Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
That surprises me. As if I’d let my men lay a finger on her. I would cut off the head and hands of any soldier who dared to touch her in that way.
“How about you don’t try to find out.”
I don’t look at her as I busy myself with some paperwork on my desk. But I feel the resentment burning off her in waves.
Good.
I want her to hate me.
Maybe then I won’t fuck up like I just did and give into my own needs just so I can feel her.
Or taste her sweet lips.
Or make her face fill with carnal need.
Or hear her moans as she comes.
I will have to be stronger.
“From this point forward, you will be issued a new credit card to cover anything you or the baby needs. Spend it on what you will. There is no limit.”
“I run away, and you give me another credit card… as punishment?”
“It will limit our need for contact,” I say coldly.
Her expression tightens. “And after the baby is born?”
“You and the child will reside here. While I will reside at the penthouse in Manhattan.”
“You’ve got this all figured out,” she says in a soft voice.
And I can hear the hurt in it, and I hate how weak it makes me feel.
I don’t reply.
“Is that all you have to say about the matter?” she asks, a harsher edge to her tone.
“Yes, you are dismissed.”
I don’t look at her, but I feel her blazing glare.
She storms out, and once she’s gone, I have to adjust my aching cock. I’m so hard it’s painful, and I just gave myself a giant case of blue balls. But I bite back the urge to make myself come because right now, I don’t even trust myself to fuck my own hand without thinking about her. Because I know, without a doubt, it will be her I am thinking about as I stand on the precipice of coming, and it will be her I think of when I fall.
No, moving forward I won’t even let myself fantasize about her.
Instead, I pour myself a vodka and throw it back.
Then another.
And another.
You are nothing more to me than the woman carrying my baby.
They were cruel words. But necessary. Because if she hates me, she’ll steer clear of me.
But seeing her big eyes fill with hurt cut me deeper than it should, and I hate the regret that lingers in my chest.
Another good reason to limit our encounters. To avoid feeling like this again.
So the plan is simple. In future, I won’t look at her. I won’t talk to her. I won’t do anything that puts me in close proximity to her. Because right now, I wouldn’t be able to do any of those things without revealing just how much pain I am in.
If what just happened against the wall is anything to go by, one wrong word from her and my feelings would bubble over, and I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back from snapping at her, and she wouldn’t be able to stop her natural instinct to fight back.
We would argue.
Then, we would let our emotions get the better of us.
And before the argument was over, I would do something really stupid like take her into my arms again and kiss her lips till they’re raw, and then take her into my bed where I could never, ever let go of her again.
So no. I will stay out of her way and force myself to keep our interactions to a minimum.
I pour another vodka because I want to forget about her. About us.
Because touching her, kissing her, and making her come have forced me to admit what I have been lying to myself about for months.
I have fallen in love with her.
Plain and fucking simple.
And I fell hard.
But that was before she ran off and had breakfast with the FBI.
Now that love is dying a slow, painful death, and I can feel the heavy weight of its death rattle in my chest. It doesn’t want to leave, but the darkness in me is slowly squeezing the life from it.
And I’m going to let it die.
31
BROOKE
I’m too angry to go to my room. I’ll just end up pacing the floor. I need to talk this through, and not with the detached psychopath currently sitting behind his desk in his monster’s lair. I’m too hurt to even be in the same room as him.
For him to use my own weakness for him against me… well, he’s just evil.
But then, what did I expect from a cold-blooded monster?
Walking through the colossal mansion, I decide I need to talk this out. I need some female energy. But I know Enya will be with Igor at the hospital, and Maria will be retiring for the evening to watch her shows in her bedroom. And, of course, I can’t call any of the girls, so I go looking for Henry even though I have a feeling he might be busy with Feliks.