Page 137 of Reluctantly You

“Yes.”

“And why you’re fucking me now. As revenge.”

I pause, far too long, and Mitchell’s body turns away from me.

“I get it.”

“It’s not like that. I bought the company to spite your father. It wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped and I came in to change that. To give something back to my dad that he never had while alive. But you…you weren’t part of the plan.”

“But you knew I was working there. It’s why you came in and took my office. You were proving a point.”

“Yes. At first, I hated you, loathed you by association. I wanted you beneath me for all the wrong reasons, but I got to know you…and I wanted you. I want you.”

He huffs and his shoulders draw in on themselves. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth, Mitchell. You were never part of the revenge, never part of the plan. And yet here we are.”

He’s deathly silent, ominously.

“Fuck, Mitch,” I continue, a shake in my voice, my whole world seeming to fall apart rapidly. “You have to believe me. I wanted to hate you, I fucking tried. I did. But you worked yourway under my skin before I even knew what was happening. I didn’t plan for this, but I’m fucking glad it happened this way. I’m glad you’re in my life, because I want you, Mitch. No, Ineedyou.”

He doesn’t reply and my chest constricts further. I know why. All this time, Mitch has thought he’s never been wanted.

Now he thinks I don’t want him either. My words won’t change that, not with him. Words mean nothing.

When I pull into his driveway, I start to follow him out, but he stops me.

“Need some time,” he murmurs, and I allow him that.

He deserves a chance to mull it over. I’ll wait for him. I’ll fucking wait.

“I want you, Mitchell. Jack has nothing to do with it.”

He doesn’t meet my gaze as he disappears inside, but I still wait in his driveway for hours, my mind a chaotic thing, swelling and moving with thoughts and regrets.

So much regret.

I should have told him right away because now he thinks that this was all some kind of plot, some kind of revenge and it never was.

Not with him.

He was just unexpected.

The exception to all my rules.

Fuck, and I know words don’t count with him, but actions do. I’ll just have to prove it to him, to show up every day and remind him that this is more than that.

I start the car and drive back to my house, cavernous and empty, my chest aching.

I leave him a message, telling him that I’ll be by tomorrow, that we can talk some more after he’s had the night to think on it all.

I’ll answer any questions he has, give him any reassurances. Fuck him nice and slow.

But when I return the next day.

He’s gone.

For an entire day, I wonder if perhaps he’s just gone for a long drive, avoiding me to blow off some steam, but when he doesn’t arrive home later that first night, I realize that something is very wrong.

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