Page 226 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10
"I know, and I'm sorry."
She reached for my face, but I pushed her hand away. I couldn’t let her touch me. She was a teenager for fuck’s sake. "I thought you were different. I let myself fall for you, even though I knew better." I was putting the blame on her, but it was on me. It would always be on me.
"I've fallen for you too."
I ran my hand through my hair. "The things I've done to you. If I had known you were a teenager, I wouldn't have..."
"Don't say that. Don't take away what we have. I love you." She was choking on her words. "Professor Hunter, I love you. I love you so much."
I thought I wanted to hear those words. I thought I felt it too. But what the hell did I know? I was a fucking mess. "Penny, you don't know what love is." She was too young. It slowly registered that a 19-year-old was straddling me. I pushed her off my lap. There was a certain kind of place in hell for men like me. Jesus, Ian had tried to warn me. Melissa had even tried to warn me. What the fuck was wrong with me? I’d never bothered to ask. I’d just trusted her. Blindly.
"You promised you wouldn't get mad,” she said.
"Damn it, Penny! You made me believe that this was real. I let myself dream about a future with you. We only had to wait two semesters. I wanted to be with you. But six? Six semesters?"
Tears started to stream down her cheeks. "Stop using the past tense."
"What do you expect, Penny? You waited a whole month to tell me. Why didn't you just tell me when we first started dating?"
"That's exactly why. Because we had only just started dating. And I'm obsessed with you. I knew you'd be mad. I knew that you'd leave me. I wanted to have you as long as possible."
Obsessed with me? She had no idea what obsession was. I lived and breathed that pain, not her. But her words made me feel sick. Because I was the one that was obsessed with her. And that feeling of losing control terrified me. I wasn’t the kind of man she wanted me to be. I was weak. "That's not an excuse. If you had believed what we had was real, telling me your age wouldn't have mattered."
"So what we have isn't real then?"
I felt like I was suffocating. I stood up and rubbed my hands across my face again. "What finally gave you the nerve to tell me the truth?"
"Because it was the only thing holding me back from happiness."
"That's a selfish reason." She was a child. Nineteen.Fuck!
"I know. But I never meant to hurt you."
I stared at her. I could see it now. All the times she’d just run away instead of talking to me. Even the way she looked up at me with her big blue eyes. I liked her innocence. But I didn’t like herthatinnocent. "Well you did."
"I'm so sorry."
You will be.I could feel myself growing hard.Damn it, what the hell is wrong with me? I couldn’t be in the same room as her. I was a fucking pervert and I couldn’t control myself. I went to my closet and pulled on a shirt. "I'm going out." I needed air. I couldn’t breathe. And I didn’t trust myself around her.
"Where? Professor Hunter, it's late. Please stay. We can try to work this out. Don't walk away from what we have."
"I'll be at a bar so that you can't follow me. Or do you have a fake I.D. too?"
"No, I don't."
Breathe. Fucking breathe!"Good." I walked out of my bedroom and over to the elevators. I slammed the button with my fist.
She came running out. "Please don't go."
I stepped onto the elevator. "I believe that you know how to let yourself out." The doors slid shut and she was gone. I pressed my hand against the cold metal. And I broke down. I cried. Because I was a fucking idiot. I thought I could have something good. A fresh start. And all I got was a reminder that I was a monster. Penny deserved more than I could ever give her. Every part of me wanted to turn around, get down on my knees, and beg her to stay. But this moment was inevitable. The end of us. This was her chance to move on. To actually be happy. How could anyone be happy with me when it felt like I was drowning every day?
I needed a drink. And not just a few measured sips. I needed a whole damn bottle. Because what was the fucking point? I’d already slipped. I needed to get the hell out of this apartment before I fell apart. Before I caved in and crawled back to her like the pathetic piece of shit I was. For once in my life, I needed to try to be selfless. Walking away was what was best for her in the long run.
As I walked out into the rain, I remembered how fucking pissed off at the world I’d been when I was 19. Because that was when Rachel left me. That year had been the worst of my life.
I had no idea what love was when I was 19. Now I’d given my heart to a teenager. And I’d gotten what I deserved. Because men like me didn’t deserve happiness. I was a monster. A streetlight flickered and dimmed above me. I blinked up at it in the rain. I was meant to live in the darkness.
Obsessed - Chapter 42
