I blink, startled, and sit up to look at him. “What date?”
Alec stares at me in confusion. “Your mother told me you’re moving on. She said you’re going on a date with someone, and I want that for you, Elena. I do. I want you to be happy. But I… I think I can be the one to make you happy.”
I tense, my stomach recoiling while my heart constricts, sudden devastation overcoming me. I look at Alec, feeling more alone than ever, even though he’s right beside me.
I’m quiet as I get out of bed, my movements slow.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Alec asks, his brows raised. I see the confusion in his eyes, and it gives my pain an angry edge.
I slip my nightgown on and cross my arms over my chest, my eyes roaming over his face. I take in his messy dark hair, those eyes that I love beyond reason, the way my sheets bunch around his hips.
I love this man with all I am. I’ve given him all of me, my entire heart and soul, when all he asked for was my body. And that’s where I went wrong.
“You need to go, Alec,” I say, picking up his scattered clothes from the floor. My heart twists, the feeling foreign and painful beyond measure. I smile through it and throw his clothes on the bed, turning my back to him.
I hear him rise just as I open my bedroom door. “Security!” I shout, my voice breaking.
“Elena, what the fuck?” Alec wraps his arms around me from behind, enveloping me in a tight hug. “What’s gotten into you so suddenly?”
I lean back against his chest, my eyes squeezed closed. I’m holding on by a thread. The feel of him, these arms… they feel like home to me. But just like my childhood home, Alexander is toxic.
I turn to face him, my palms against his bare chest. All he’s wearing is his boxer shorts and I glance at the rest of his clothes, still on my bed. I take a moment to collect myself, to gather to courage to say what I need to.
“Alexander,” I say, my voice soft. “You were going to let me go. You didn’t want me until you thought someone else did. You don’t want me, Alec, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. That’s not love . It just isn’t.”
Two of my security guards enter my bedroom, both of them clearly shocked to find Alec in my bedroom.
I take a step away from him, my hands dropping to my side. “Give him a chance to get dressed, and then escort him out,” I say, nodding at my security team.
“Elena, are you insane?” Alec says, his voice raised. “How could you even for a single second think that I don’t love you? You’re my entire goddamn world, baby. You’re everything to me. My life hasn’t been the same since you walked back into it. Fuck, I don’t want it to be. I want you. I can’t live without you anymore—I need you, baby. I need your smiles, your hugs, your wit. I need you.”
I look back at him, taking in the desperation in his eyes. He’s being held back by two men, but his entire focus is on me.
“But you did. For weeks, you lived just fine without me. You were ready to let me go. You didn’t change your mind until you thought someone else might have what you consider to be yours, Alexander. I’m not something to be owned, I’m not an object you can label as yours.”
I look down at my feet, trying my hardest to pull myself together, to keep my tears at bay long enough to finish saying what I need to. “I deserve more, Alec. I deserve everything I’ve given you . I’m done settling for less, and I’m done telling myself that I need to be happy with the few scraps of affection people throw my way. I’m done with you.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and I let my eyes fall closed. “Escort him out,” I say, turning my back to Alec, my bedroom door falling closed behind me as I walk out on him, on us .
Chapter 63
E lena
I walk into my house after an incredibly long day at work and pause in the doorway, my eyes roaming over the hundreds of peonies filling the room. Mom smiles up at me, a beautiful bouquet in her hands.
“Honey, if you don’t speak to him, he’ll just keep sending you flowers.”
“Donate them.”
We’ve been donating flowers to a different charity every day, for weeks now. Alec knows I don’t ever keep them, yet somehow new flowers appear in my house every single day. Mom denies it, but I know she’s colluding with him.
I shake my head and walk towards the staircase, ignoring the flowers. How does he even know that peonies are my favorite? Was that part of his background check too?
“I had the staff put the bouquets with notes on them in your bedroom,” Mom says, and I pause on the stairs. The notes… it’s the notes that always get to me.
“You should’ve thrown them out.”
My heart is racing as I walk into my bedroom, dozens of bouquets covering every horizontal surface in my room. I hate myself for looking forward to these, but I can’t help it. I sink to my knees and grab the bouquet closest to me, lifting the card from the flowers carefully. Just seeing his handwriting sends a pang of longing through my heart.
The three best things that happened today were the following:
1. Catching you sneak a glimpse at me from your bedroom window this morning
2. Writing you this note. It makes me feel like I still get to talk to you, even though you blocked me everywhere. Seriously, baby, unblock me. I miss you.
3. Loving you. Spending my days loving you makes every day great by default
I raise the note to my chest and clutch it tightly. It’s been weeks. He’s been sending me flowers for weeks, without relenting. I was certain that he’d get bored with this, with the chase. I can’t tell if I’ve just become another conquest to him, a challenge. Is any of this real? Is this just a game to him? I wonder if he’s just seeing how long it’ll take to wear me down. I reach for the next bouquet, my hand trembling just slightly.
All I want to do is take you on a date. Just one. You think I didn’t want you until I thought I’d lose you to someone else, but that isn’t true. The only reason I ever even remotely considered letting you go was because you deserve the world, Elena. You deserve more than I can give you. I will never be good enough for you, baby. A better man would have walked away by now, but I never claimed to be a good man. All I claim to be is yours.
I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around myself. Every fiber of my being is begging me to go to him. I reach for the third and last card. Every single day, there are three cards, and today is no exception.
When I proposed, I told you that divorce wasn’t an option. It still isn’t. I’ll never sign the divorce papers. I won’t let you go, Elena. I made that mistake once and I’ll never make it again. I’ll be waiting for you to come back to me for the rest of our lives.
I bite down on my lip as hard as I can in an effort to keep my tears at bay, but a lone tear drops down my cheek nonetheless. I’m shaking as I walk up to my window, knowing what I’ll find. Every morning and every evening, he’s here.
I lean against the wall, just out of view, my eyes on him. He looks thinner, his clothes looser. Even from this distance I can tell that he’s tired. Despite that, he’s got his laptop on the hood of his car, trying to get some work done. Every few seconds he glances up at my window, his expression portraying despair.
This can’t go on like this. This needs to stop.
I brace myself as I walk down the stairs. Mom smiles as I walk out, and I shake my head. I don’t understand why she’s siding with Alec, why she wants us to get back together.
Alexander straightens when I walk through the gate, his body rigid. I walk up to him, and his eyes widen.
“Elena,” he says, his voice tinged with disbelief. The way his eyes roam over my body, the desperation in his eyes… it guts me.
“Alexander, you need to stop coming here.”
He leans back against his car and crosses his arms. “No.”
I raise my brows and mirror his stance, my arms crossed over my chest. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
“Baby, you’re underestimating how far I’ll go to catch a single glimpse of you,” he says, his voice soft, pained. “I can’t sleep if I don’t see you before bed, and my days don’t start right if I don’t get to see you before work.”
I run a hand through my hair, my face tipped up toward the sky. “What will it take to get you to stop?”
Alexander smiles, and my traitorous heart skips a beat. “One date. Let me take you on a date.”
“One date?” I repeat. “If I let you take me on a date, you’ll stop coming here?”
“Yes, I promise. If you let me take you on one date, I won’t show up here uninvited anymore,” Alexander says, looking sincere, yet somehow, I don’t trust his words.