Page 10 of Bitter Desire
“Okay what?” I prompted, crossing my arms over my chest and looking at her expectantly. She knew what I wanted.
Her eyes slid to the side, the blush on her cheeks deepening as she made sure no one else was around. The sidewalk was deserted and she let her breath out in a rush when she saw we had time and space. I never would have asked if anyone else could have heard.
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Good girl.”
Again she blushed and waved at me one last time before she headed into the coffeeshop. I watched her until I was sure the door was closed and locked behind her. I nodded at Tiffany who was practically dancing around Honey while the other woman put away her bag. Tiffany was a good friend. I could tell she genuinely cared about Honey. I liked it when she was around my girl. Honey needed good people around her. Especially if she was going to be with me, a fuck up who was still trying to learn how to do this right. Thethisbeing relationships and becoming a functioning member of society. I couldn’t stay in the shadows if I was going to be the man Honey deserved.
I turned on my heel and walked down the sidewalk towards my building. I had a day to start.
Chapter Five
HONEY
“You two are so cute and sweet, it’s disgusting.”
I looked over at Tiffany who was grinning at me while she steamed milk for our first order of the day. A breve hazelnut latte. I rolled my eyes at her and put the hazelnut syrup on the counter beside her.
“Whatever.”
“I love it,” she went on as she worked. “You two are just so perfect together.”
I swallowed hard at that word.Perfect. I’d never had anything even resembling perfect. It had all been a mess for me since day 1. No stability in my home, the ever shifting landscape of my life, the constant changing of schools and towns. Knowing there was no point in making friends because my mother’s whims would dictate how long we stayed, where we would go next, and that there had been zero things I could do to change any of it. There was never any clue on when things would change and shift. That feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop when things were going too good, too smooth, too perfect, had never left me. It was constant, hanging over my head, the possibility of the crash that was to come making me nervous and second guess myself.
Just like it did when I was singled out or had too much attention on me. My mother thrived in the limelight, and me? I did my best to stay away from it. Blending in and moving with everyone else in the pursuit of normal. Tempering my expectations to not want, not expect perfect and good, was the only way I’d maintained any sense of center. Law was throwing all of that on its head. The man was destroying it without so much as another thought and my god, how the fuck was I supposed to adapt?
“I wouldn’t say perfect.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Stop second guessing it. He’s head over heels for you.”
I flushed and moved, wiping down the counter in front of me. We didn’t have any more customers in line so I couldn’t focus on that. Cleaning was going to have to do. “Tiff…”
“What?” She asked, finishing the drink and waving up the customer with a cheery smile before she turned to look at me.
I didn’t know what to say because she was right. I was second guessing things. “Whatever, fine. You’re right,” I said when I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She beamed at me. “Ha! I knew it. Get out of your head and just feel the looooveeee,” she stretched out the last word in a sing-song tone and wiggled her fingers at me, waving her arms over her head like a jellyfish. I laughed at the sight of her and ruffled her hair on my way past.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
She had me there. My phone buzzed. I could hear the rumble of it in my purse stowed beneath the counter. I braced a hand on the counter in front of me and snagged the depths, ready to tell Tiffany that just because she was right didn’t mean she needed to gloat, but the words died on my lips the second I saw the unknown number flashing across my screen.
There was a new message. I shoved it back into my purse, preferring to ignore it than look. I didn’t need that right now.
You have to tell me what’s going on. We’re together.
I knew Law was going to want to know about this. That he would be upset if I didn’t tell him. I did not want to tell him. Despite his insistence that we belonged to each other, that he was not going anywhere...it was still hard for me to digest. To believe and see it as real. I’d heard words like those before and they had never been true.
But things were different with Law. I knew that. I could feel it in my bones.
Tiffany was right, and honestly that scared me more than I realized. It was new and uncharted territory for me to be in. A man like Law wanted me. Adored me. Was plainly into me in every sense of the word and I had zero clues on how to handle it. I knew the logical thing to do was not to question it. Not to think too much on his motivations, on why me? Because the answer was, we just fit.
He was mine. I was his.
It made sense when he was holding me, kissing me, talking to me in bed. It just didn’t make sense out here in the real world when I really thought about it. He was one of the city’s most affluent and wealthy businessmen and he was devoted to me. A woman who, until recently, refused to even decorate her home. One who made her living from an app because she couldn’t stand putting down roots of any kind.
