I make a mental note to discuss this with her later. I might be out of the game, but even I think that is a weird flirting technique.
I finish my rotation and end up looking at the biggest chest I have ever seen in my life. If the boys before this one made me feel small, this man makes me feel like a damn midget. Well, I can understand her astonishment now. It isn’t normal to be this large. How is his shirt even staying stitched at the seams? His arms are so big and powerful that they are currently testing the strength of his black button-down shirt, which is stretched across his massive shoulders and tucked neatly into the tight black dress slacks, slacks that are doing nothing to disguise the healthy-sized bulge.
I shake myself off, mentally berating myself for going there. I just eye fucked this complete stranger without even saying hello. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that last drink.
I look back up and meet the most stunning green eyes I have ever seen. Eyes I have seen before. Eyes I have spent hours gazing into. Loving and planning. Eyes I have been mourning for the last twelve years.
Feeling dizzy, I reach out to steady myself, catching the first thing I find, which I think might be Greg.
“What the fuck?” he mumbles under his breath.
This isn’t happening.
This can’t be happening.
He’s gone. I know he is. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have just spent the last twelve years missing him so ferociously with every fiber of my being.
The last thing I think before I feel my world spinning and crashing down on me is that Axel isn’t gone. He isn’t dead. I didn’t lose the last part of him when his baby bled out of my body on my eighteenth birthday.
And before I lose all touch with reality, I swear I hear, “Are you fucking kidding me? Isabelle is your goddamn Iz?”
I must be dreaming because MY Axel would never sneer my name with so much anger and hate.
CHAPTER 5
“Baby,” I hear his deep voice seductively rumble as he trails his fingertips up my spine.
God, I love how he wakes me up, always touching my skin like just the contact alone makes him feel whole. His hard body is pressed tightly to my own, keeping me snug and warm against his side.
“Baby girl,” he croons in my ear, kissing the spot right behind it—the spot that never fails to make my body go from warm to boiling. Goose bumps instantly start to sprinkle against my skin.
No one has ever set me on fire like he has.
No one has ever loved me like he has.
Axel, my love, my heart, my everything.
I’m finally back in his strong arms.
How did I get here? My heart skips a beat and my breath stalls in my lungs.
It’s all been a dream, it must have been. Just a terrible nightmare I never thought I would wake from.
My parents are still alive.
Ax isn’t leaving me.
Our baby is still safe within my womb.
Everything is perfect.
The enormity of this moment hits me like a Mack truck. Big, body-heaving sobs rack my body.
He’s here; my Axel is here. I am finally back in his arms.
“Baby girl,” his voice says again, getting fainter like he is down a long hallway.
“Izzy? Baby girl, please wake up.”
Why is Greg holding me? He shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right. Where is Axel? He was just right here. I don’t want Greg, I want Ax!
My crying intensifies, and I can feel his body tensing, trying to figure out how to calm me down. I can hear myself; I must sound ridiculous with my hysterical babble. I’m begging Greg, begging and pleading for him to take me back to Axel. I know I don’t make any sense but I just can’t seem to figure out where reality is and where I left Axel in my fog.
I want that dream back. I can’t lose him again . . . I won’t survive it a second time around.
I eventually settle down to just a few shudders, my breath escaping my body. I try desperately to make sense of this situation. How did this happen?
Looking around, I notice for the first time that we are in an office of sorts and I am sitting on a large leather couch pushed off to one end. Maddox is standing next to the door like a guard. His face has lost the small touch of friendliness he had before and has now taken on a fierce look of pure rage. I look up at Greg with what I’m guessing is a face of pure confusion. He returns my look with a small, forced smile.