Page 55 of My Forbidden Boss

His eyes fill with determination and promises I have no way of standing up against. No way of wanting to. I’m way out of my depth, feet kicking, spluttering water that fills my mouth and oh god how did I think I could come back here and not be affected?

“Would you like me to come as well?” Andrea asks as I force myself to stand and pick up a pen and notepad because that’s the only shield I have.

I’m sure she would like to come in a sexual way and that’s the reason for her animosity towards me. I see something David is blind to, and it’s not winning me as a friend because I’m her enemy; a block against where she wants to be, and it’s making it hard to do what I need to.

“No thank you, Andrea. I want to talk to Adeline alone,” David says and walks into his office without looking at her. He doesn’t see the scorch marks she leaves on me in his wake.

My feet are blocks of lead that I must force to move to take me where I don’t want to go. My knuckles turn white as I clutch the notebook to my chest and enter David’s space.

“Close the door, Adeline,” David says, but I’m not falling for that again. I’ll splat against the concrete sidewalk of my resistance. I step deeper into his office, ignoring his command.

“What would you like me to do for you, Mr Chandler,” I say, reaching for professional only to clutch at paper straws.

“I want you to tell me exactly what’s going on,” he says.

My body blanches, but I will remain strong. I can’t give in to the sincerity in his voice just because it’s tearing me in half. “I said everything I wanted to on Friday.”

“Love.” He steps towards me, reaches to touch me. The urge to let him is overwhelming but I slap it away with everything I have.

“Don’t —” I step back and he stops, rakes his fingers through his hair.

“Tell me what I’ve done. I want to make this right,” he says.

He’s done nothing wrong. Everything he’s done has been so right, it took me by surprise. I didn’t think a man could be the way he is. I didn’t think a man would ever make me feel this way, and that’s the problem right there. “Nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong, but you have to understand this isn’t healthy.”

The payoff isn’t fair. It’s so skewed in my favor I’m standing on an angle.

“It felt good to me last week. It was amazing. You’re amazing,” he says.

My face heats, but I notch my chin to withstand the force of his compliments. “Believe me when I say you’re better off with someone else.”

The muscle works at his temple. “Don’t tell me who I want and it’s not Samantha, despite her pregnancy. She had no right to do that in front of you. If you’d stayed, I would have sent her away. Spoken to her another time when it was a private conversation between the two of us. Her pregnancy has nothing to do with you.”

It has everything to do with me. Especially if I do what Max wants me to do, because if I don’t? Mom and I will be homeless. I always have to remember that little nugget.

I’m through with impossible choices. Through with being torn in two. But for once, I have to understand why someone would stand up for me. Why someone wants me, because this will be the last time I’ll let him slip under my defenses. “I don’t understand why you want to be with me. I don’t know what you see in me.”

He studies me. I resist the urge to squirm under that sort of scrutiny. “You don’t see it at all, do you?”

“See what?” I ask.

He swallows hard, his expression moves from hard to a slow softening. “Adeline, you’re a woman men go to war over. You’re worth the fight and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. If you don’t see it, I’ll see it for the both of us. I’ll fight for us. I’ll open your eyes until you see the same thing I do because you’re worth it. You’re worth everything to me.”

His hands clench and unclench. His body vibrates and I’ve never seen him so undone and still my feet remain planted in the plush carpet. If ever I needed a reason to do what I need to do and leave as fast as I can, it’s this.

I’m happy to be damned to hell because that’s exactly what’s going to happen to me. This is another brick in the wall. Another step to my doom and I deserve everything that’s going to fall on my head.

“No, David. No.” All I can do is shake my head as though that will wind back time and remove his words, but all that happens is that he firms his jaw.

“Yes, love. You’ll see,” he says.

I see it now, but I won’t tell him that. I see that he’s the best thing that would ever happen to me. The best thing to walk into my pathetic life. If I dreamed of my perfect day, he would be the sky, stars, and the universe. Yet still I’ll fight it because this isn’t about me.

This is all about him. One day he’ll thank me. Better still, one day he’ll chalk me up as an unpleasant experience and do his best to forget me.

My eyes fill with tears. The office glimmers around me as I blink to hold them back, horrified when one slides down my chin. I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing to be said. I take one step back. Two and then bolt from the room.

The day passes in a blur. Then the next and the one after that. I’m nothing but automatic responses and robotic words. It’s the only way I can get through the day. I get back to my apartment, fall into bed at night, and repeat the next day. I eat when my stomach twists inside out and remember that noodles are the only food I have. It doesn’t matter because when I eat, I’m ill. Better to starve than to throw up and even that is better than seeing David every day.

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