“I missed you. I never intended to make you feel like I was leading you on. I want to do this with you. But I have logistical things like a mortgage and my clients?—”
She takes a step back and holds a hand up. “Hold on. You want to date me?”
My brows pull together, and everything comes into focus for me.
Her worrying that I was ghosting her or leading her on.
Her reluctance to believe that I can barely breathe when I’m not in the same room as her.
My undyingneedto take care of her, knowing she might be carrying our child. And if not this month, then soon.
My entire life orbits aroundher, and she still has no fucking idea.
For the last two years, I wake up and go to sleep thinking of her. I spend my free time scrolling through her social media accounts. I email her constantly, just totalkto her, and when we have our monthly Zoom meetings, I pretend like I’m staring off into the distance, but I’m really watching her on another monitor.
How would she know all of this? I’d never told her.
For all she knew, I’d slept with my assistants before on business trips.
My chest aches as I take a step closer to her.
“No, Francesca. I don’t want todateyou.”
Her face falls but she quickly recovers, standing up straighter. “Oh. I—that’s fine?—”
“I warned you,” I say, my voice low as I take another step closer. “I told you there’d be no going back. I amconsumedby you, Francesca Bristow. But no, I don’t intend todateyou, because I already know what your favorite food is. I know what your cunt tastes like, and if I could recreate it somehow, I’d turn it into my own personal blend of heroin so that I could inject it straight into my veins.” She lets out a tiny gasp, and I step closer. “I know your biggest secrets and your deepest desires, because I’ve been watching you for a long time. I now realize that it may seem one-sided, butdatingyou just feels trivial. You aremine.”
Her chest heaves up and down as I get closer, merely inches away from her now. “Y-you’ve been watching me?”
“I have.”
A wrinkle forms between her brows, and I take the last step closer before reaching up and rubbing my thumb over the crease. Bending down, I kiss her forehead.
“This is it for me,” I tell her, my breath hot against the top of her head. “I’m not asking anything from you. Just—let me stay with you.”
She wraps her arms around me, and I feel her melt into me.
“But what about your clients?”
“I can do Zoom sessions for anyone who doesn’t want to be transferred to a colleague, and meet face to face once or twice a month. I can fly back when I need to.”
She pulls away and looks up at me. “You’ve thought about this.”
I move a tendril of hair behind her ear. “For two years.”
Her lips twist into a smile. “You’re in love with me?”
I narrow my eyes. “Only when you’re not being a pain in my ass.”
She giggles. “I don’t know if—this is all so new to me?—”
My hand moves to the back of her hair. “Like I said, I’m not asking for anything from you.”
“You want to live here? With me?”
“If you’ll have me.”
Her gray eyes scan my face, studying my expression intensely. “My house is small. You’d be leaving your mansion?—”
