Page 259 of By His Rule

“Enjoy your evening,” I insist before marching into the building and then the elevator that will take me to the top floor.

As the elevator doors open, familiarity wraps around me like a warm blanket, and the scent of my second home wafts through my nose.

Confident about my decision to come here instead of going home, I walk around the corner, expecting it to be deserted. But it quickly becomes clear that I’m very, very wrong.

“What are you still doing here?”

61

LORELEI

This week has been hell.

It shouldn’t have been. It should have been blissful.

A whole week without my demanding, overbearing asshole of a boss.

But it was anything but.

Instead of loving the peace, I found myself craving his presence more and more every day.

We only exchanged a few emails, each one caused butterflies to erupt the second his name appeared on my screen.

It also felt safe. He was on the other side of the pond. I could let that excitement flutter, all the while hoping that it would lessen and that by the end of the week, I’d have forgotten what it was like to be with him twenty-four-seven. All memories of his touch, his kisses, his everything really would have faded into nothing, allowing me to focus on doing my job and moving on with my life.

I want to say that it was going well, but I’d be lying.

I put every second of my waking hours into work this week so I didn’t have to think about the issue with my apartment and the man who was ultimately responsible. But working meant dealing with things for Kian, which meant I never managed more than a few minutes without thinking about him, no matter how hard I tried.

Even when Tate dragged me out for dinner on Tuesday night, he was the main topic of our conversation. She wanted all the ins and outs—literally—that I refused to give her in the bathroom at the Chiefs stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Talking about it hurt more than I expected it to. It brought everything I was trying to squash back up to the surface, and I missed him all over again.

I almost thought I had a handle on it by the time I left on Thursday night. Thoughts about finding new employment disappeared as my confidence in myself to move forward from last week began to grow.

I just fucked my boss…over and over…it’ll be fine. Right?

So what, if it was the hottest sex of my life? It was just a…what? Four-night stand?

It’s cool. He’ll come back next week and it’ll be business as usual.

But then my phone rang in the middle of the night, and everything came crashing down around my feet with just a few little heartfelt words.

I may have been the one to end the call, but it was only out of pure desperation and self-preservation.

I couldn’t listen to it anymore. Everything he was saying was exactly what I wanted to hear. It was the thing of fairy tales.

But just like fairy tales, it wasn’t real.

Kian was blinded by hot sex and a carefree business trip where reality ceased to exist.

Of course he was thinking of me; it was hot. But I’m pretty sure sex with the next woman he finds will be, too.

I’m just the most recent.

My stomach knots painfully and my chest aches as I think about him being with someone else.

The second I hung up the phone, I burst into tears. Tears of sadness, of loss—even if it was of something I never really had. Tears of confusion and loneliness.

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