Page 43 of Teach Me How To Fly

“Boo! Party pooper!” he exclaimed and I saw how his eyelids were slowly falling and making him look like he was going to faint soon.

“Have a great night!” I said and I walked past the table, Boyce following me close enough for me to notice his presence.

I knew a lot of people from here saw me socializing with Laura McKnight, but I also knew that these people were going to tell Ender that his precious daughter almost fucked his feared enemy.

Little did I care.

The moment we reached the elevator, I heard the sound of some pumps hitting the floor and before I turned on my heels to look around, I knew it was her. Boyce also turned to her, just as a precaution.

“Leaving so soon?” she said as she got closer.

Even though she was wearing high heels, she was still smaller than me by about two heads, which made her perfect for any man’s fantasies. I looked down at her and I noticed how she used her doe eyes to make me fall for her words.

“I don’t belong here. Not anymore,” I replied and felt how my body tensed under my clothes.

“Then let’s find a place to which we both belong,” she whispered and put her tiny hand on my chest, not breaking our eye contact.

I put my hand on hers and squeezed her fingers between mine. She glanced at me, biting her lower lip and I knew she was sure that I was going to tell her to come to my place.

Too bad she didn’t know me well enough. At each party I attended and she was present, she tried to make me fall for her and give her the attention she craved, but from this night on, she’d not ever try to reach out to me.

“You don’t belong in any place I do, because I belong to the only place where you’ll never be able to be, and that’s the heart of someone who loves me.”

A flicker of tears came into her eyes, but she immediately gave me a wicked look and stepped back from me. She didn’t say a word, just scrutinized me and kept the storm inside her.

“You should pay more respect to Katya because she truly loves you. Have a good night, Laura.”

And with that being said, I turned on my feet and entered the elevator. Before the doors closed, I looked at the woman standing in the same place, and she was still analyzing me in a way that could’ve made anyone wonder if she was going to kill someone or not.

But she was just devastated that she had heard the truth after a life of trying to lie to herself.

The moment I sat on the backseat of the car, my lips curled into a sincere smile and Annalise’s image came to my mind, contouring itself into the most beautiful thought I ever had in my mind. And it felt good.

I felt something for her, but I didn’t know how to describe it. Completely different and unfamiliar than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.

Calming.

Enchanting.

Magical.

15

ANNALISE

It has been almost a week since I last saw Maksen, but I was lucky that he had given me that little Vertu phone because I could talk with him whenever I wanted. But today he didn’t have much time to respond to my messages, so I just turned it off and sat quietly in the library.

I was alone again. Well, not alone completely as Olivia and the bodyguards were somewhere in the house, but there was no trace of my father and Katya since this morning, and I couldn’t be happier because I could study for as long as I wanted without anyone interrupting me.

I read a few more paragraphs and underlined the words that I had to keep in mind, and at the moment I wanted to turn the page and keep on reading, I heard some voices coming from upstairs, and one of them was my father’s.

Fuck.

Shit, I swore again. Double fuck.

I turned off the desk lamp and took my books in my arms, already feeling my fingers ready to fall because of the weight of what I carried.

I silently ran between two shelves of the library and tried to be as quiet as I could. If my father caught me studying for University, he would burn down all of my books.