Page 44 of Forever Not Yours

“Good boy.”

I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. What the hell was I playing at? Maybe I’d got this all wrong. Maybe I hadn’t. But it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about this man. This beautiful, gorgeous man who had let me be me. Let me hurt him. And taken it. Every little bit of it.

Perhaps I was simply expecting too much too soon, because there was something there. Something bright and warm in my chest.

He did that to me, Bastien Dewaert. He made my life warm and beautiful, even in those dark moments when I doubted every little part of my life.

Ihad no illusions of this working out, despite Jakey trying so goddamn hard, a bit too hard, and it was draining me. If he didn’t start to give me a little bit of space, I might actuallydo something stupid.

Who was I kidding? Stupid was my middle name.

Also, the goddamn sensor had gone off in the night, again, and I’d stubbed my toe trying to get to the fridge, where of course, Jakey had caught me drinking his fancy orange juice straight out of the bottle. So sue me. I’d been crashing and needed it.

The last thing I’d needed was a midnight lecture, but he was like a dog to a bone, just couldn’t let me be.

Blah, blah, blah.

There was definitely something wrong with my pump, though, and I should really go prick my finger again, and send Faye out to pick up my prescription boxes that had been shipped to Juliet because I was a plonker who couldn’t remember to change my address. I also needed to get a new pump, because I was about to start a meeting with Carbonnati Ltd and didn’t have time to do any of those things. And I needed to pee, I realised, as I downed another glass of water. It was hot out there today, and the air conditioning was running, but I still felt too warm, thirsty, stressed, fuck. Time.

I was so bloody worn out, and now I had to spend an hour with Juliet trying to make us look good when neither of us were anywhere near functioning. She looked even worse than me, pale and drained, despite the heavy make-up she’d slapped on. It still made me sad, seeing her like this, because she didn’t deserve this, all that I’d put her through.

“Concentrate,” she whispered, catching up with me in the hallway and passing me a folder.

Like I could do anything else.

The Carbonnati team was led by that vile Jasper Kopetski, and he and his assistant were sitting opposite Juliet and me in our fancy boardroom, both droning on about nonsense that I’d already gone over in detail whilst talking over Juliet every time she opened her mouth. And there went my glucose alarm on my phone, shrilling loudly, like the icing on the cake of this already shitty day.

“We’re in a meeting.” Kopetski slammed his big hand on the glass table. “I hate being interrupted.”

“Apologies,” I said, plastering on my most charming smile. “Seems my glucose monitor here is on the warpath.”

“If you’re unwell, you should have asked a colleague to step in. Have you no decent employees here? All this woke nonsense is doing my head in. Is this how you treat your clients? Personal phones going off left, right and centre?”

Slightly exaggerating there, Mr Kopetski?

“We’re on a tight schedule,” the minion said, waving his own phone in my face. “It’s very simple. Can we just get on with agreeing on the numbers here.”

Agreeing? More like whipping our arses like animals in a ring,theirring, like the circus this was.

“Mr Dewaert is diabetic,” Juliet said, her voice smooth as silk, but Kopetski once again slammed his hand on the table.

“Modern nonsense,” he barked.

I sat there and said nothing. I hated when people outed me and my health. It made me feel weak, damaged—I was both, but the world didn’t need to know that. That was private, hidden away behind clothes and closed drawers, and that’s the way I liked it. Damn you, Juliet.

But this time, I couldn’t really blame her since I’d done it to myself, speaking before thinking.

“This will be a good deal for you as a company. Having the Carbonnati group on your roster is a game changer in the financial world,” smarmed the minion, pasty and pale with a thinning hairline, like most of our kind, the office jockeys, insignificant worker bees.

“The Carbonnati group is of course a valued client, but you cannot break laws for your own gain, Mr Kopetski.” Juliet leaned over the table, her hands firmly on the edge, ready to sting if needed. “The financial ombudsman—”

“We will not budge on the contract.”

God, I hated him. Hated this. Hated how Juliet sighed. The cold coffee on the table. The way my breath hitched as I tried to get myself under control. Water. I was bloody thirsty, but I didn’t dare move. Didn’t want to enrage this bastard anymore, and Juliet was already on edge. We both were, and my pump was going off as well. I fiddled with the monitor, trying to silence it.

I felt nauseous and had a headache. I needed more water and to pop some pills, but I didn’t dare to cause any more disruption to this goddamn meeting.

I was fine. I had dosed up and even given myself extra, knowing I would be munching biscuits like an idiot, and still, I’d failed to restrain myself. My mind was silently trying to tally up what I’d shoved in my mouth today vs what I’d loaded up in the pump this morning before the gym, and there went my phone again, making Mr Kopetski flail his arms in obvious disgust. He hated me. I hated him right back and was getting antsy as anything. This wasn’t good, and I really needed to excuse myself and go prick my finger and change this bloody volatile pump before I ended up having to ship myself off to hospital.

---