Page 98 of My Forbidden Boss

“This way, you can take me out to dinner and pick up the check. I will stay at your apartment where you will supply the chef. You will shower me with gifts. Take me on vacation. Buy me first-class tickets around the world. Supply my wardrobe. You can pay for it all, love. I won’t allow money to come between us. You’ll know that I’m with you because it’s my decision. Because I want to be. You’ll finally understand how special you are and there will be no doubt in your mind why I’m by your side.”

He leans towards me. His lips nearly brushing mine. I’m frozen in place, dizzy because he’s so close and yet he doesn’t close the distance. He cups my cheeks and his fingers slide into my hair. His heated breath washes over me and I can almost taste his lips on my tongue.

“I’ll never make you feel less-than. Or not-good-enough. That simply isn’t true, love. I’ll insist on you paying because I will never make you feel like you’re charity. You never were.”

My mind reels, teflon-coated. My senses over-run by everything David.

He brushes his lips across mine too gently, when all I want to do is cover the small distance, smash my mouth against his and kiss him forever. But he doesn’t do what I want. He moves out of my reach. Waiting.

I’m not charity. I never was.

His gaze burns, begging me to believe him.

Daring me.

“I need you to make a choice, love. I know you’re worthy, but you have to see it. Accept it as truth yourself. I need you to take that step, because if you don’t…then…”

He draws in a deep breath. Cold skates through me at his unfinished sentence. Of the fear that lurks beneath the words he refuses to say. “I ask you to be brave enough to acknowledge what everyone else sees when they look at you. What I knew to be true from the very second I first saw you. Can you take your inner blindfold off and see who you really are? Can you do that for yourself? Can you do that for us?”

Chapter 35

Adeline

Worthy?

Dare I think I am?

David has posed the question and I…I’ve never thought of myself in that light. The question burrows through my skin, burying itself into the deepest part of me. The part where the dead bodies of words said, actions done, have been laid to rest.

Except they’re not.

They never have been.

I buried them, but they’ve festered.

They’ve shaped me and I…I don’t like what they’ve made me become. What I’ve let them do. “I’ve been a slave to them.”

“What is that, love?” he says.

David frowns as his gaze roams my face. He’s close enough for me to kiss. All I have to do is lean forward and capture his mouth with mine. It will be enough to banish my past back to the recesses of my mind, but now they’re unleashed they rush through my mind unprotected by clear sight.

Words and actions I thought were made from sharpened blades are rusted and bent out of shape. Ugly memories where I’ve been a victim. Words said that weighed me down. They had power because I gave it to them.

I handed myself over, blindfolded my own eyes, and tied my own hands.

“I’ve been such a fool,” I say.

David’s brows pinch. “Do you know what I see?”

I shake my head, eyes stinging. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing everything back. I’m just so damned tired.

“I see a woman who has seen the harshness of life, has lived through it and has not let it stop her. I see strength through adversity. I see wisdom through weakness. I see forgiveness through judgment,” David says.

My eyes fly open to see his shining down at me. David’s face is landscaped with raw hope and open honesty, but above all that — hope. Hope for me. Hope I can see. Hope for us.

And I know, I know, David doesn’t lie. He speaks brutal truth. No lie has passed his lips about anything or anyone. He is my greatest strength because what he sees is real. The way he sees me is genuine.

I am all the things he says I am.

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