AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pulls over suddenly, almost going straight into the back of a parked car and then he presses his forehead to the steering wheel. I give him a moment to deal with his emotions.
After a few minutes I place my hand on his shoulder and he sits back up, his eyes troubled and confused. “I’m a selfish fuck.”
“We both are.”
“Oh my God, what have I done?” He suddenly starts cursing in a string of Italian, I hear Maria’s name in his anguished rant that I don’t understand. “I’m taking you home.”
I don’t say anything. How can I? It pains me to see him so conflicted.
“What are you going to do?” I ask softly, placing my hand on his thigh.
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. I just… Elizabeth. It will hurt her.”
I wet my lips. “It was one time. Yes, it was bad of us, extremely so. But don’t tell her. Don’t rip your family apart because of a moment of weakness. Don’t let me be the reason Maria ends up in the middle of an ugly custody battle.”
He gazes at me with tormented eyes and holds my hand. “It wasn’t a moment of weakness. You’re not a regret or a mistake.”
“Then what am I? Your dirty little secret? Your second best?”
“You’ll never be anybody’s second best.” He cups my cheeks, sorrow etched in his features. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“There is no fixing it. What’s done is done.”
“No. Not fix that. I mean fix it so I don’t have to lose you.”
“You don’t belong to me,” I snap, my voice takes on a higher, desperate tone.
“No… but I want to.”
I kiss him before I can stop myself, tasting his tongue, feeling his lips, holding on to his hair and yanking until he growls from the pain. He returns the passionate forbidden kiss with equal fervor, gripping my hair and pulling me as close as the console between us will allow.
I rip away, panting, feverish, and deliriously aroused. “You’re a drug, Ezra. A bad one.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“Go home to your wife, Mr. Conti.” I check my belt and then my face in the mirror while he does the same, though he also adjusts the huge lump in his pants.
A stab of pain lances through me, slicing my heart to pieces when I think of him in another woman’s bed tonight. The woman he promised himself to. A woman who will never be me.
“This can’t ever happen again.” I’m trying to be the voice of reason, figuring if I say it out loud it will manifest. “My two weeks’ notice stand.”
“Like hell they do.” He puts the car in drive. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Ezra… please be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable,” he snaps. “You’re the best PA I’ll ever have. I’m not losing you because I’m in love with you. We’re stronger than that.”
He said the words… my heart aches.
“Think about it from Elizabeth’s shoes. If you were her and you found out she fucked and loved somebody else and continued to work with them every day, what would you do? How would you feel?”
“She’s not going to find out because we’re not saying anything. What’s done is done.”
“Would you want to know if she—”
“I don’t know,” he barks, twisting his hands on the steering wheel and flicking up the signal before pulling out. “I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to hurt her or my family. Especially Maria.”
“I know. I’m not going to say anything.”
He rips a hand through his hair and curses some more in Italian.
“I’m sorry I ever put you in this position,” he says to me after a moment and I kiss him again, unable to resist, he hums softly, unable to say no too.
After a moment we part and just look at each other in the dark.
“Let’s go.” I cup his cheek and smile, wishing I felt like this about any other man. Pax not included. “We’re still friends, right?”
“I hope so. The ball in this case is in your court.”
Now we just have to figure out how to actually stay friends that don’t touch. It’s going to be hard.
He’s thinking the same thing; I can tell when he cuts into the silence between us. “Don’t quit your job. Not on my account. We can do this. We can go back to how things were.”
“The problem isn’t if we can do it, it’s if we want to do it.”
“If only there was a switch to be flipped.”
“I was thinking that exact thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We have so much fun together.
“Can we talk?” Pax asks, his eyes weary and dark.
I shake my head and keep moving. So many heavy conversations as of late.
“Please.”
“It’s not going to change anything, Pax,” I reply, frustrated and tired of this. I just want it over.
“I still love you.”
I pick up my pace, heading for the deli I usually get lunch from.
