Page 70 of One More Kiss

Axel

What the hell just happened?The question ran through my head as I watched Bella start to cry. Everything was going fine and then James stopped in to check on us. She was coming back to me. All the walls that she put up between us were coming down as I held her in my arms and we danced to my song. I wrote that song for her one night as she slept peacefully in my bed. I had watched her drift off to sleep after making slow love to her until the words for the song just started running through my head. I hated to get up and leave her but I knew if I didn’t write down the words, I would forget them. “Please,” I pleaded. I know my voice cracked and sounded more like the thirteen-year-old boy I once was than the grown man I had become but I didn’t care.

“Just go,” Bella responded as she wiped the tears from her eyes and turned her back to me. Her shoulders rose and fell with her silent sobs and my heart broke from the pain she was in.

“I can’t,” I said as I reached out and turned her back around to face me. Gazing into her tear-filled eyes, I saw all the pain that I indirectly caused and took a step back. “Oh Bella, I never meant to cause you an ounce of pain.”

“I know,” she said with a sad smile.

“Will you just hear me out?” I asked quickly, grasping at straws to try and fix this thing between us.

“Why?” Her simple question stung as if she had slapped me across the face.

“Because I love you.”

“It’s not enough,” she said with sadness laced in her voice. Her tears continued to fall and I wanted nothing more than to replace them with her beautiful smile.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the stack papers I had come here to present Bella with. Offering them to her, I waited with bated breath for Bella to take the offered papers. I wanted her to see how much I loved and believed in her.

“What are these?” she asked as she reached hesitated to take the offered papers. A look of confusion washed over her face as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“Just look at them,” I insisted as I shoved the papers closer to her. They suddenly felt heavy in my hands and I needed to relieve the burden. No matter how things played out between me and Bella, I wanted her to have the building. She’s spent her whole life working so hard and I know that my father derailed her plans for a little bit. I just wanted to try and fix things and make her dreams to come true.

“Axel,” she said as she took the offered papers. As she scanned them, her eyes grew bigger. “I…I…I don’t understand.”

Taking her hand and leading her over to the chairs on the other side of the studio, I urged her to sit down and then sat down next to her. Our knees touched and a warm sensation flooded me. I needed to touch her more. “It’s yours,” I said as she continued to read the papers.

“I don’t understand,” she repeated as her eyes glanced over one of the papers in the stack. “Is this a joke?”

“No!” I blurted out, hoping to get rid of any questions from my girl’s mind. “You are the new owner of the building.”

“You? How? Why?” The questions tumbled from her mouth faster than she could process them.

Fighting to stop the smile from spreading across my lips, I grabbed her hands. The papers I had given her tumbled to the floor and she watched them scatter at our feet. Averting her brown soulful eyes up to me, she stared at me with a million more questions. “Bella,” I started as I brought one of her hands up to my lips and placed a gentle kiss across her knuckles. A jolt of electricity ran through my body at the contact and I wanted to place gentle kisses all over her body to keep the feelings she elicited from me.

“Axel?”

“Remember the day you took me to your old neighborhood. You showed me the building and told me your dreams of one day owning and running your own studio.”

“It feels like a lifetime ago. I can’t believe you remember that,” she said as she relaxed into her chair.

“Baby, I remember every moment we spent together.” I said as I reached up with my free hand and wiped away the tears that had returned and ran down her face. Her beautiful eyes were turning red and I wanted to kiss her pain away and make her happy again.

“I can’t do this,” Bella whispered as she pulled her hand from my grasp. She looked away from me and focused on her reflection in one of the mirrors across from us. “I look a hot mess.”

“You’re beautiful,” I said as I reached for her hand again. I meant those words with everything in me. Bella had never looked more beautiful than she did in this moment. There was a glow about her that I couldn’t find the words to describe. Her normally perfect hair was all over the place. She looked like a dancer in her element.

“I am a hot mess right now,” she said as her free hand went up to smooth down her hair.

“You’re perfect to me,” I said as my eyes wandered all over her body.

Turning to face me, “You have to stop saying stuff like that to me.” Something changed in Bella. There was a coldness to her voice that I had never heard before. She quickly pulled her hand out of my grasp. Her eyes shot back down to the papers scattered across the floor and she jumped up from her chair. “We are not together and never will be again!”

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