Page 60 of Charmingly Obsessed
The fact that he actually says “when you grow up,” with that casual, patronizing arrogance, kills whatever fragile, hopeful mood had started to flicker within me. Dead.
“I should go, Mykola. When can you show me the first batch of acquisitions? At the other apartment?”
“Whenever you say.”
The way he says it, so formally, feels… cold. Distant. Like we’re strangers again.
“W-would after three this afternoon work for you?”
He gives a vague, noncommittal nod.
I head towards the front door, my steps heavy, my heart even heavier. I wait for him to open it for me. To say something. Anything. But I don’t hear any footsteps behind me.
I try to figure out the complex electronic lock myself. Clearly, I need to use the sleek, integrated screen on the side, which seems to require fingerprint access. His fingerprint. Not mine.
When I glance back, involuntarily, over my shoulder, Frez is standing a little farther away now.
As if he’s just stepped out of another room, another dimension, and stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway.
Standing still. Tense. His arms crossed over his bare chest.
His hair still tousled from his run, damp with sweat. Looking devastatingly, unfairly handsome. And utterly unapproachable.
I ruthlessly forbid my treacherous heart from thrashing against the bars of its cage like a dying fish. I have to maintain my composure. I’m holding onto this coldness for a reason: if I let it go, the overwhelming force of this intense, complicated man will consume me completely. I know I’d never find my way back.
“Help me get out, now,” I say, my voice too sharp, nearly closing my eyes in frustration at my own inability to sound calm, cool, collected.
Instead, I just sound… irritated.Bitchy.
“Press 9534.”
I wait for more instructions, for him to elaborate, but he just stands there, watching me, drawing out the moment.
“Place your finger on the screen,” he says finally, his voice still maddeningly calm. “And hold it.”
I obey, pressing my fingertip against the cool glass. But I don’t understand how the door will unlock. My biometric data hasn’t been entered into his system beforehand. Unless…
“Now enter 0313,” he instructs. “Then apply your fingerprint again. So it lets you out.”
With clumsy, trembling fingers, I follow his directions. 0313. My birthday.
And then I press my finger to the screen again. I must have just registered my fingerprint in his highly sophisticated, probably CIA-level security system. Just like that. Easy.
The door clicks open with a soft, almost inaudible snick. But I don’t move. There’s no sound behind me. My hand hovers for a long, agonizing second over the cool metal of the door handle. But I just stand there, staring at it.
Unable to leave. Unable to stay.
Frez starts to say something, my name perhaps, but I don’t wait to hear it. I step out so quickly, so abruptly, the world outside his penthouse door blurs in front of me.
I take the stairs down. All thirty-something flights. Instead of the silent, swift elevator.
The torn trench coat, a pathetic casualty of our earlier haste, hangs off me like a beggar’s rag. My legs are bare, cold, exposed. The simple, unadorned gold band on my finger – it’s so plain, so unassuming, but when I look at it, my vision flickers, dims, with a strange, partial blindness.
Everything dulls, fades to gray.
Except for the faint, almost imperceptible glint of low-karat gold on my left hand.
Yeah.So this is how temporary, convenience-marriage billionaire wives spend their mornings: confused, disheveled, and desperately trying to outrun the ghosts of a night we’ll never forget and will definitely regret.
