CHAPTER18
Aiden
It’s been days. I’ve counted them all as they pass, almost convincing myself that the numbers mean something. Like there’s a specific number I need to get through before this will make sense.
That’s a lie though.
There’s only so much I can do to avoid Rose, but I do it anyway. We may sleep in the same bed, but I haven’t touched her. Not since the night of the gala.
How could I? I’m a fucking monster.
I can’t stop thinking about what I did in high school to keep Rose safe from Dmitri. I thought he told her out on the balcony, and there was a moment I felt nothing but blind panic, a fleeting horror as I thought she might know everything.
But she doesn’t know.
Dmitri uses women like fucking toys to be broken.
But am I really any better? Who’s going to protect Rose from me?
I’ve already hurt her once.
I wanted to fuck her in the car. I was seconds away from freeing my cock and plunging into her. In just the brief span of a second, I imagined what she would feel like, the noise she would make. I imagined her legs tight around me. I imagined her pulling me in.
I keep imagining a different night in a different world. I think about Rose giving in to me, about letting go inside her.
That world doesn’t exist anymore, but if it did, I’d say “fuck it” to all the reasons I have not to let myself care about her.
Hell, I’d say “fuck it” to all the political maneuvering, all the ways I’m trying to get back at Antonio through her. I’d give it up if I could get back just an ounce of what we had.
I lost myself in my desire for her for a moment, but what pulled me back from fucking her right then and there in the back of the limo was a single thought: I remembered what it was like to have Rose. For her to love me.
I pulled back because I didn’t want her in the backseat. I didn’t want her like that.
Rose wouldn’t have refused me. In that moment, she would have let me do whatever I wanted to. But it was all lust, all the heat of the moment. It wasn’t real. Not the way things were for us before.
If I had fucked her in the back seat of the car, it wouldn’t have been a memory she’d smile at. She wouldn’t have wanted me or thought about me with desire every time she remembered it.
She would have hated me.
Once, I wanted that. I wanted her hatred. Now? I don’t know anymore.
I’ve never wanted to control a woman, to hurt a woman in the way I would if I fucked Rose now. I was taught better. I know it’s disgusting to take by force, a thing a weak man would do.
I don’t want that.
What I really want is Rose, desperate and hungry for me. I want her the way I used to have her. When she was open to me. When there was no doubt, no confusion, no hurt. None of the things I saw in the car that night.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have that with her again.
Perhaps I truly lost that chance long ago, when I first broke her heart. Despite my reckless, growing hope that I can get some semblance of our relationship back, that reality seems to slip farther away every time I see Rose. I keep feeling like she’s about to be lost to me forever.
Fucking hell. It doesn’t matter.I can’t dwell on it, especially now. There’s an Assembly meeting to attend.
I don’t look for Rose before I leave the house. We’ve been staying far out of each other’s orbit for some time now, and I don’t need the added distraction.
These Assembly meetings usually happen once a month. It’s rare to have more, rare to have business that needs so much discussion we all have to convene again. Most times, one is enough. Especially for families that don’t get along.
Lachlan is waiting outside the house when I exit. He looks behind me as I approach, probably checking to see if Rose is near.
