AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Like a bloodhound on the trail, the smell of muguet and bergamot led me straight to her.
I spied a curtain of blonde hair through the sidelight of her office door before throwing it open and slamming it shut again.
“Leander!” Lorelei jumped to her feet, blue eyes wide.
We stared at each other across the space, eternity ticking by in each passing second. I could practically see her muscles tense a second before she lunged for her desk phone.
I launched myself at her and grabbed a handful of hair before she made it. She knocked the handset off the phone as I yanked her away from her desk, dragging her the three steps to the wall.
Wrapping my fingers around her throat, I slammed her back into the wall as hard as I could. I squeezed, hard, keeping her pinned against it. I’m sure she remembered the first time I grabbed her like this. And the second. If she thought it would end the same way, she was sorely mistaken. This time I wasn’t here to manipulateorseduce her. I was here for fucking answers and I had no qualms in killing her if she refused to give them.
“You’re hurting me!” she squeaked, clawing at the hand on her throat.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t snap your fucking neck!”
“Leander, please!”
“Tell me why, Lorelei!” Hundreds of tiny needles pricked my eyes, burning with anger and the tears that started to well. “Tell me how you could, in good conscience, write something like that! Youknowwhat would happen if people found out! I’d be ruined! I’d lose everything! Is that what you want? You want me to lose everything I’ve fucking worked for? Everything I’ve bled for? Nearly fucking died for?”
Her own tears slipped down cheeks. “No, of course not!”
“Then why?!”
“You need help.”
My grip tightened so hard her face started turning red. “So that gives you the right to betray me like that? To use me to further your career? I didn’t tell you those things as my fucking therapist, so you could turn around and expose me to the world!”
“No? Then who did you tell them to? Your puppet? Just some chick you banged while yourhusbandwasn’t around?” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. You thinkIbetrayedyou? I love you, you asshole! I was willing to give up everything for you! But you didn’t care. Not one bit. It was just a fucking game to you!”
Swallowing thickly, I loosened my hold on her and staggered backward, more stunned by her words than her anger.
I love you.
Not “loved,”love.
Present.
Current.
Fuck.
“I did care, Lorelei,” I said quietly, turning away from her and covering my mouth with my hand. At the moment, I didn’t trust myself not to throw up all over her office.
“I don’t believe that. Ican’tbelieve that, as much as I want to. You are sick, Leander. Do you hear me?” She closed the distance I managed to gain and took my face between her hands, forcing me to look at her. “Forget the article and listen to me. I am truly worried about you, about your quality of life.”
“No, you’re not.” I covered her hands with mine and dragged them downward, off my face. “You’re worried about your own failure. If I commit suicide, you’ll have failed. Again. And you don’t want that on your conscience.”
She shook her head, blinking back tears. “I don’t want you to die, Leander. By suicide or any other means. Look at you. I can tell you’re under stress. You need—”
“Don’t.” I pivoted away from her, putting more distance between us while also backing toward the door. This was a mistake. Coming here solved absolutely nothing.
“Don’t what? Care?”
“Yes!”
She advanced again, reaching for me. “I’ll never stop caring about you. Even after everything that happened. Ican’t. I can’t turn that part of myself off.”
I retreated further. “I’m not yours to care about, Lorelei.”
