doesn’t have to drive far or be gone from his family for long.

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