Page 27 of Willows and Waterlilies

“Please stop calling me that, Amanda,” I interrupt, “it’s a little inappropriate, don’t you think?”

“Elijah,” she says, now without the fakery, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way, it wasn’t my intention.”

“Then what is your intention, Amanda? Why now?” I snap after having had to keep everything in for so many years.

“Perhaps to absolve myself of this guilt I have been feeling for much too long,” she says with an air of exasperation in her voice. “Elijah, I broke up with you because Daddy forced me to. He told me that you weren’t of the same ‘caliber’ as us and that if I didn’t end things, he’d cut me off. He knew I was getting much too close to you, falling for you in such a way he might not be able to end things at all. It was shallow of me, but I gave into his demands.”

“I see,” I reply with a long exhale of held breath. “I see. So why the text? Why not talk to me and explain everything? Or at the very least, break up with me when I was there in front of you? I gave you everything, Amanda; you gave me a text!”

“I’m ashamed to say that I was being cowardly,” she says, looking at the floor with sadness in her eyes. “I knew I couldn’t do it otherwise. I thought it would be easier if I sent a message and never looked at you again.”

“Easier for you, you mean?”

“Yes, easier for me, I’m sorry,” she says with a few tears now running down her cheeks. “Though, it wasn’t as easy as I thought, Elijah. I’ve been following you on social media ever since. I’ve watched you grow into the man you are today, loving you from afar. You’re the one that got away, the one I cannot live without, the one no other man can ever compare to. I want you back, Elijah, with or without my father’s blessing.”

Without any words, I drop my glass to the tabletop and stare at her with my mouth hanging wide open. My mind is full of tangled webs that seem to fog my vision. What.The.Fuck?!

Chapter 8

Ellie

I didn’t sleep last night, not one little bit, even with Nate trying desperately hard to reassure my anxieties by making me laugh with his cheesy dad jokes. I tossed, turned, and went to the bathroom about a billion times, before conceding that I was going to feel like shit today. After checking my phone for the umpteenth time, Nate had taken it away, switched it off, and hidden it. I cursed him for it at the time, but eventually let it go; perhaps it was for the best.

I want to trust him, I really do, and if he can prove to me that he doesn’t want anyone else, then perhaps I can admit my deeper feelings for him. Until then, I daren’t risk it. My history keeps repeating itself, and if it does this time, I know I shall never be with anyone else again, not on a deep level anyway. My heart will just refuse to feel like this again. So, for both our sakes, I hope Elijah has proven I can trust him wholeheartedly.

I get up and ready extra early, order an Uber into work, then leave Nate a note, ordering him to bring my phone with him. Lord knows where he hid it, but I can live without it for an hour or two. The Uber drops me off at a bakery around the corner from work. If anyone deserves a sickeningly fattening pastry before work this morning, it’s me. I then start my amble up toward the office building, but something catches my eye. Something that turns my stomach and forces me to drop my pastry on the floor.

“No!” I gasp as an image of Amanda West kissing Elijah on the front of a gossip paper hits me with the weight of a freight train.

“Helena?” an unfamiliar, deep, and husky voice says to me, sounding as though the owner of the voice has seen a ghost. “Are you crying?” he asks as he turns me by the shoulder to face him.

As soon as our eyes meet, I emit a small gasp, for this man looks like he could tear out your heart and you’d still be begging for more of his delicious torture. His eyes are intensely blue; they hypnotize me to the point of losing any ability to form words. He’s so tall, so masculine, yet also graceful. I could spend all day studying this man and still want more. The look of disappointment on his face, however, reveals I haven’t had quite the same effect on him.

“Apologies, I thought you were someone else,” he says as he releases me and stands up straight to his full height. At my silence and less-than-cool expression, he readies himself to walk away.

“Helena?” I call out before he leaves. He freezes for a moment or two, then turns to look at me again, this time looking stern and formidable. “H-Helena is my cousin’s name. People say we look very similar. Her name is Carter.”

He stares at me for a moment, smiles just a fraction, then looks at the gossip paper that had just turned me to dust. He picks it up and studies it with a sneer on his face. Every movement he makes is controlled, as though he doesn’t waste time on anything without meaning to.

“How do you know Helena?” I venture to ask.

“Not important,” he replies without looking at me. “Ellie Russo, I’m guessing.”

I nod with confusion written across my face while he pays the man for the gossip paper, something I wouldn’t have pegged him for having any kind of interest in. But then he holds the front cover up to me, showcasing a picture I really don’t want to be looking at without a sick bag.

“As we’ve just demonstrated, Miss Russo, looks can be deceiving,” he says matter of factly. “Have a good day.”

“Wait…what’s your name?” I ask as he turns away from me. “You know who I am, and my cousin, but I don’t know who you are.”

He doesn’t answer me straight away, but when he does, it feels like ice is running clear through my blood. God, this man is intense, to say the least.

“Hastings,” he replies with that one word before marching away with the gossip mag still in hand.

I head into the office, feeling utterly dejected and with my heart screaming at me, ‘I told you so’ on repeat. I don’t know what is harder to believe, the fact that he betrayed me so quickly, or that I believed he wouldn’t. I’m truly cursed, destined to never belong in a monogamous relationship. It’s the only explanation, isn’t it? I can’t be that awful at everything to do with relationships that I deserve for this to keep happening.

Only the cleaning staff are here at this hour, so I make my way up and head straight for the bathroom where I proceed to throw upExorciststyle. Right now, I’d be happy to have someone possess me, and for me to go away to another dimension and never come back. I’m done with men. Forever. But then…

“I could get used to this…coming home to you.”

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