Page 59 of Wanted

Me? Why me?

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Lionel, nobody knows who I am.”

A sad smile is drawn on that mouth that I’m dying to kiss again and he looks down, while intertwining his fingers with mine.

“After you arrived at the hospital, your information leaked to the press. Your Instagram account is public, so it wasn’t hard for them to get a photo of you and publish it everywhere.”

In an instant my life has changed.

I look at him with my mouth open, stunned.

“You know this is all your fault, right?” I claim. “Until I met you, I never published a personal photo, only of the soaps and other products we sell. But you got it in your head that our special moments had to be documented.”

Lionel clears his throat, looking at the place where our fingers are intertwined.

No, that’s not true. His gaze is fixed on my ring finger.

To be exact, at the thin gold band that has been there since the day he put it on in front of the judge.

“A woman like you deserves something special,” he says softly, tracing the edge of my band with his finger.

The film continues to roll, but neither of us is paying attention to it. Someday we’ll have to try to watch it again.

“It’s special to me,” I reply, telling the truth. “You gave it to me, what could be more special than that.”

“And what does it mean to you?”

That question leaves me confused, I have to look at it for a moment and think well before answering.

“A perfect circle, without beginning or end. Eternity.”

He seems to have liked my words, because he looks me into my eyes with a little smile.

“We can do better,” he says. “We can make our forever more beautiful.”

I have no idea what that means, nor do I care much now.

I search for his mouth with mine, while my hand slips under the gray shirt that he’s wearing—the one that I’m so jealous of because it embraces the muscles of his chest in the way that I want to.

We’re definitely going to cross the Mississippi tonight.

“I’m sorry,” says a female voice that seems to come from the terrace. “It seems like I’m interrupting a special moment here.”

However, it’s clear to me that the speaker doesn’t have a drop of remorse.

“What are you doing here?”

Chapter Nineteen

“Mother?” Lionel asks, leaping away from me like a child who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I know they’ve spoken on the phone several times since we came home, but this is the first time she’s been here. “W-what are you doing here? At this time?”

While she looks at us carefully, Lionel does his best to disguise the bulge in his pants. I feel the heat rising on my face. I don’t even dare look at her. She’s the one who came unannounced, and we have nothing to hide.

“I came to see you, of course.” Of course. She said those words like it were three in the afternoon, and it was the most normal thing in the world to show up at her son’s house.

Lionel gets up with the agility of a feline and walks to where she is, kisses her on the cheek, and gives her a brief hug.

“You’re doing better, I see.” Mrs. Kral’s cold attitude changes entirely in front of her son. “I’m so happy about it, my boy. You look quite recovered.”

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